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Follow and complete the Learn MOAR Winter ’24 trailmix by January to earn a special community badge and be entered for a chance to win* a Salesforce Certification Voucher. *Official rules apply. See the Trailhead Quests page for full details and restrictions.
As I’m writing the Winter ’24 Release highlights blog, I have the window open, enjoying the nice breeze. I’m not ready for Winter. I don’t like having to be all bundled up in many layers in Boston, Massachusetts when I go outside. In fact, if I could fast forward, I would, even if it meant skipping the holidays, New Year’s, and my birthday. Well, maybe the last one is going too far.
So here it is, my mega blog post highlighting my picks for Winter ’24 features for YOU and a few for your users. Please read the release notes for features that are important to you and your company.
After you read the summarized list of features below, head over to your Winter ’24 sandbox and test-drive the features yourself. You can also get hands-on in a Winter ’24 pre-release org here. Check the Maintenance Calendar for exactly when your Salesforce org will get the Winter ’24 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.
Here are a few Winter ’24 features for #AwesomeAdmins!
If you haven’t enabled multi-factor authentication (MFA) yet, now’s the time. Enable it now to avoid user disruption before Salesforce auto-enables it for you.
The requirement to use 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).
The first MFA auto-enablement phase occurred during Spring ’23 and concludes with Spring ’24. Enforcement, which is when MFA becomes a permanent part of the direct login process, is scheduled to begin with Summer ’24. For more information, see MFA Auto-Enablement Continues: Find Out When and How Your Org Is Affected (Release Update).
To monitor the schedule for these events, 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.
Create a custom report type on the Account Share object and then a report to see which users and groups can access account records that are shared manually or through account teams.
You can now create a customer report type (select Group Member as the Primary Object) and build reports on public group members so you can see the users, roles, and other groups that were added to public groups. Previously, you had to go into each public group or run queries to see its members.
Started in Summer ’23 and enforced in Winter ’24, this release update allows for faster account sharing recalculation in your org. Salesforce will determine access to child case and contact records when the user tries to access them, rather than store those implicit child shares.
Check out Product Manager Larry Tung’s article for more information.
This release update is available starting in Winter ’24. Previously, Salesforce Customer Support enabled this feature. Account sharing rule recalculations are faster now that the system will determine whether the user can access the child opportunity records when they try to access them, rather than storing the child implicit share records for the account and their child opportunity records. You can also enable this feature for child cases and contacts through the Enable Faster Account Sharing Recalculation by Not Storing Case and Contact Implicit Child Shares Release Update.
You can now create a custom report type (set Permission Set Assignment as the Primary Object) and build reports on custom permission set and permission set group assignments!!! I see you cheering out there! Build a report to view all users assigned to a specific custom permission set or permission set group, or create a report to see an individual user’s assignments.
Ever wonder how many permission set groups a given permission set belongs to? Well, now you can easily see how many permission set groups a specific permission set is included in, using the View Summary (Beta) button from the permission set details page.
Keeping track of all the permissions included in a permission set isn’t easy… until NOW. Manage users’ access and permissions with ease, all on one screen. Eliminate the multiple clicks. View all enabled object, user, and field permissions on one page with the View Summary (Beta) button from the permission set details page.
Now when you configure object and field permissions in permission sets, you can see the Object API Name and Field API Name displayed along with the object and field label. This change makes it easier for you to distinguish your objects and fields if you have multiple components with the same name.
To help you fix permission errors faster, we’re showing the most recent error message related to a permission set group on its detail page. Recalculate permission set groups manually if they’re in failed status, or if your permission set group failed after deployments or package updates. Prior to this release, in order to trigger a recalculation, you had to update the permission set group.
In Winter ’24 as a Beta feature, you can now reference up to three permission sets, permission set groups, or managed package licenses in your user access policy filters. Previously, you could only reference one permission set, permission set group, or managed package license each. Automate assignments to managed package licenses, permission sets, and other access mechanisms based on criteria that you set in a user access policy. These will run when users are created or updated, or if you migrate users to new access setups in a single operation.
To enable user access policies, go to the User Management Settings in Setup and enable User Access Policies (Beta).
Using the new Group Membership event type, you can now monitor when members are added to or removed from public groups. Note: This event is available in the API but not in the Event Monitoring Analytics app.
When you run into account, case, contact, and opportunity record access errors, you can now use the Insufficient Access event type in the EventLogFile object to help troubleshoot and resolve the issues. This object contains information about when users weren’t able to access or transfer records and the related error messages. Note: This event is available in the API but not in the Event Monitoring Analytics app.
