Today Salesforce published Winter’16 release(Preview) notes. The Winter’16 release of Salesforce.com is now in available under pre-release program. On 11th September Sandboxes will be upgraded, so that your organization gets the look and feel of Winter’16 release. In this release you can find lot’s of new features as well as enhancements like Lightning Experience, User interface to manage Custom Metadata and Bulkified Flow & Process Builder. Also check out these pilot features, Broadcast groups (Pilot) are a special type of public, private or unlisted group where only group owners and managers can create new posts. Group members can comment on the posts created by the group owner or manager. Customize the Look and Feel of Flow Interviews (Pilot) use the new REST API resources that give you full access to flows and their interviews. Use the REST API to customize the flow runtime experience to your heart’s desire. Object-Specific Share Locks (Pilot) When you createb edit, or delete a sharing rule, recalculation runs to update record access in the organization. This operation can take some time if you have many users and a lot of datab The object-specific share locks feature enables you to make changes to a sharing rule for other objects, without waiting for recalculation across all objects to complete. The names for some time zones have changed due to an updated internationalization process. For example, the time zone name (GMT+14:00) Line Islands Time (Pacific/Kiritimati) is now (GMT+14:00) Line Is. Time (Pacific/Kiritimati). This feature is available in both Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic. Lightning Experience is supported with Microsoft® Internet Explorer® version 11, Apple® Safari® version 8.x on Mac OS X, and the most recent stable versions of Mozilla® Firefox® and Google Chrome™. You can’t access Lightning Experience in a mobile browser. Instead, we recommend using the Salesforce1 app when you’re working on a mobile device. Below are the quick summary of Winter’16 release from user’s / customer’s
Customer/User’s Point of view :–
1. Allow users to compose rich text posts : – Format your posts with bold, italic, and underlined characters, and bulleted and numbered lists. The rich text editor is enabled in the Chatter publisher by default in all new and existing orgs. This feature is available in Salesforce Classic only. To enable this feature follow the path Setup | Build | Customize | Chatter | Chatter Settings and then select Allow users to compose rich text posts check-box as shown in the following screenshot
To disable and hide the formatting options, deselect Allow users to compose rich text posts on the Chatter Settings page in Setup. The rich text editor isn’t available on announcement, polls, thanks, notes, and Canvas posts.
2. Mute Chatter Posts :- Control what appears in your news feed and mute posts you’re no longer interested in. This feature is enabled by default in all existing and new orgs. This feature is available in Salesforce Classic only. To mute a post, users select Mute from the post’s drop-down menu. Users can mute posts in their feed on the Home and Chatter tabs, but not on group, profile, or record feeds. If email replies are enabled, users can mute posts by replying to post emails with the single
word mute.
3. Enjoy Fast, Beautiful File Previews :- The new file preview player in Lightning Experience provides a far richer preview experience, both visually and functionally. Preview images are vector-based rather than pixel-based, so the render quality is higher and doesn’t degrade on high-res screens. Since the new preview player isn’t SWF-based, there’s no need for users to install Adobe Flash Player in order to preview their files.
4. Lightning Experience:- Lightning Experience is a completely reimagined interface. Even better, it’s built on our UI platform, so the experience can grow and evolve with your needs. The result is an intuitive, intelligent interface that helps sales reps work more naturally and close more deals faster.
Check out the below articles to explore the Lighting experience
Welcome to the Future of CRM. Welcome to Salesforce Lightning
Are You Ready for the New Lightning Experience?
5. New Login Look and Feel : – Redesigned and improved the usability of the login experience to make it more intuitive for users. In addition to the main login page, the updated design appears when your users forget their password, verify their identity, give apps access to their data, and other login-related tasks. This feature is available in Lightning Experience, Salesforce Classic, and the Salesforce1 mobile app.
Salesforce also improved how your users change their password by replacing the password strength indicator with instant feedback indicating whether the new password meets the minimum requirements. Email messages (such as those users receive when they forget their password) are more concise and clear, and subject lines are more relevant
6. See Notifications in One Place in Lightning Experience :- Notifications alert your users when key events occur in Salesforce that they should know about or that require their attention—such as when they receive approval requests or are mentioned in Chatter posts. Lightning Experience includes a list of notifications that users can quickly access from any page. This feature is available in Lightning Experience only.
