Gosh, it just seemed like yesterday that I was putting together my blog post about Summer. But here we are, getting ready for Winter ’25. I find it a bit comforting to think about snow as a way to cool down in this 80/90 degree weather we’ve been having in Boston. Mochi (my Pomeranian) would appreciate the relief. Winters in New England bring roasted chestnuts and hot apple cider for me.
After you read the summarized list of features below, go to your Winter ’25 sandbox and try them out yourself. You can also get hands-on in a Winter ’25 pre-release org. Check the Maintenance Calendar for exactly when your Salesforce org will get the Winter ’25 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.
Check out a few Winter ’25 features I thought you Awesome Admins should definitely know about!
To streamline sandbox management, logins from the Sandboxes Setup page now utilize the My Domain login URL for each sandbox. Previously, the process relied on the sandbox’s instance URL, meaning you could only log in to a sandbox from Setup if it permitted logins from https://test.salesforce.com.
To enhance security, users can no longer log in to Salesforce using a username and password as URL query string parameters in the login URL, also known as forced login. This change impacts implementations and third-party integrations relying on forced login via a URL, including direct login (autologin) links. To keep everything running smoothly, it’s time to update those integrations! Start by reviewing your org’s usage of forced login.
From Setup, go to Login History. View and download your org’s login history for the past 6 months. Check the HTTP method column—if it shows GET and there’s no entry for Login Subtype, that means users are utilizing forced login. Keep in mind, the HTTP method will also show GET for password resets, so double-check the Login Subtype to confirm it’s not a password reset entry.
If you identify users still using forced login, make sure to notify them about the upcoming change. And don’t forget to migrate any integrations using forced login to external client apps or connected apps.
Imagine having all your Sales Cloud features at your fingertips, in one convenient location, tailored just for your edition and licenses. With the new Sales Cloud Go, it’s a reality!
With Sales Cloud Go, you can explore all the Sales Cloud features available to you from one spot in Setup. Whether you’re curious about those hidden gems you’ve never activated or want to explore the latest and greatest features, this is your Sales Cloud setup hub. And the best part? You can turn on features with just a click. It’s like having a magic button for Sales Cloud!
This shiny, new feature is available in Lightning Experience across the Pro Suite, Professional, Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, and Einstein 1 Sales Edition Editions.
Navigate to Sales Cloud Go via the gear menu, and either select Sales Setup or search for “Sales Setup” using the Quick Find.
You’ll find all your Sales Cloud features now in one place. Learn everything you need to know about the feature before you enable it with screenshots, tours, videos, and Help topics. If you’ve got the Your Account app turned on, you can even purchase add-on licenses directly from Sales Cloud Go.
Use the new Dynamic Highlights Panel in Lightning App Builder to easily configure your key fields, instead of using compact layouts in Setup. You can make quick adjustments to this panel right in Lightning App Builder by dragging fields from the Fields tab, just like you do with fields in the Field Section. The panel is responsive and supports up to 12 fields. You can set component visibility, customize actions, and see changes immediately on the desktop.
For mobile access, enable it through Setup > Salesforce Mobile App > Dynamic Forms and Dynamic Highlights Panel on Mobile.
I’m excited for the new conditional formatting on fields feature in Lightning App Builder. By leveraging conditional formatting, you can create a more intuitive and efficient user experience, ensuring that end users can quickly identify key data. This increases user productivity because they can find information fast and make decisions using critical information. Customize fields on Dynamic Forms-enabled pages using icons and colors that can change based on rules and criteria you define. Conditional formatting uses rulesets, a collection of conditions that define when and how the formatting appears. These conditions can be based on the field’s value or the values of other fields on the page.
To apply conditional formatting, on your Dynamic Forms-enabled record page in Lightning App Builder, click the field on the canvas, and use the Conditional Formatting property in the field’s property panel to assign or create a ruleset. This functionality is available on almost any field, including those in the Dynamic Highlights Panel.
![The configuration of conditional formatting in Lighting App Builder.]](https://d3nqfz2gm66yqg.cloudfront.net/images/20240816124233/ConditionalFormatting.gif)
You can also manage rulesets from within Lightning App Builder by selecting Edit Ruleset or using the new Conditional Field Formatting node in Object Manager.
The ability to delete configured rulesets will also be available. The ability to rename rulesets will not be in this release, but this is on the roadmap. #ForwardLookingStatement
You get the dynamic duo—Dynamic Highlights Panel and Dynamic Forms—on mobile devices with just one click. Simply go to the Salesforce Mobile App in Setup and enable Dynamic Forms and Dynamic Highlights Panel on Mobile.