Dynamic Forms is now supported on hundreds of LWC-enabled standard objects. With this feature, you can enhance page performance and build highly dynamic, flexible pages for your users, showing them the right data at the right time. Previously, you could use Dynamic Forms only on custom objects and a handful of standard objects. Note: Dynamic Forms is supported for most but not all standard LWC-enabled objects. If you open a record page in App Builder and you don’t see the ability to upgrade to Dynamic Forms, that’s your indication that it’s not supported. For example, the Note object doesn’t support Dynamic Forms because it has a fixed layout. Dynamic Forms isn’t supported on objects that aren’t LWC-enabled, such as Campaigns, Products, and Tasks.
Desktop users shouldn’t be the only ones having all the fun. Now, your mobile users can have the same Dynamic Forms experience on their mobile devices as your desktop users. This experience is supported on Accounts, Cases, Contacts, Leads, Opportunities, and custom objects. To enable this in Setup, go to Salesforce Mobile App and enable Dynamic Forms on Mobile. Note: If your Lightning record page also includes the Record Detail – Mobile component, your users will see only this component on their mobile device regardless of whether you enabled Dynamic Forms on Mobile (Beta). You’ll need to remove this component in order for your mobile users to see the Dynamic Forms page.
Boost user productivity! Add Create a Record and Update a Record quick actions to your related list and mass update up to 100 records at once! Admins and users rejoice! You can add a quick action one of two ways to your related list. In Lightning App Builder, add the Dynamic Related List – Single component to your record page, select Show list view action bar, and then select Add Action from the Properties pane. Or, you can add a quick action in the page layout editor. Note: If you don’t see actions on the related list within App Builder, set the related list type to Enhanced List.
Create single screen apps and a better user experience with minimal screens for your screen flows by making them reactive! This was Beta in the Summer ’23 Release and is now GA. Configure screen-supported standard screen components or your custom Lightning web components to react to changes in other screen components on the same screen, rather than placing the reaction on the next screen.
To enable for use for screen flows configured to run on API versions 57.0 and 58.0, select Enable Reactive Components for Screen Flows running API Version 57 and 58 on the Process Automation Settings page in Setup. Note: The Enable Reactive Components for Screen Flows running API Version 57 and 58 is set to expire in Winter ’25.
Boost that productivity by referencing global variables in reactive formulas on flow screens. And use custom labels in reactive formulas to display translatable text to your users. Examples of global variables include custom labels, custom settings, current user attributes, current flow attributes, and much more! Previously, reactive formulas didn’t support global variables.
Choice components are reactive to user selections elsewhere on the same screen. For example, if a user selects one choice selection, you can automatically pre-select an option of a different choice option by setting the default value with a formula. You can also make your choice options reactive based on record selections from the data table component.
For screen flows in API version 59.0 and later, you can now use the SUBSTITUTE, ADDMONTHS, and ^ formula functions and make them reactive. When the flow determines that there’s an update to a value referenced in a formula, it automatically recalculates and updates the value of the related screen component.
I can hear admins cheering for this! When you add a Display Text component to a screen, it will react to updates in other components on the same screen. To use this feature, on the Process Automation Settings page in Setup, enable the Opt In to Reactive Display Text Beta. Then, add the Display Text output component to a screen, and configure it to react to other components on the same screen.
Note: If you configure a Date, Date & Time, Currency, or Number field in a Display Text output component to respond to changes on the same screen, the flow will render them differently than when responding to changes on other screens. For example, the flow will render currency values in a Display Text component on the same screen without a currency sign.
For flows running on API version 59.0 or later, when a field is configured to react to changes from another field, Flow will now update the value of the field on the same screen upon screen load. If you go to a screen prior or later screen and then go back to the current screen, the flow doesn’t update the reactive components again.
Tired of those cryptic-looking red error messages shown when your record-triggered flow fails due to a validation rule, flow fault, or other flow error? You now have the power to configure a custom error message to display to your users letting them know what went wrong. You can display the error message in a window or as an inline error for a specific field. You can create these error messages for any record-triggered flow, whether it’s a before-save or after-save flow.
The POST method via HTTP Callout in Flow is now GA, allowing you to send data externally with clicks, not code. It’s also easier to integrate external data using the new PUT, PATCH, and DELETE methods. Other enhancements made in this release would allow you to provide more context about HTTP callout parameters, allow you to validate JSON samples quicker, and get more information about the external service registration with organized sections of parameters. It’s great to be able to build no-code integrations.
