Image of Cloudy next to text that says, "Recap of TrailblazerDX '23 for Salesforce Admins."

Recap of TrailblazerDX ’23 for Salesforce Admins

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TrailblazerDX ’23 was jam-packed with so much learning, connection, and exciting product announcements. With hundreds of sessions, keynotes, and more demos than we could possibly count packed into just 2 days, it’s hard not to miss some of the exciting announcements.

ICYMI (in case you missed it), let’s break down the highlights for admins from TrailblazerDX 2023!

We met Cloudy in real life!

Cloudy made her in-person debut at TrailblazerDX this year! #AwesomeAdmins were super excited to be able to grab a picture with her because she represents Salesforce Admins in the Salesforce ecosystem. Taking #goatselfies has been a long-standing tradition in our community, going all the way back to Dreamforce ’15 where the #goatselfies hashtag first started trending! From that point on, Cloudy the goat became an integral member of the Salesforce team… Cloudy is uniquely a product of the community.

Here’s some background on Cloudy:

  • Pronouns: She/Her
  • Birthdate: September 15, 2015
  • Represents: #AwesomeAdmins, Building with clicks, Connection, Encouragement, Spontaneity, Unlimited potential

Seven Salesforce Admins pose with Cloudy mascot in the center at TrailblazerDX in San Francisco

Exciting product innovations

It wouldn’t be a TrailblazerDX without exciting product announcements. At #TDX23 we learned about Einstein GPT and the power of Generative AI. Generative AI is an exciting technology with the potential to change how we work. As admins, we’re constantly learning new tools and skills in order to plan and build successful implementations. AI supercharges our capabilities—the possibilities for #AwesomeAdmins are endless with new innovations like Einstein GPT. To learn more about Einstein GPT, check out the Einstein GPT: Quick Look badge on Trailhead.

True to the Core

At True to the Core, Salesforce product leaders took the stage to answer questions from the live in-person and virtual audience. The first True to the Core took place at Dreamforce 12 years ago; since then product leaders have made it a point to bring this session to major events so the community can ask questions and provide feedback on products and roadmap. The session kicked off with an exciting announcement about Salesforce Integration user licenses, a response to a question asked in the Dreamforce True to the Core session and an illustration of the power of these feedback sessions.

The new Salesforce Integration user license has made it more cost-effective than ever before to have a dedicated integration user for every integration. The Salesforce Integration user license is an API Only license restricted for system-to-system integration purposes. Learn more about this new license in the Release Notes.

This time, question topics included Flow, list views, Slack, and more.

Automation Keynote: Build Automated Experiences Fast with Salesforce Flow

#Flownatics celebrated the first-ever Automation Keynote! The keynote was packed full of Flow knowledge, showcasing how to automate at any skill level. We learned how to unify customer data with Data Cloud as the first step toward delivering personalized, automated experiences. Senior Admin Evangelist Jennifer Lee showed us how to quickly automate any business process with out-of-the-box solutions. And we got to meet our new mascot Flo—your new automation assistant—because everyone needs a little help getting through the ebbs and flows of work.

Flo the flying squirrel character is soaring in front of a background of automation product icons for Tableau, Slack, MuleSoft, and Flow

Product roadmap deep dives

One of my favorite parts of TrailblazerDX every year is hearing about the future of Salesforce products and features directly from product managers! I saw so many product roadmap slides throughout the 2 days I couldn’t keep track of them all! Here’s a quick recap of a few sessions that highlighted roadmap features.

Discover the Future of User Management for Admins

Cheryl Feldman, Director, Product Management at Salesforce, and Gonzalo Gambino, Director, Product Management at Salesforce, presented “Discover the Future of User Management for Admins.” In this session, we got to see all the upcoming innovations in this space with an ambiguous goal to deliver 100k points on the IdeaExchange over the next releases. The highlights included demos of new features like “Improved Permission Set and Permission Set Group View” and “View Object Access from Object Manager.” In addition, a new concept called “Metadata Groups” was introduced for feedback as a potential tool to provide admins with finer-grained metadata access control. To find out more, make sure to check out the Future of User Management Trailblazer Community Group.

Product manager Cheryl Feldman demos “Improved Permission Set and Permission Set Group View” and Product manager Gonzalo Gambino introduces a new visionary concept called “Metadata Groups” that will allow for granular metadata access control.

Next Generation Forms Powered by Screen Flows and Reactivity

Sam Reynard, Director, Product Management at Salesforce, and Adam White, Senior Product Manager at Salesforce, presented “Next Generation Forms Powered by Screen Flows and Reactivity.” Watch this session to get a sneak preview of the future of screen flows in action. You’ll get an overview of what reactive components can do with a demo showing off the next addition to the reactive components beta—reactive formulas! Watch Adam White show off a real-time loan calculator and data fetcher component that’s able to combine a five screen flow into a single screen. Afterwards you’ll get a glimpse into the powerful Screen Flow roadmap from Sam Reynard.

Product managers Sam Reynard and Adam White present a slide titled “Reactivity Empowers Flow Creators and Developers” to a packed audience at TDX

How I Solved It Season 2—Now on Salesforce+

The first episode of Season 2 “How I Solved It” premiered on Salesforce+ Wednesday, March 8. Hosted by Principal Admin Evangelist Gillian Bruce, this series explores how Salesforce Admins solve business problems using automation, data, and design tools. In each episode, we dive into a specific business challenge and show how one #AwesomeAdmin chose to solve it. You’ll also learn about the different skills used to build each solution.

To celebrate the launch of Season 2, #AwesomeAdmin Jessie Whitney joined Gillian live on the Salesforce+ broadcast to share a sneak peek into his solution and how he solved it. Tune in for new episodes of How I Solved It every Wednesday until April 12.

Gillian Bruce and Jessie Whitney sit at the Salesforce Today broadcast desk at TrailblazerDX

Watch and learn: Check out our playlist on YouTube

TrailblazerDX ’23 may be over but the learning doesn’t stop here! Experience the magic of #TDX23 on our YouTube channel. We have a special playlist highlighting some of the top sessions here.

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