I’m okay with fast-forwarding past winter and heading right into spring when I can take Mochi outside for a walk without having to bundle up. It’s that time of year again when we get several goodies hitting our orgs. Here are just a few highlights for your users to boost their productivity and some features you can use to ensure your org is secure, build great user experiences (UX), and build even more awesome apps for your internal and external customers.
As always, I encourage you to read the release notes for features that are important to you, as an admin, and your company.
Once you’ve read the summarized list of features below, head over to your Spring ’23 sandbox and test-drive these features yourself. You can also get hands-on in a Spring ’23 pre-release org here. Check the Maintenance Calendar for exactly when your Salesforce org will get the Spring ’23 features. Scroll through the list and check your Salesforce instance (NA__, EMEA__) against the release dates listed in the calendar.
All enhancements below apply to Lightning Experience unless specified otherwise.
Releases include Pilot, Beta, and Generally Available (GA) features.
Below are a few Spring ’23 features I thought your users would find helpful!
Log a call from a case’s Activities component
Your agents can interact with case records and can now log a call directly from the Activities component in Lightning Experience as with other Salesforce objects.
Import contacts and leads with a guided experience
Give your sales reps a guided process to import contacts and leads using a sample CSV file and a simple data mapping user interface (UI). Admins enable this feature in Setup by turning on Basic Data Import. This feature applies to Lightning Experience in Professional and Enterprise Editions with the Sales Cloud.
Take action quicker with the Dynamic Activity Composer
Reps can create activities quicker with buttons than the tabbed activity composer, with more actions in the dropdown menus. For example, in the Email dropdown, if a user has more than one email address, they can choose which one to email. Users can also get to their email preferences quickly or easily add email to their to-do list.
Know what changes are made to events and tasks with field history tracking
Track up to six fields so your reps can see what has changed in an event or task in the Related tab for events and tasks. To enable this, select the Event or Task object in Object Manager, select Fields & Relationships, and click Set History Tracking. You can add the Activity Record History component to your event and task Lightning record pages.
Create personalized report filters
Set a dynamic report filter on the user field to present personalized results for each user. When filtering on user fields, select Use relative value, which will automatically populate $USER into the value field.
Subscribe to even MOAR reports and dashboards
Users of Unlimited Edition orgs can now subscribe to up to 15 reports and 15 dashboards from the previous limit of seven. For other Salesforce editions, please contact Salesforce Support to increase your subscription limit.
Better organize your reports and dashboards using collections
Once your admin goes into Reports and Dashboards Settings and selects Enable the Unified Experience for Analytics Home in Setup. From the Analytics home, users can create a collection and add Lightning reports and dashboards for immediate access in the Unified Home.
(Beta) Add text and images to your Lightning dashboards
For users of Unlimited Edition orgs, you can now enhance your Lightning dashboards with text and images by adding the Text or Image Widget. Please contact Salesforce Support to enable this feature.
Here are a few Spring ’23 features for #AwesomeAdmins!
Prepare your org for multi-factor authentication auto-enablement
The requirement to use multi-factor authentication (MFA) when accessing Salesforce products went into effect on February 1, 2022. All users must now use MFA when logging in to Salesforce with Salesforce username/password credentials or single sign-on (SSO).
To help customers satisfy this requirement, starting with Spring ’23, and rolling out in phases throughout 2023, Salesforce will auto-enable MFA for direct logins. We’ll eventually enforce MFA as a permanent part of the Salesforce login process. To avoid disruptions to your users when these milestones occur, enable MFA as soon as possible. For more information, see MFA To Be Auto-Enabled for Some Customers in Spring ’23 (Release Update).
To monitor the MFA enforcement milestone schedule, see the MFA Enforcement Roadmap. To know when your production org is affected, monitor the Release Update node in Setup for the MFA Auto-Enablement Release Update.
Prepare your org for the Hyperforce upgrade with Hyperforce Assistant
With Hyperforce, you can deploy your Salesforce apps and services in a growing number of global regions by using the scale and agility of the public cloud. Note: The Salesforce Customer 360 application suite, including Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, B2B Commerce, Platform, and Industries Cloud, is automatically available via Hyperforce in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, India, Japan, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The Salesforce Customer 360 application suite is available on Hyperforce by request only in South Korea and Sweden. There are additional products available on Hyperforce; please consult the Release Notes for more details.