Okay, this one is BIG. Admins, how many hours have you spent playing Sherlock Holmes, investigating where a user’s permission came from, clicking all over Setup to solve the mystery?! Be prepared to lose your minds. We’ve made user management easier than ever by providing visibility into the profiles, permission sets, and permission set groups that grant permissions to a specific user. I kid you not. You can now quickly access information about a user’s assigned object, field, user, and custom permissions on the User Access Summary page. Simply go to the user record in Setup and click View Summary. To see how an individual permission was granted, click the row-level action and select Access Granted By.
Get a comprehensive view of the permission sets, permission set groups, and profiles that grant access to a specific object, including the level of access granted in Object Manager via the new Object Access menu item in the sidebar. With this read-only Object Access Summary in Object Manager, you can quickly check object permissions, making it easier to troubleshoot issues, perform security reviews, and determine how to grant users access effectively. This transparency not only enhances security and compliance but also empowers you to make informed decisions about user access, ultimately improving the overall user experience within Salesforce.
Check out the new and improved performance of the enhanced user list view. View, sort, and filter user entries in a list format while making inline edits directly, thereby streamlining data updates. This enhancement allows for quick updates and modifications without the need to navigate away from the list view, making it easier than ever to manage user information. Enable this feature today! Go to the User Management Settings page in Setup and enable the Enhanced User List View. Then, select Users to access the enhanced page.
User information has been streamlined on the enhanced User Access Summary page, making it simpler to view and manage. The standard and custom user fields displayed on the summary page now align with the User Details section of the user’s assigned profile page layout. Access the View Summary from a user record in Setup. It’s pretty cool. You can even see how permissions are granted, whether it’s a permission set, permission set group, or profile. No more needing to spend so much time sleuthing around.
Simplify managing public group membership with our enhanced public group summary page. You can handle the users, roles, and nested groups within a public group easier than ever before. You can search through all current and available members, adding or removing up to 100 members simultaneously. Now that’s a productivity booster! Additionally, you can edit and delete the selected public group directly from its summary page.
You know I’m all about completing those description fields in Salesforce as an admin best practice. Add a description to your public group or queue when you create or edit them. This way, you can provide a brief overview of the group or queue’s purpose, function, and any relevant information, making it easier for your team to understand the intent of this public group/queue and minimize confusion.
Formula creation in reports just got simpler with help from Einstein! Einstein Report Formula Generation helps you create row-level and summary formulas by handling the technical aspects for you. Just describe the calculation, and Einstein will identify the relevant data and suggest a formula. By leveraging Einstein’s AI capabilities, admins can quickly generate accurate formulas without needing deep technical expertise. Previously, creating formulas for calculated fields required in-depth knowledge of data models, objects and fields, available functions, and the various limitations of data and formula types.
Note: This applies to Lightning Experience in Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, and Developer Editions with Einstein 1 Sales Edition or Einstein 1 Service Edition and the DC Report GPT add-on.
The improved Custom Report Type page in Setup makes it easier to find your report types and create personalized list views of your custom report types. With the summary page, now a more compact layout, you can edit report details and modify object relationships more efficiently. The redesigned report type layout editor offers greater flexibility in managing custom fields and sections, and you can now add up to 1,000 fields in the report type layout using lookup fields. Simply go to the Reports and Dashboards Settings page in Setup, and enable the Enhanced Custom Report Type Setup Page (Beta).
Once you click the Edit Layout button on the report type summary page, you’ll see a fields panel. From there, you can drag fields into their appropriate section, search and move fields, view field details and customize their display names, quickly find fields, and add them to the report type by using the lookup fields.
Now, you can analyze and build standard reports directly from Calculated Insights, the data model object (DMO) list view, or the object’s record page, making the report creation process seamless and integrated. Simply select Create Report from an object’s Actions menu. Previously, you could only generate these reports from the Reports tab.
Create or update multiple records more efficiently using just the Create Records element! Now, you can create or update multiple records based on whether a specified field value exists in Salesforce, in addition to the single records previously. This enhancement streamlines the process of saving records, eliminating the need to separately check to see if the records exist. By merging create and update operations into one element, you can configure and maintain your flows easier, reducing potential errors. There’s great benefit in using record collections for multiple records versus manually setting the field values.
The first GIF shows the ability to use a record variable to create a new record or update an existing one.
The second GIF shows the ability to use a record collection variable to create multiple new records or update multiple existing records.
Creating new variable and constant flow resources in Flow Builder just got easier! Resource grouping is now available for Text, Number, Currency, Boolean, Date, and Date/Time data types, so you can quickly locate the resources you need. Create a variable or constant resource, select the appropriate data type (Text, Number, Currency, Boolean, Date, and Date/Time), and in the Default Value field, enter a value or search for existing resources. The clickable breadcrumb path helps you keep track of your location and navigate through resource groups.