7. Salesforce App for Outlook (Generally Available) :- Help your sales teams stay on top of important sales opportunities when team members work in Microsoft® Outlook® Web App (OWA), Outlook 2013, or Outlook 2016 along with Microsoft Office 365™. Salesforce App for Outlook gets your teams managing their sales more efficiently when they add emails and attachments to Salesforce records, create contacts, and view other sales-related records, like leads, opportunities, and cases all directly in their Microsoft email application.
8. Link Custom Lookup Fields from Activities to Other Records : – Now you can link custom lookup fields from
activities to other records. This feature is available in both Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic. You no longer need to choose which type of record is most important to activities. Keep these limitations in mind when using the Lookup Relationship field for activities.
Custom lookups don’t control activity sharing.
Each custom lookup field can reference one type of record, one record at a time.
Custom lookup fields combine open and closed activities in the same related list, with each custom lookup corresponding to a new related list.
9. Create Beautiful Dashboards Using a New, Feature-Rich Editor (Lightning Experience) : – Lightning Experience introduces a new dashboard editor that’ll usher in a whole new generation of dashboards. Interactive dashboard components give viewers more information and link to data-supplying reports. This feature is available in Lightning Experience only.
10. Block Sensitive Data in Chats :- Your customers’ privacy is as important to Salesforce as it is to you. That’s why we’re giving you the ability to block sensitive data in chats in real time. With Live Chat sensitive data rules, you can block specific patterns, such as credit card, Social Security, phone, and account numbers, or even profanity. You can choose to remove the text or replace it with your preferred characters. To create a new rule follow the path Setup | Live Agent| Sensitive Data Rules
11. Create Custom Feed Filters for Case Feed :- Now you can define custom feed filters that let you use multiple criteria to specify the items shown in a support agent’s feed. Custom feed filters help agents focus on the feed items that are most relevant to them. Previously, only standard feed filters, which showed one feed item type at a time, were available for Case Feed. To create a new case feed filter follow the path Setup | Build | Customize | Cases | Feed Filters and then click on the New button and enter the data as shown in the following screen
12. Moderate Inappropriate User-Generated Content In Your Community : -Moderating user-generated content is one of the key factors in keeping your community thriving and healthy. Sure, you might have enabled your users to flag inappropriate content, but now you can do more! Set up moderation rules and criteria to block, flag, and replace keywords in your community members posts and comments. Moderation rules keep inappropriate and offensive language out of your communities, ensuring that your community members always feel respected. Moderation rules also work in communities using the Napili template.
Moderation rules also apply to user-generated content created in Salesforce1.
Create criteria that defines offensive language or inappropriate content that you don’t want in your community. Criteria are used in rules to moderate user-generated content, such as posts and comments.
13. Report Spam in Chatter Messages : – Your community members can now fight back against spammers by flagging private Chatter messages as inappropriate. Community members can also flag Chatter messages sent to notify them of file shares. To allow private messages to be flagged, turn on flagging in your community.
Developer Point of view:-
1. Create More Roll-Up Summary Fields per Object : – Create 150 percent more roll-up summary fields with an increased limit per object. The default limit on roll-up summary fields per object has been increased from 10 to 25. Gain more insights about related records by adding more roll-up summary fields to your standard and custom objects. This feature is available in both Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic.
2. New Change Set Components :- New components are available for deployment. The components available for a change set vary by edition. The TransactionSecurityPolicy (Represents a transaction security policy definition, including events monitored and actions to take.) components are now available for change sets.
3. Choose Test Options for Change Sets :- You can now choose which tests to run when deploying or validating an inbound change set in production or sandbox. Test options provide flexibility in how much testing is done to achieve quality and code coverage requirements and can reduce execution time in a deployment. This feature is available in both Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic. The following test options are available when you deploy or validate an inbound change set.
Default :-Keeps the default behavior for all tests.
Run Local Tests :- All tests in your organization are run, except the ones that originate from installed managed packages
Run All Tests :- All tests in your organization are run, including tests of managed packages.
Run Specified Tests :- Only the tests that you specify are run. Provide the names of test classes in a comma-separated list.
4. Debug Apex Code in Eclipse (Generally Available) :- The Apex Debugger extends the Force.com IDE plug-in for Eclipse and behaves similarly to debuggers available for other languages. Use it in sandbox orgs to root out the bugs in your Apex code. After you’ve set a breakpoint and started a debugging session, you can debug actions in your org that cause the line of code to execute.
