Understand the Financial Services Cloud Release Process

Learning Objectives

After completing this module, you’ll be able to:

• Describe the release process for Financial Services Cloud.
  
• Determine where your Salesforce org fits into the schedule.
  

Coming Soon to an Org Near You

Let’s talk about releases. Salesforce delivers cool new functionality to our customers three times a year in our Spring, Summer, and Winter releases. Major Financial Services Cloud releases are tied to and directly follow the three major Salesforce releases. After each general Salesforce release is over, a Financial Services Cloud release starts. 

All major Salesforce and Financial Services Cloud releases happen during off-hours, and they never cause downtime for you or your customers.

But what if Salesforce has an update to Financial Services Cloud that can’t wait for a major release? To address bug fixes and minor changes, we use weekly patch releases. Patch releases don’t necessarily happen every single week. We sometimes skip a week here or there, like when there’s a major release or big event like Dreamforce. 

If you completed other modules on the Inspire Customer Loyalty with Financial Services Cloud trail, you likely remember Matt the admin. Matt views the major Salesforce releases as blockbuster movies: They come out just a few times a year; they're highly anticipated, and they’re chock-full of exciting innovations.

On the other hand, he views the patch releases as more like TV shows—short and sweet, and running almost every week.

What’s My Org’s Release Date?

As an admin, you need to keep track of the major Salesforce releases so you can make sure your org is ready for the next big update. Let’s follow along as Matt takes just a few easy steps to access the Salesforce release calendar. 

1. Go to Salesforce Status. The site provides real-time performance and service availability of various Salesforce products.
   
2. In the Search field at the top, enter your org's My Domain name and press Enter. Matt’s org's name is cantrell15. Under My Domains, the org and the instance that its hosted on, appear in the search result.
   
3. Click the org name to see more detailed information.
   

This handy page tells you everything you need to know. Let’s stop here and take a look around.

1. Your org's My Domain name is at the top.
   
2. Next to it is the name of the instance that hosts your org.
   
3. On the sidebar, you can see the release your org is currently using. In this example, it’s the Spring ’21 release, Patch 12.4.
   
4. The Current Status tab gives you a nifty summary of how your instance is performing right now.
   
5. The History tab shows you details about your instance’s performance in the past.
   
6. The Maintenance tab provides a timeline of the upcoming releases—this is just what Matt is looking for.
   
   

Matt clicks the Maintenance tab and sees a list of upcoming major Salesforce and Financial Services Cloud releases.

What Actions Do I Need to Take?

While the release itself happens automatically, most customers need to perform some tasks before and after the upgrade to make sure that the process runs smoothly. Before each major release, Salesforce sends you an email describing any changes you must make before and after the release. Follow those instructions to ensure the upgrade goes smoothly.

Before the upgrade, make sure that you haven’t created any configurations that the release will overwrite or that will be in conflict with the new release. Here are a few examples.

• Customizations to packaged compact layouts will be overwritten with the default configuration in each release. To avoid the overwrite, clone the packaged compact layout, customize the cloned version, and then assign it to your user profiles.
  
• Deactivation of packaged record types will lead to upgrade failures. Instead, unassign the record type from the record type settings section on all user profiles.
  
• Deactivation of packaged sales and lead processes will lead to upgrade failures. Instead, dissociate the sales or lead process from all opportunity and lead record types.
  

To learn more about potential configuration conflicts in packages (Financial Services Cloud is a managed package), check out the packages-related links in the Resources section.

After the release, go through each post-upgrade step in the Financial Services Cloud Upgrade Guide to enable and set up new features.

Resources

• Salesforce Site: Use the Salesforce Trust Site
• Salesforce Help: First-Generation Managed Packages
• Salesforce Developers: Components Available in First-Generation Managed Packages