Get advice on following best practices when building flows with flow tips. New tips are now available to help you spot potential design issues that impact flow performance and potentially hit governor limits. Tips appear on the bottom-right in the flow canvas, offering guidance on how to enhance your flow’s performance. Address these suggestions so you can keep your flows running smoothly and steer clear of potential issues. Let’s build smarter, not harder!
Troubleshooting flow errors just got easier! Using the new Errors and Warnings pane in Flow Builder, view issues that prevent you from saving and activating your flow, presented in a user-friendly format. Show the pane with the Show Error icon in the button bar, which features a notification badge displaying the total number of issues that need your attention.
Finding the child resource of an element in a flow is now more intuitive than ever! When working with a screen component within a Screen element, directly search for and select the child resource right from the resource menu. No more selecting the parent element first and then choosing the child resource. This change applies to child resources in screen components, screen actions, Decision element outcomes, and Wait element configurations. The GIF shows that you can search the child resource in resource picker and select it directly without needing to go through the parent element first.
Amazing news, flow builder! You’ll rejoice with this update to the Send Email Action in Flow Builder: The maximum total number of recipient email addresses has increased from five to 150. WHAT?! This enhancement makes your email communications more flexible and powerful. And, you can add CC and BCC recipients to emails sent using the Send Email action. Any address entered in the CC field will receive a copy of the email. Those in the BCC field will also get a copy, but their addresses will be hidden from all other recipients.
View the maximum number of scheduled flows your org can run daily, ensuring you stay within your limits. This is a big leap forward where previously you could only see the ID of the record on which the debug operation ran and the number of records impacted. Why is this a game-changer? By knowing your daily limits upfront, you can plan and execute more efficiently, avoiding those dreaded halted flows. Seeing the scheduled flows limit is especially crucial for large organizations where flow limits can quickly become a bottleneck. With this new insight, you’re empowered to keep your processes running like a well-oiled machine. Simply go into Debug Details and scroll down to the Affected Records section to view your daily org limit.
Now, you can use the Transform element in Flow Builder to set the target resource to primitive data types like Text, Numbers, Currency, Boolean, Date, and Date/Time. Previously, the Transform element only supported complex data types such as Record or Apex-defined. A great use case for the Transform element is for converting a record collection into a collection of IDs to use in an In operator or the default value for a multi-select Lookup screen component.
You can now test your flow’s behavior and troubleshoot issues in your template-triggered prompt flows in Flow Builder. How cool is that? When you hit that Debug button, you can provide input values to test specific conditions. This means you can see exactly how your flow will behave in different scenarios, making troubleshooting a breeze.
Why, that’s a mouthful. Say that five times fast! I’m really happy to see that we can now add a subflow in template-triggered prompt flows (let’s call them prompt flows, for short). Avoid creating overly-complex prompt flows and repeating common tasks in each one. Chunk out your prompt flow into a smaller flow that performs a specific task, and reuse this prompt flow in other prompt flows as a Subflow element. Create and maintain it once but reuse multiple times. Now that’s how Awesome Admins work smarter, not harder!
Action buttons bring such power to your screen flows. Your users can trigger a screen action with the click of a button on a screen. A screen action runs an autolaunched flow, and the results can be displayed right on the same screen as the button. The Product team has made some fantastic improvements to the beta feature now that it’s GA.
![Refresh inputs and outputs feature of action button.]](https://d3nqfz2gm66yqg.cloudfront.net/images/20240816130101/ActionButtonInputOutputRefresh.gif)
You can now disable even more screen components with ease, such as the Action Button, Dependent Picklist, Lookup, Phone, and Slider, thanks to the Disabled field. When you set this field to true, users won’t be able to interact with or change any fields within that component. Plus, a sleek, gray background on the input fields provides a clear visual cue for users. Simply add an Action Button, Dependent Picklist, Lookup, Phone, or Slider component to your Screen element in a flow. Then, set the Disabled field to a Boolean resource conditionally by setting the Disabled field using a Formula resource that returns true.
The Repeater component just got even better. We can prepopulate data and empower end users to make changes to a collection of records within a screen flow. Using the Repeater component, when a record collection data source is included, a Repeater instance is dynamically generated for each item in that collection. You configure what is displayed by mapping the values into the Repeater child component. With this enhancement, you can access multiple output collections from the Repeater component.
With new display options, you can also choose whether screen flow end users can add new items or remove prepopulated items in your Repeater instance. Note that end users can always remove items they added manually. Previously, the Repeater component only supported creating records, no prepopulated data option. Now, your users can easily modify existing data that we already know.
Based on the operations performed by the end user, you can process Added, All Items (essentially any data in the Repeater component, excludes removed items), Prepopulated, and Removed Items collections. For example, to create new records and update existing ones, reference the All Items output collection and use the new update existing records option in the Create Records element to save all changes.
