Lightning Web Components represents an exciting change for how Developers can build on Salesforce, and as Admins it is important to be aware and educated on changes that impact roadmap planning across declarative and programmatic building. As the architects of Salesforce implementations, Admins need to understand all of the elements that contribute to a finished product (your Salesforce environment) even if you aren’t going to be building those particular elements. So let’s take a look at Lightning Web Components and what it means for Admins!
Lightning Web Components is a new programming model for building Lightning components. This model leverages breakthroughs in web development from the last 5 years (since we launched Lightning) and aligns to the common standards that have been created. With Lightning Web Components any JavaScript Developer can build on Salesforce, which means the community of Developers you can build with just got bigger!
The short answer? Faster experiences, a larger Developer community, and an updated experience for your Developers. The way you work with Lightning Components and the App Builder won’t change. Developers will be able to translate their skills to building on Salesforce, and Salesforce Developers who learn Lightning Web Components will be building skills that are transferrable to other technologies.
Whether or not you plan to build Lightning Components, as an Admin you can benefit from this new programming model with faster performance, increased productivity of developers working with tools and standards they are already familiar with, and growing the community of Developers with skills that can translate to Salesforce.
Which of these most closely describes your Salesforce implementation?
We are in lightning and/or classic, but we don’t have any custom code:
If you don’t have any custom development in your environment today, but may in the future, this is a great time to review the Lightning Web Components resources on this post so you can build any future development using this new programming model.
We are in lightning, and we have custom components:
If you already have custom Aura components, these will continue to work as before. Lightning Components built before the Spring ’19 release are known as Aura components, Components built after Spring ’19 can be either Lightning Web Components or Aura Components. Your Developer can build new components with Aura or Lightning Web Components. Your Aura and Lightning Web Components can coexist and work side by side. Over time, you may choose to migrate your Aura components to Lightning Web Components to take advantage of web standards and faster speeds, but you don’t have to.
Aura Components to consider moving to Lightning Web Components would include:
Almost the same way you have been working with Lightning Components up until now! Admins can work with Lightning Web Components in exactly the same way you have been working with Aura Components in all the places where Lightning Web Components are supported. Components built with Lightning Web Components will be available to add to your pages via the App Builder. You can also include Lightning Web Components in your deployments using all of our most common tools including the declarative change management tools Packaging and Change Sets.
Lightning Web Components are not currently available in all of the same places as Aura Components. We will be working to support Lightning Web Components in Quick Actions, Custom Templates, Lightning Flow Screens, and Lightning for Email in future releases. Lightning Web Components are not supported in Developer Console, but you can view and work with Lightning Web Components in Visual Studio Code or your favorite IDE.
Lightning Web Components represent an exciting new chapter for our community of builders! With Lightning Web Components you can help bring the latest Web Standards to your implementation and help your Developers be more productive, delight your end users with performance improvements, and the interoperability of these components means that you can adopt Lightning Web Components the way that works best for your implementation. Take a look at some of the resources listed below, and make sure to share this news with your Developers!
The Salesforce mobile app is the flagship mobile app of Salesforce, enabling the world’s #1 CRM and Salesforce Customer 360 on mobile. Built on the Lightning platform, users have access to their Lightning apps, and admins can create custom apps and experiences for mobile users in Lightning App Builder. Let’s dive into a few of […]
Editor’s note: This post was updated on August 21, 2023, with the latest information and resources. We’re about to make a big update to the user interface (UI) in your Salesforce environments. How big, you might ask? Well, it’s going to affect all Lightning UI and should dramatically improve the experience for your users with […]
You asked; we listened. We’re proud to announce the new Who Sees What Lightning Experience series, updated with the latest best practices on data visibility and access. Follow along with this video series to ensure you’re adhering to the best practice of least privilege access: giving your users the data access they need—and only what […]