If your org is eligible to upgrade to Hyperforce, the Hyperforce Assistant will be available to you via in-app prompts and from Hyperforce Assistant in the Setup menu. With this assistant, you can access four tiles—Learn, Prepare, Upgrade, and Manage. Note: Only the Learn and Prepare tiles are currently active. Learn about what Hyperforce is and its benefits, and access FAQs about Hyperforce in the Learn tile. The Prepare tab will take you through actions you need to take to prepare your org for the upgrade, including ensuring you address any hardcoded URL references and other activities.
Verify your email address to send email through Salesforce
Salesforce now requires that all users use a verified email address to send emails through Salesforce, such as emails to contacts or leads. Most users verify their email address as part of initial Salesforce user account setup process. However, some users continue to use email addresses that were created and verified before the current verification process was put in place. If a user sends an email from an email address created before the current verification process, Salesforce will reject this email message and not complete the send. Unverified email addresses can’t be used for email sends until the user resets the password or verifies the email address.
DevOps Center went GA on December 9, 2022. So, while this is technically not part of the Spring ’23 release, I believe it’s worth noting here in case you missed the announcement. Are you using change sets to manage your deployments from a sandbox to production? Are you tired of tracking your configuration changes in a spreadsheet or sticky notes? DevOps Center comes to the rescue! Boost your productivity and speed up your deployments to production with DevOps Center where your changes are tracked AUTOMATICALLY for you. You can use modern DevOps best practices and track changes between environments with modern source control. Let’s manage our deployments with a modern deployment tool. Check out Why DevOps Center Is Awesome for Salesforce Admins.
(Beta) Choose the permission sets display when setting field-level security
You now have the ability to view permission sets that have Create, Read, Edit, or Delete access on the field’s object by selecting permission sets with object permissions when you assign field-level security, create an object, or change the field type. Deselect the field to show all permission sets for assignment purposes. To enable this feature, go to User Management Settings in Setup and enable Field-Level Security for Permission Sets During Field Creation (Beta). If you want to assign field-level security to profiles instead of permission sets, go back to the User Management Settings and disable the Field-Level Security for Permission Sets During Field Creation (Beta) feature.
Why is this feature important to admins? Salesforce will announce EOL (end of life) for permissions on profiles soon. As a result, admins should start applying permissions to users using permission sets and permission set groups as a best practice for user management in place of assigning them at the profile level. Watch an episode of Expert Corner where featured Product Manager Cheryl Feldman talks about the future of user management.
(Beta) Apply and automate mass access using User Access Policies
Automatically apply access when users are created, edited, or both by applying user access policies to grant or remove access to managed package licenses, permission set licenses, permission sets, permission set groups, queues, and groups. Contact your account executive for access to this feature. Note: This feature is available to customers with Enterprise and Unlimited Editions.
User management can be a highly manual task keeping track of who gets what permissions and when to revoke permissions. And we know manual can lead to mistakes. It’s human nature. In some highly regulated industries, giving users more access than they should have can lead to major consequences. Let’s automate where possible so we have Salesforce take care of the user management for us, which reduces the likelihood of errors and allows us to focus on more value add tasks for our users, such as delivering more enhancements or improving their UX.
Recalculate account-sharing rules faster
We’ve updated the way we handle the automatic sharing rule calculation for Case and Contact objects. Salesforce provides implicit sharing between the parent account and its child objects (Cases, Contacts, and Opportunities). By no longer creating implicit sharing records, you get faster account sharing recalculation and account owner changes. Check out this article by Product Manager Larry Tung about this feature. To enable this feature in your org, please contact Salesforce Support.
See who can access records and why
As a security-minded admin, it’s extremely important for us to understand who has access to records in our org. By viewing a record’s sharing hierarchy, you can see who has access to the record, the reason for the access (such as, shows the sharing rule name that grants access), and if the user’s access is blocked by a restriction rule.
In the animated gif, you will see that Mochi Pomeranian has CO-000000 record access and reason “Custom Object Sharing Rule – Direct_Sales2.” We can see while Stephanie Standard should have read access to the CO-000001 record, her access is blocked via a restriction rule.
Upgrade your case and lead record pages with Dynamic Forms
With Spring ‘23, you can now upgrade your case and lead record pages to use Dynamic Forms in Lightning App Builder. These two objects join the list of standard objects that have this capability: account, person account, contact, and opportunity record pages. Dynamic Forms gives you the flexibility as an admin to control what fields appear when they appear, and how they behave right in App Builder. Save clicks and eliminate the need to make changes to the page layout. To upgrade to Dynamic Forms, click on the Record Details component in App Builder, and click on the Upgrade Now button in the right panel.