5. Run Selected Tests in the Developer Console :- You can now select individual test methods from your test classes to include in a run. You can also choose whether to run tests synchronously, and you can rerun only the failed tests. This feature is available in both Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic. The Developer Console’s Test menu includes new options.
6. Visual Flow Enhancement :- There are several enhancements in Visual workflow, those are followings
A) Reduced Chances of Hitting SOQL Limits with Bulkified Flows :- Salesforce bulkify the elements that look up records, which helps you avoid the limit of 100 SOQL queries per transaction. With bulkification, flows handle more than one operation at a time. You can now upload 200 cases. In one transaction, the same flow is triggered for each case. In the flow, a Record Lookup finds the corresponding account. The Record Lookup generates one query for every case.
B) Replicate a Picklist Field in a Flow Screen :- After winter’16 release you can now generate a set of choices in a flow that corresponds to a picklist or maybe a multi-select picklist field in Salesforce.
C) Debug Flows with Better Fault Emails (Beta) :- In Summer’15 release, Salesforce delivered a new flow fault email that displayed a list of every element that was executed in a flow interview that failed. After winter’16 release you get a lot more information about the flow interview and what happened in each element, as shown in the following screenshot
D) Admins Notified When Interviews Fail to Resume Due to Inactive Owner :- If a flow interview tries to resume and the interview’s owner is inactive, the interview fails. Before, if a flow interview tried to resume but the owner was inactive, it failed silently. Now, the flow admin receives a flow fault email with details about what happened and how to fix it.
E) Dynamic Choice Renamed to “Dynamic Record Choice” :- Salesforce changed the resource name to make the differences between the three choice resources more intuitive. Here’s a detail of the three choice resources for flows.
Choice :- Manually creates one standalone choice.
Dynamic Record Choice :- Dynamically creates a set of choices based on filtered records.
Picklist Choice:- Dynamically creates a set of choices based on the values for an existing picklist or multi-select picklist field.
7. Process Builder Enhancement :- There are several enhancements in Prcoess Builder, those are followings
A) Schedule Multiple Groups of Actions :- You’re no longer limited to just one schedule when you configure time-dependent actions in the Process Builder. With multiple schedules it’s easier to optimize sales responsiveness, automate follow-up on important cases and opportunities, and support your business needs all within a single process, as shown in the following screenshot
B) Reduced Chances of Hitting SOQL Limits in Processes :- Salesforce bulkify the elements in processes so you can avoid hitting existing platform limits as your business scales and grows. With bulkification, processes properly handle more than one operation at a time. If a transaction’s operations would normally violate limits, the operations are grouped and performed in batches.
C) Update Records with an Improved UI :- When you configure an update records action, it’s now easier to choose the record that started the process. Previously, you could select the same record that triggered your process, but it may not have been obvious. Now, selecting the same record that started your process is as simple as clicking a radio button, as shown in the following screenshot
D) Admins Notified When Processes Fail to Resume Due to Inactive Owner :- When a process is started by something a user does—creating or editing a record—that user becomes the owner of the process and its associated actions. Previously, if the process tried to execute a group of scheduled actions when its owner was inactive, the scheduled actions failed silently. With this release, the process admin receives a fault email with details about what happened and how to fix it.
8. Declaratively Create and Update Custom Metadata Types and Records :- You can now create, update, and delete custom metadata types and records in Setup as well as the Metadata API. To create or update a custom metadata type follow the path Setup | Build | Develop | Custom Metadata Types. After you have created a custom metadata type, you can add
and update records by clicking Manage Records.
9. Visualforce for Lightning Experience (Beta) :- This release contains a beta version of Visualforce for Lightning Experience that is production quality but has known limitations. Visualforce itself remains Generally Available. It’s only the use of Visualforce pages with Lightning Experience enabled that’s considered beta.
10. Make Unlimited Callouts to Internal Salesforce URLs :- You can now make unlimited callouts to endpoints in your Salesforce org’s domain. You no longer need to live in fear of hitting limits when you set up cross-org integrations to synchronize data between your orgs. You can also make unlimited callouts back into your own org to access the Metadata API, use describeLayout(), and so on.
11. Use $A.getCallback() instead of $A.run() :- In lightning component $A.run() is deprecated. Use $A.getCallback() to wrap any code that accesses a component outside the normal rerendering lifecycle, such as in a setTimeout() call. This enables the framework to grant the correct access level to the asynchronous code.