Ooooh, the Choice Lookup component just got a nice upgrade. Configure it so that users can make a single selection OR multiple selections (up to 25 choices!). Prior to Winter ’25, the Choice Lookup only handled single selection. Now, you can streamline your business processes more effectively. Up until now, only the Lookup component had the capability to select multiple choices through a lookup field.
When you have multiple similar custom components in the same Screen element, you can now see the component’s label or API name to easily distinguish between the same custom components.
Prior to this change, understanding the role and function of each custom component was anyone’s guess.
Ever wanted to reuse a step in a stage or view the steps in a different order? Now, you can! Simply copy a step and paste it into the same stage or another stage within the orchestration. Need to rearrange steps? Just drag them within the stage. While dragging steps changes their order of appearance, it doesn’t affect the order they run in. And here’s a handy tip: If a step has a description, hover over the description icon to see it without editing the step.
Make your orchestration views exactly the way you want them! Customize how the Flow Orchestration Work Guide component appears on each record page you add it to. Configure it to work differently on different pages without affecting its look in Lightning App Builder. Set a custom title for the component, choose a default sort order for orchestration work items, and decide whether to show or hide the orchestration run name, stage name, and step name for all work items displayed. Plus, you can even hide the component for users who have no assigned work items.
Conserve credits while still accessing the most relevant data to enhance your CRM objects. Using the new copy field enrichment feature, define a filter to copy only the records from a source object that meet that specific criteria. Previously, all records with a matching fully qualified key or data source ID were copied, regardless of relevance. In Setup, select Enrichments, click New to create a copy field enrichment, and then provide your filter criteria.
When you create a sandbox that has Data Cloud, we will replicate your copy field enrichment configurations in the sandbox.
Tired of googling formula syntax? Well, formula creation just got better with Einstein. Describe your formula and have Einstein create the flow formula for you in Start element entry criteria and Formula resources.
To enable this feature, turn on Einstein Generative AI in Setup, go to the Process Automation Settings page, and enable the Enable Einstein-Created Formulas setting.
Note: This feature is only available in Lightning Experience for all Einstein 1 Editions, Enterprise, Performance, and Unlimited Editions with the Einstein for Sales, Einstein for Service, or Einstein for Platform add-on. Contact your Salesforce Account Executive (AE) for more information.
Tired of copying and pasting your instructions to start over when you use Einstein for Flow to create your starter flows? Once Einstein creates a flow for you, you can now create a new flow by simply editing your instructions right in Flow Builder, navigate between versions of the flow, or start all over.
To enable this feature, turn on Einstein Generative AI in Setup, find and select Einstein for Flow (Beta), and activate it.
Note: This feature is only available in Lightning Experience for all Einstein 1 Editions, Enterprise, Performance, and Unlimited Editions with the Einstein for Sales, Einstein for Service, or Einstein for Platform add-on. Contact your Salesforce AE for more information.
As part of your release preparation activities, you should review the release updates to ensure you’re aware of upcoming updates that can impact your org. Give yourself and your team ample time to test and activate them before Salesforce enforces the updates in your org. Nothing good ever comes from scrambling at the last minute.
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.
To be enforced in Winter ’25. Once the “Prevent Guest User from Editing or Deleting Approval Requests” release update is enabled, guest users will only be able to approve or reject approval requests; they will no longer be able to edit, reassign, or delete them. This update is crucial as it enhances the security and integrity of approval processes by limiting the actions that guest users can perform. Only permitting guest users to approve or reject requests minimizes the risk of unauthorized updates, reassignments, or deletions of approval requests.
Scheduled to be enforced in Spring ’25. With this update, only users who have the “View Roles and Role Hierarchy” permission can see or select roles from your org’s role list when editing the visibility of public list views. If your org doesn’t use roles, you won’t be impacted by this release update. Restricting this capability to users with the appropriate permissions prevents unauthorized updates and maintains the integrity of your data visibility settings.
Scheduled to be enforced in Winter ’26. This release update enhances the security of flow execution. By restricting flow access to only users with specific profiles or permission sets to run flows, you reduce the risk of unauthorized actions and maintain the integrity of your workflows. Enabling this update will deprecate the FlowSites org permission, which previously meant all users in the org could run any flow.
Starting in Spring ’25, you can apply stricter validation to the flow URL parameter that decides where users get redirected after completing a screen flow. What does this mean for you? Salesforce will now block requests to redirect users to URLs that don’t meet these new validation requirements unless they’re on your list of trusted URLs in Setup. If a request gets blocked, users will see an invalid-page redirection error.
Each release brings tons of amazing, new functionality and it can be a lot to digest. Over the next 2 months, we’ll publish blogs and videos to help you prepare to get the most out of this release! Bookmark Be Release Ready and check back regularly as we continue to add new Winter ’25 resources for Salesforce Admins.
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