Eliminate the need for a loop and Assignment elements to map/transform values in the source collection of records to the target collection of record, whether it’s Salesforce data to an external service or between two collections in Flow. Now, with a new Beta feature, you can map fields in autolaunched, screen, or triggered flows. When used in conjunction with the HTTP Callout action to fully build no-code integrations, you can transform values of the same data type or you can create a formula to convert the value from one data type to another.
Note: The source data shows only one resource and doesn’t support global variables, collection choice sets, picklist choice sets, and record choice sets. The Transform element does not support manually assigning output values.
You can build automation triggered by changes in a data model object or calculated insight object with a Data Cloud-triggered flow.
Note: To use Data Cloud objects, users need Read object permissions for the data model object and Manage Flows permissions.
Sometimes when you build a flow, you can’t build it all in one sitting. But you need to fully complete the configuration to save the flow. And if you can’t, you have to delete the flow element or resource to save. Imagine if you could save your flow without fully configuring some elements. Well, almost. You can now save a flow without fully configuring the Start element in a record-triggered flow and the Create Records in all flows.
Errors that previously prevented you from saving the flow are now warnings. Use the undo button to undo changes one at a time as a replacement for the cancel button in an element window.
This feature sets the stage for saving flows in draft mode in the future.
The Choice, Date, Date & Time, Number, Currency, Text, and Long Text Area components will now refresh when a user goes back a screen and then moves forward to the next screen.
Note: If a user goes back and then forward a screen, and then goes back to the current screen a second time, the reactive components won’t update again. This enhancement is to flows running on API version 59.0 or later.
Salesforce objects and Data Cloud objects are now organized into separate sections in Flow. When you select a Data Cloud object, an object card provides more details.
Find and select a record or record collection variable quicker in a Create Records element in Auto-Layout. When you select a resource, you can create a new resource, select an existing resource with a new clickable breadcrumb, and view information about the resource right in the resource picker by hovering over the “i” icon.
You can now use the Wait for Amount of Time and Wait Until Date elements in autolaunched flows, schedule-triggered flows, and orchestrations. Note: The Advanced Pause element has been renamed to Wait for Conditions, so all the Wait elements are listed together in the Manager.
Use filters to narrow your results when viewing record-triggered flows in Flow Trigger Explorer. You can filter your results by status, package state, or process type.
Restrict user access to run all flows
In API version 59.0, the release update for Restrict User Access to Run Flows is enabled. For more information, see Restrict User Access to Run Flows (Release Update).
Get more accurate dates
The GMT time zone is now added directly to the DateOnly value in API version 59.0. For API versions 58.0 and earlier, the DateOnly values added the server local time and then converted it to the GMT time zone, which sometimes converted to an incorrect date.
Migrate workflow rules with pending time-based actions to Flow
The updated Migrate to Flow tool now migrates workflow rules that have pending time-based actions. Prior to the Winter ’24 Release, migrated time-based actions were inactive and deleted when the associated record changed. Now when the associated record is updated, the actions are migrated from time-based actions to scheduled paths.
Migrate Process Builder processes with custom metadata in formulas to Flow
In this release, you can migrate a process that uses custom metadata references in formulas in Process Builder with the enhanced Migrate to Flow tool. Once migrated to Flow, the custom metadata reference is used in a flow formula; however, you can’t configure it for use in the resource picker.
Migrate even MOAR workflow rules to Flow with increased limits
We’re granting some of our Essentials or Professional Edition customers an increase in the number of active and total flows to help with the migration of workflow rules to Flow. The impacted orgs will receive communications with more information. If you expect the limit increase and don’t see it, please contact Salesforce Support.
Use even more screen components in Slack (Beta)
You can now use even more flow screen components: Checkbox, CheckboxGroup, Currency, Date, Date & Time, Number, and Text in screens that run in Slack. Note: When you build a screen flow that only contains components supported in Slack, select the Make Available in Slack (Beta) checkbox in the Advanced area of the flow save dialog box.
Use input parameters for screen flows in Slack with an invocable action (Beta)
Set input parameter values for text variables available for input with the Slack Send Message to Launch Flow invocable action.
When your orchestration requires complex criteria, you can now define up to three requirements to control the stage and step execution, instead of creating an evaluation flow to specify when a step starts or when a stage or interaction step ends. Set a condition in an orchestration step to determines when it can start. Set a condition in an orchestration stage or interactive orchestration to determine when it ends.
You can now find and customize Flow Orchestration objects (Flow Orchestration Run, Flow Orchestration Stage Run, Flow Orchestration Step Run, and Flow Orchestration Work Item) in Object Manager.
You can now use the Wait for Duration element in an asynchronous background step’s autolaunched flow to pause an orchestration for minutes in addition to hours, days, or months.