(GA) Use Dynamic Actions for standard objects
Dynamic Actions for standard objects are now GA for all standard objects for the desktop by upgrading the page to Dynamic Actions. Previously, it was GA only for account, case, contact, lead, opportunity, and custom objects for the desktop. You can assign actions and set component visibility filters to show/not show actions to your users directly in Lightning App Builder. Save clicks. No need to head to the page layout to make these configuration changes. To upgrade to Dynamic Actions, select the Highlights Panel to the page, and click on the Upgrade Now button in the right Highlights Panel properties pane.
View more records in dynamic related lists
In Spring ‘23, we now have the View All link in the Dynamic Related List – Single component, just like other related lists. Prior to this change, the View All link was not available and the users could see only a maximum of 30 records in dynamic related lists.
Build custom forecast pages in App Builder
You now have the ability to build custom forecast pages right in App Builder.
You got processes? We’ve got a tool to convert them to Flow!
We know you’ve been waiting for this. We now upgraded the Migrate to Flow tool to include the ability to migrate your processes to Flow.
The Migrate to Flow tool supports only record-triggered processes. It doesn’t support custom event and custom invocable type processes, or processes containing scheduled actions, custom metadata types, and field traversals. For supported processes, you can migrate these action types:
While we provide a tool for you to migrate your workflow rules and processes to Flow, I highly recommend you spend the time to analyze your business processes and confirm with your business users that the processes are still valid. Please try not to do a straight lift and shift. Try building record-triggered flows on your own and even consolidate them where possible so you’re not migrating 10 workflow rules and 10 processes into 20 record-triggered flows. Another benefit of building record-triggered flows from scratch as opposed to using the migration tool is to start practicing building record-triggered flows. Create one from scratch using the Trailhead module Record-Triggered Flows. Also, catch my Automate This! episode where Aleksandra Radovanovic talks about how she migrated workflow rules and processes at her company to Flow. (Spoiler alert: She doesn’t use the migration tool.)
Use more flow elements
Hooray! The limit of 2,000 flow elements for a transaction was removed! For flows using API version 56.0 and earlier, a transaction couldn’t hit more than 2,000 instances of any element, typically in loops. For any new flows created Spring ’23 and beyond, this limit will be lifted.
Easily add a lookup field and create a record directly from a lookup field to your screen flows
With Dynamic Forms for Flow, you can now add lookup fields to your screen flows and create a new record directly from a lookup field. With the regular Lookup component, you could not create a record right within the lookup field.
(Beta) Build screens with interactive components
You can now place supported components or custom Lightning Web Components (LWC) on the same screen and they will talk to or influence one another. This will allow you to build single-page applications and reduce the number of screens and clicks for your users, which makes for a better UX and builds more efficient UI. Here is a list of supported components or component features that work with this Beta feature in the Spring ’23 release: Text, Date, Date Time, Checkbox, Number, Password, Currency, Data Table, Email, Name, Address, Slider, Toggle, and Custom LWC**
** Component must be designed to track change events from Flow as outlined here.
To enable this feature, go to the Process Automation Settings page in Setup, and check the feature Opt in to Reactive Screens Beta. In your screen flow, add the components. Ensure the output components have API names set. In the other component, set the appropriate input to an output from the component you set previously.
(GA) Select multiple records from a table in a screen flow
Use the Data Table component to display a table of records in read-only or allow for single or multiple record selection and use those selections later in your flow. Additionally, there are a few new features added since Beta: the ability to preview the data table and its columns in the screen builder, configuration accessibility improvements, and composite field (such as Name and Address) support.
Select multiple options in Dynamic Forms for Flow
You can now select multiple options from a multi-select picklist field using Dynamic Forms for Flow. You can use multi-select picklists with the Checkbox Group and Multi-Select Choice components.
Review element descriptions on the Flow Canvas
Increase your productivity and save those clicks! You can easily view an element’s description (when one is available on the Flow canvas) in one of three ways:
(Beta) Select a record from a predetermined list with the Choice Lookup component
Using the new Choice Lookup screen flow component, you can easily find records using the auto-complete functionality. You will need to create a collection choice set or record choice set resource to store the list of records from Salesforce or Apex-defined types. Then add the Choice Lookup component and specify the set you created.
(GA) Use flow screen components with Flow in Slack
Build screen flows that can run within Slack that contain the following flow components: Checkbox, Checkbox Group, Currency, Date, Date/Time, Display Text, Long Text Area, Number, Picklist, Radio Button, and Text. To make a screen flow available for use in Slack, search for Initial Slack Setup in Setup and toggle to Accepted for the Agree to Terms & Conditions. Once the screen flow is built that contains only the supported screen flow components, select Make Available in Slack in the advanced section when saving your flow.
