You read that right! Salesforce Release Notes can now be found at Salesforce Help, where they live in harmony with our help content as well as release notes for our Commerce Cloud, Marketing Cloud, and Customer 360 products.
Quite simply, it’s the best experience for you, our admins, who will enjoy better search, filtering, case logging, feedback options, and more. Read on for details as well as tips and tricks for making yourself, your users, and others you partner with successful with this new experience. In true Salesforce Release Notes fashion, we’ll take your questions one by one.
With Winter ’21! You can start to use the Salesforce Release Notes on Salesforce Help right now. To ensure a smooth transition for all, we’ll keep the original release notes portal up to date until we retire it in July 2021.
Some major enhancements…
A consistent, familiar experience — The Salesforce Release Notes now have the same look and feel as Salesforce Help topics, with similar navigation and user interactions, all in the same window.
Better search — Use Salesforce Help’s top-of-page global search to find Release Notes topics along with other content types, such as Documentation, Videos, Knowledge Articles, Known Issues, and Trailhead. When you’re viewing a specific version of the Salesforce Release Notes, such as Winter ’21, you can search for release notes topics specific to that release. Want to view and search the release notes for a different release? Just select that release and search away.
Filtering — Filter release notes by Salesforce Experience — Lightning, Classic, and Mobile — plus Edition, Product Area, and Feature Impact, which tells you how features become available. If you apply filters before searching, you’ll see results in the table of contents. If you do a search first, or apply filters after searching, we’ll filter your search results.
Feedback options — Just as you do with Salesforce Help topics, you can now give us feedback on release notes topics. Give ’em a thumbs up or a thumbs down, and please include specifics in the Comments field.
And the same features you know and love…
Content in seven languages — English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish. Just scroll to the bottom of any page to select your language.
Easy PDFs — Just click the PDF button to download the entire release notes for the version you’re viewing as a PDF.
Release notes for historical releases — Release notes are available in HTML and PDF formats for the Spring ’16 release through the Winter ’21 release. Looking for release notes for Salesforce releases before Winter ’16? Search for the release you want by season and year (for example, “Spring ’14”) to find a PDF for download.
First, as with all Salesforce changes, communicate, communicate, communicate — Identify which of your teammates are regular release notes readers and let them know about this change. Explain the improved experience, search and filtering, and feedback options — or just share this blog post!
Update your bookmarks — And ask your teammates to do the same.
Stay in the know — Check the release notes for updates on the release notes! Between Winter ’21 and the retirement of the original release notes portal in July 2021, we’ll provide updates and reminders in the release notes themselves. Also, follow @salesforcedocs on Twitter for regular updates on all of our technical content.
Say “so long…” — Finally, make sure to let your colleagues know that the original release notes portal will be retired in July 2021.
Search Release Notes with other content types — Want to search content for help and release notes at the same time? Start from the Salesforce Help homepage and select Documentation and Release Notes as your two content types. Note that Preview release notes are published before help topics each release; so, before all technical content becomes generally available, release notes are your best bet for the latest updates.
Use search and filters together to quickly drill down to the release notes content you need — Start with your search term, then filter your list of results. For example, if you want to learn about all things Flow Builder for Winter ’21, start with that release and enter “Flow Builder” as your search term. Fifty-three results appear — that’s a lot. Now, how about Builder use cases for Industries? Filter your Flow Builder search results by the Industries product area and get four results, including a topic that tells you how to use custom scheduling policies with Lightning Scheduler flows.
Or, filter first and then search. Maybe your organization has Unlimited Edition, and you use Lightning Experience and want to find out what’s new in Service for Winter ’21. Click the Filter icon, and from Experience, select Lightning; from Edition, select Unlimited; and from Product Area, select Service. Apply those filters to expand the Release Notes table of contents with Service topics highlighted. Want to know about Bots, specifically? Just enter “Bots” in the Search field and get 10 search results, including a topic that tells you how to streamline Bot responses for screen readers.
Get release readiness guidelines right in the release notes — Just search for “How to Use the Release Notes” for a collection of helpful resources, including release note changes. Curious about which features come automatically enabled for users? Just search for “How and When Do Features Become Available” for a handy list of those features, as well as features that require setup or a call to your Salesforce rep.
We hope you enjoy using the Salesforce Release Notes on Salesforce Help! The sooner you start, the sooner you can give us your valuable feedback. How do you like this new release notes experience? What new features and enhancements would be most helpful to you and your team? Let us know! Post your feedback in the Release Readiness Trailblazers group or tweet us at @salesforcedocs. Doing this means we can work faster to make your experience even better!
Not to get all “meta,” but don’t forget to check the Salesforce Release Notes for updates on the release notes! We’ll be sure to keep you up to date.
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