We’ve enhanced Health Check settings to now include the number of objects that guest user profiles have Read and Edit access to in the Informational Security Settings.
You can now upgrade to Hyperforce using Hyperforce Assistant for production and sandbox orgs. Hard-coded references and connectivity checks in the Prepare phase were enhanced to give you a better overall experience.
Edit the parameters, sample request, and sample response body for HTTP Callout methods POST, PUT, PATCH, and DELETE right in Setup. You don’t have to manually edit the API specs for these methods. First, create an HTTP Callout in Flow. Then, in External Services, go to the external service’s Details page and select Edit HTTP Callout.
For those using the Backup and Restore managed package, if you run into issues restoring records (such as new or removed field schema changes) using the app, you can download the backup and use another data import tool to import and restore the data. Icons on the Restore page indicate which records you can only restore from a backup download.
As part of your routine for preparing for upcoming Salesforce Releases, review the release updates to ensure you’re on top of upcoming updates. That way, you’ll have 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 works post-update.
I’m calling out a few of the release updates here. I recommend reviewing the comprehensive list of release updates for those that apply to your org.
Once the Prevent Guest User from Editing or Deleting Approval Requests release update is enabled, guest users can then approve or reject an approval request. Note: Guest users can’t edit, reassign, or delete approval requests. Note: The enforcement date has been postponed to Spring ’24.
Scheduled for enforcement in Summer ’25, this update fixes a bug with the evaluation criteria in processes with multiple criteria and a record update. After the update, the process will evaluate the original value of the field that began the process with a value of null.
This release update is enforced in Winter ’24. To improve security, this stops flow interviews from resolving the $Api.Session_ID variable at run time so the browser session ID of the user who ran the flow will no longer appear on the screen.
This release update is scheduled to be enforced in Spring ’24. Once enabled, the EmailSimple invocable action will adhere to organization-wide email address profile settings.
Enforced in Winter ’24, paused autolaunched flows will resume in the same context as when they were paused. For flows running in API version 57.0 or later, we’ll verify the user permission to run the flow before an interview resumes. If your Process Builder processes launch a flow that contains a Pause element, we recommend configuring those flows to run in API version 57.0 or later. Otherwise, this update may change the context of the resumed interview. The process-launched flows will resume in the context specified in the flow version properties instead of in system context without sharing.
Scheduled for enforcement in Winter ’25, Salesforce will restrict a user’s ability to run a flow. A user must be granted access via profile or permission set in order to run the flow.
Enhanced domains deployed in Summer ’23 and is enforced in Winter ’24. Orgs created in Summer ’22 or later get enhanced domains by default, and new production orgs created in Summer ’23 can’t disable enhanced domains.
To comply with the latest browser and security standards, Salesforce will enforce enhanced domains on My Domain in all orgs. 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 to be 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.
Here are a few Winter ’24 features I think your users will find helpful!
In Lightning, you can set an expiration date on a link when you create a public link to share a file. You can password-protect the file as well. By default, the link will expire in 30 days and password protection is off.
The News, automated account fields, and automated account logo features will be retired on October 13, 2023. Once retired, Salesforce won’t prompt users with suggested account names and won’t populate fields or add company logos automatically. The News component will be removed from page layouts.
You can easily create reports on data lake objects, data models, and calculated insights without building custom reports. You can group, filter, and summarize records in a report on a single or multiple Data Cloud objects. Simply select to create a new report on the Reports tab, select the Data Cloud object in the Data Cloud report category, and click Start Report.
When you transfer ownership of your Lightning dashboard, the new owner gets full control of the dashboard components. Note: This requires View All Data (to change owner to anyone in the org) or the Manage My Team’s Dashboard permission (change ownership to and from anyone within your team’s Role Hierarchy). To enable this Beta feature, on the Reports and Dashboards Settings page in Setup, select Allow users to change dashboard owner (Lightning Experience Only). Then, from the Dashboards tab or in an open dashboard, select Change Owner.
Now, when your Lightning report uses either the PARENTGROUPVAL or PREVGROUPVAL formulas, the preview image updates to show how the formula is applied to the report. Previously, this was a parity gap in Lightning Experience and you could only access this feature in Classic. In the summary formula builder, select the PARENTGROUPVAL or PREVGROUPVAL function.
Phew! That’s a wrap for me. So many things coming your way, admins! As I mentioned earlier, this is just a highlight of the release enhancements that are core to the platform. Always read the release notes for clouds and features that are important to your company. Keep an eye out for Release Readiness Live sessions and other release content. Join the Release Readiness Trailblazer Community Group to get the latest on release updates!
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