12. Test Salesforce1 with Mobile Devices or Device Emulators (Instead of Desktop Browsers) :- If you’ve been testing your Salesforce1 mobile app setup and customizations in a desktop browser by appending /one/one.app to your Salesforce instance’s URL, this approach no longer works as of Winter ’16. Going forward, we recommend testing your custom pages and apps on supported mobile devices or in a device emulator. Starting with Winter’16, the https://<Salesforce_instance>/one/one.app URL is used exclusively for Lightning Experience, which has its own distinct user interface.
Salesforce1 Enhancement:–
1. See More Data Just By Scrolling :- When there’s more information than fits on a single screen, users can now keep scrolling down the page and Salesforce1 continually fetches and loads the older data. It’s no longer necessary to pull up at the end of the page to load more. This enhancement is available in the Salesforce1 mobile browser app and on many pages in the downloadable apps for iOS and Android.
2. Salesforce1 No Longer Supported on Android 4.2 and 4.3 :- Salesforce is now removing support for the older Android 4.2 and 4.3 operating systems. Shortly after the completion of the Winter’16 release, version 8.0 of the Salesforce1 downloadable app for Android will be available from Google Play. This version will install only on Android phones running 4.4 or later. The release of Salesforce1 for Android, version 8.0 marks the formal end of support for Salesforce1 on pre-4.4 operating systems and for earlier versions of Salesforce1 for Android.
3. Increase Productivity by Adding Notes to Records (Generally Available) :- The enhanced Notes tool is generally available in Winter ’16. Expanding on the previous release, users can now take notes for cases, tasks, and events. And if you opt to add the new Notes related list to object page layouts, Salesforce1 users can quickly access related notes directly from records instead of having to switch away to the navigation menu to open the Notes item. Users can also create notes from the related list. Notes is available in the Salesforce1 downloadable apps and in the mobile browser app (except on BlackBerry devices).
4. View Lightning Experience Reports and Dashboards:- Sales reps can bring important reports and dashboards created in Lightning Experience, like Top Open Opportunities, on the road. Reports and dashboards that users create in Lightning Experience
are fully compatible with all versions of the Salesforce1 mobile app. While users can view Lightning Experience reports and dashboards, their appearance isn’t the same as in the new full site user interface.
5. See More Report Rows on iPhone 6 Plus Phones :- In Spring’15, we limited reports to a maximum of 50 rows when accessed from an iPhone 6 Plus device, to improve the stability of Salesforce1 on these devices. Now, all Salesforce1 users can see
up to 2,000 report rows, including users on iPhone 6 Plus devices. Reports are available in all versions of the Salesforce1 mobile app.
6. In-App Alerts When Dashboards Finish Refreshing:- To keep push and in-app notifications focused on business-critical issues, we’ve changed how mobile users learn that a dashboard has finished refreshing. Users see a brief alert at the top of the app instead of receiving a formal notification. This alert is available in all versions of the Salesforce1 mobile app.
7. Delete Chatter Groups and Manage Membership Requests :- After Winter’16 release Group owners or managers can delete groups while on the go. And both group owners and managers can use Salesforce1 to accept requests to join private groups. These options are available in all versions of the Salesforce1 mobile app. Previously, group owners and managers had to use their desktop to perform these tasks.
8. View and Upload Profile Photos Without Chatters :- After Winter’16 release group using Salesforce1 mobile browser app users can see and upload profile photos, even if Chatter is disabled. If Chatter is turned off for your organization, profiles show a photo and any information a user has entered in the Contact or About sections, but the feed, groups, files, and other Chatter functionality aren’t available.
9. Edit Chatter Group Email and In-App Notification Settings:- Group members can configure their in-app and email notification frequency directly in Salesforce1. This feature is available in all versions of the Salesforce1 mobile app. Tap Manage Notifications in the action bar to select the frequency of group email notifications. If you would also like to receive in-app notifications in Salesforce1, select Every Post.
10. View Related Files From Records :- If you opt to add the new Files related list to page layouts for your standard and custom objects, the related list is available in all versions of the Salesforce1 mobile app.
11. Access External Files in Communities Using Salesforce1 :- Share documents from Google Drive, SharePoint, and OneDrive for Business with customers and other community members using the Salesforce1 mobile browser app. Communities must use the Salesforce Files + Visualforce template and you need to configure Files Connect.
Note :- You can download release notes in HTML format! http://goo.gl/fP39J4 and for PDF format https://goo.gl/EslQBX
Filed under: Winter'16 Release