(GA) Send a screen flow to Slack with an action
Use the Slack Send Message to Launch Flow action to send a Slack message that contains a button that invokes a flow designed to run in Slack. First create a screen flow that has only screen components supported in Slack. Select Make Available in Slack when you save your flow. Create a second flow using the slackSendMessageToLaunchFlowflowName action, where flowName is the API name of the flow to send. In the Set Flow Input Values section, assign text values to the input parameters. Note: In order for the flow to run from Slack, the user must be authenticated through the Salesforce Slack app and have the Run Flows permission.
Search for an individual in a flow
Use the new Search for an Individual action in Flow with Salesforce Object Search Language (SOSL) to find and filter on contact, lead, or employee records.
Resume behavior changed for flows launched by Process Builder processes
If you enabled the Make Paused Flow Interviews Resume in the Same Context release update, any flows launched by Process Builder processes can resume in a different context. If you want to resume those flows in system context without sharing (the behavior before the release update), then you need to update those flows to run in API version 57.0 or later. Note: By default, flows created as of the Spring ’23 release are configured to run in API version 57.0. To change the API version, open the flow, select show advanced, and change the value in the API Version for Running the Flow field.
(Beta) Get external data from a web-based service in Flow Builder
Set up an external service connection in Flow Builder with an HTTP web-based service or REST API endpoint Callout instead of writing code.
MuleSoft Composer for Salesforce is now Flow Integration. With Flow Integration, you can configure integrations using clicks, not code. For feature updates, refer to the MuleSoft Composer for Salesforce release notes.
Create record-triggered orchestrations from the Core tab when creating new flows
You can now access Record-Triggered Orchestration from the Core tab.
Work on assigned orchestration work on your mobile device
Users can now complete their assigned work in the Work Guide on-the-go on their mobile devices. The Flow Orchestration Work Guide component in Lightning App Builder now supports both the mobile web browser and the Salesforce mobile app. Note: The Flow Orchestration Work Guide component in Experience Builder supports only the mobile web browser.
(GA) Marie Kondo those inactive picklist values
Bulk delete inactive picklist values from custom picklists with predefined values. From the Inactive Values section of a picklist field, select the values and click Delete Unused Values. This sure saves time from doing it one at a time!
(GA) Bulk manage picklist values
Increase your productivity by managing your custom picklist values by deleting, activating, deactivating, or replacing values in bulk. No more doing this one by one. Who has the time?! Select the picklist values and the appropriate action (Delete Selected, Deactivate Selected, Replace Selected, or Activate Selected).
Capture inclusive data with gender identity and pronoun fields
Engage with customers the way they identify with pronoun and gender identity fields, now optional picklist fields on the Contact, Person Account, and Lead objects. Go into Object Manager in Setup to manage the field-level security, add or edit picklist values, or add the fields to page layouts.
(Beta) Configure searchable fields for user Profiles for use in Einstein Search
As an admin, you can now configure searchable fields by profile via Search Manager by creating a configuration setting and setting fields to searchable or not searchable.
Access more guidance sets for admins
You can access new personalized setup and learning resources that are better aligned with your experience level and business journey. Access Guidance Center by clicking on the Trailhead icon in the global header.
Prevent duplicate cases with Lightning threading in Email-To-Case
Lightning threading is the new Email-to-Case threading approach that matches incoming emails to cases using a combination of token- and header-based threading. Email-to-Case can find corresponding cases so a new case isn’t created when a related case exists.
For all new orgs created starting in Spring ’23 and onward, Email-to-Case will automatically use Lightning threading. To enable it in existing orgs, in Setup under Email-to-Case settings, determine which threading model is in use.
Send only new content in outgoing emails
Shrink the size of outgoing emails when they include new content only. When your agents reply via email, previous thread is excluded.
(GA) Get optimized mobile reports with Enhanced Reports
Enhanced Reports optimizes your reports automatically for use on mobile devices without reconfiguring your report formats. You get a more responsive UI with faster load times, more consistent performance, and text wrappng to decrease scrolling. This feature will be available the week of February 13, 2023. To enable this, go to Manage Connected Apps in Setup. Open Salesforce for iOS or Salesforce for Android apps. Navigate to Custom Attributes and select New. For the Attribute key, enter ENABLE_ENHANCED_REPORTS. For Attribute value, enter TRUE then select Save. Open the Salesforce Mobile App. Tap the Menu button, then tap the Reports tab. Select the report you want to view from the list filter.
Legacy tablet app experiences are being retired
Lightning on tablet single-column and Legacy Salesforce1 are retiring as of Spring ‘23. The new full-width Lightning on tablet app experience is now the only tablet app experience option available.
(Beta) Do more with Enhanced Contacts
The Enhanced Contacts feature is an improved experience for working with contact lists and records in a mobile device. When users toggle this feature on, they can view recent contacts and lists, access caller ID, experience an easier contact search, use swipe actions, customize contact detail views, and much MOAR. From Setup, access Salesforce Mobile App, then toggle Enhanced Contacts (Beta) to turn on. Turning on the Beta enables users to toggle the experience on or off from the contacts home page. Users can use only one contact experience at a time.
As a best practice with each release, don’t forget to review the release updates to ensure you’re on top of upcoming updates, which gives you ample time to test and activate them before they’re enforced in your org.
To learn more, go to Release Updates in Setup. Give yourself plenty of time before an update is enforced to enable it in a sandbox, do proper testing, and make any necessary changes to code and configuration to ensure all still work post-update.
I’m calling out a few of the release updates here. I recommend reviewing the comprehensive list of the release updates for those that apply to your org.
Deploy enhanced domains
To comply with the latest browser and security standards, Salesforce will enforce enhanced domains on My Domain in all orgs in Winter ’23. Enhanced domains is available in all orgs except Public Cloud orgs. What is enhanced domains, you ask? It allows your company-specific My Domain name in your URLs, including your Salesforce sites and Experience Cloud sites. Your users can access Salesforce using browsers that block third-party cookies. Since this update does affect your application URLs, including Experience Cloud sites, Salesforce sites, and Visualforce pages, we highly recommend you enable and test enhanced domains in a sandbox before the update is enforced in Production.
Salesforce deploys enhanced domains in Spring ’23. You can postpone that automatic deployment via a My Domain option. In Summer ’23, Salesforce deploys enhanced domains in orgs without the feature deployed. You can disable this feature until Salesforce enforces this update in Winter ’24. Orgs created in Summer ’22 or later get enhanced domains by default.
To postpone the automatic deployment of enhanced domains until Summer ’23, enable a My Domain setting before the org is upgraded to Spring ’23. In the Routing section of the My Domain Setup page, click Edit, then deselect Automatically deploy enhanced domains with Spring ’23, and save your changes. Repeat this step in each org where you want to postpone the deployment.
Disable Ref ID and transition to new Email threading behavior
This release update turns off Ref ID threading and transitions to Lightning threading in Email-to-Case. With the new Email-to-Case threading behavior, incoming emails aren’t matched using Ref IDs. Rather, they’re matched using a new secure token in the email subject or body. If no match is found, Salesforce will also check the metadata contained in the email headers. This release update replaces the previous release update that was first made available in Winter ’21 and has no scheduled enforcement date.
To match emails to corresponding cases, Lightning threading combines token- and header-based threading. Similar to Ref ID threading, token-based threading inserts a formatted string into the email body or subject but it’s now created in a way that meets Salesforce security standards. When Lightning threading is enabled, new outbound emails don’t include a Ref ID.
Email-to-Case is backward compatible until you turn on Lightning threading. If Do Not Auto-Enable New Features is off, we set email preferences for threading tokens based on the corresponding Ref ID settings for email subjects and bodies. If you use merge fields in email templates, replace Case.Thread_Id with the merge field Case.Thread_Token.
Enable stronger protection for your users’ personal information
Scheduled to be enforced in Spring ‘23, Enable Enhanced Personal Information Management prevents external users from accessing other users’ personal information. As an admin, you choose which custom and standard user fields to consider PII (personal identifiable information) by going to User Management Settings in Setup and clicking on the link this field set.
Require granular flow permissions for Experience Cloud guest users
In Spring ‘23, Run Flows will be removed in all orgs from the Guest User profile. Grant access to the flows your guest users need by granting access within the flow iteself. To avoid future access issues, we recommend you update your sites to use the new flow permission structure before your Spring ’23 production upgrade date.
Enable Sharing for Flow Orchestration Objects
Scheduled to be enforced in Summer ‘23, once Enable Sharing for Flow Orchestration Objects is selected, the Manage Flow user permission no longer grants users access to Flow Orchestration objects. The Manage Orchestration Runs and Work Items user permission, along with sharing rules and role hierarchies, will control user access to Flow Orchestration objects. Note: Users who run orchestrations and execute work items must still have the Run Flows user permission.
Which Spring ’23 feature are you most excited about? Share with us on Twitter @SalesforceAdmns using #AwesomeAdmin.
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