Go Live with Lightning Experience
Learning Objectives
- Describe key Lightning Experience features to implement for your users.
- Identify transition tools to help adjust any existing Salesforce customizations that need attention.
- Launch Lightning Experience by giving users access to the new interface.
- Verify that Lightning Experience is turned on in your org.
Set Up Your Org and Users for Lightning Experience
With your rollout plan in place, it’s time to prepare your org and users for Lightning Experience so you can go live. We’ll walk through the recommended steps for implementing Lightning Experience features and adjusting existing customizations to work in Lightning Experience. Then we’ll look at how to give users access to the new interface.
Let’s dive into the details.
Implement Recommended Lightning Experience Features
Take advantage of the hundreds of innovative features in Lightning Experience to transform how users work. There’s a lot to choose from, so start with the features that best benefit the users in the current rollout group. Then keep iterating over time to add even more value.
- Activity Timeline
- Give users an easier, more efficient way to keep track of current and past activities. All the key details for each task, meeting, logged call, and sent email are bundled together, right on the page with other record details.
- Shared Activities
- Represent activity relationships more accurately by letting your sales reps relate multiple contacts to individual events and tasks. Shared Activities is forever. After the feature’s enabled, it can’t be disabled.
- Enhanced Notes
- Help your users stay organized with our enhanced note-taking tool. It’s a breeze to create rich-text notes and quickly relate them to specific records. When you turn on Enhanced Notes, remember to add the new Notes related list to page layouts. Adding the Notes related list lets your users create and read notes directly from their records.
- Salesforce Files
- Leverage the rich features and flexibility of Salesforce Files from standard Salesforce objects and your custom objects. Add the new Files related list to page layouts. Adding the Files related list lets users upload files to records, see files associated with records, and quickly page through files in the visually rich preview player.
- Path
- To work more efficiently or close more deals, help your users adopt your company’s processes. Set up a process based on an object’s status or stage. Add guidance for success at each step in the process.
- News
- Give your reps instant access to relevant, timely news about their accounts, contacts, leads, and opportunities. This feature is available only in English, so if your org uses a different primary language, consider whether you want this option.
- Home Page
- Give your users everything they need to manage their day from the Lightning Experience Home page. Sales reps can see their quarterly performance summary and get important updates on critical tasks and opportunities. You can also customize the page for different types of users and assign custom pages for different profiles.
- Duplicate Management
- To alert users when they’re about to create a duplicate record, create duplicate rules. Duplicate rules establish whether and when users can create duplicate records in Salesforce.
- Lead Conversion
- Keep the sales process moving by letting your sales reps convert qualified leads to contacts. At the time of conversion, sales reps select an account for the newly created contact, or create an account if it’s not yet in Salesforce. Reps can also create an opportunity on the spot. Add the Convert button to the Lead page layout.
- Lightning Apps
- Help users work more efficiently by giving them access to all the data and tools they need. What’s most important to sales reps? Accounts, events, and organizations. How about sales managers? Reports and dashboards make the top of the list. Lightning apps take things to another level past Classic apps by letting you brand your apps with a custom color, logo, and utility bar.
- Lightning Console Apps
- Have users in fast-paced environments like call centers or contact centers? Console apps are perfect for these situations. Users can view multiple records and their related records on the same screen, and quickly work through records from a list using split view. It’s easy to jump back-and-forth between lists and records without losing track of what you’re working on.
You can enable some of these recommended features from the Lightning Experience Transition Assistant, which is available in Setup. Just look for the Lightning Experience Transition Assistant tile at the top of the Setup menu.
Adjust Existing Salesforce Customizations
Most of your Salesforce customizations work as-is in Lightning Experience. But there may be some aspects of your implementation that require a little attention for best results. We already talked about running the Lightning Experience Readiness Check to get a report of issues for your org. If your Readiness Report shows there’s work to do, use our handy transition tools to speed things up.
Issue | Transition Tool | Details |
---|---|---|
Missing actions and buttons | Lightning Experience Configuration Converter — Actions and Buttons tab | If some actions, such as Log a Call and New Tasks, are missing on pages in Lightning Experience, use the Configuration Converter to automatically get them into the right places. |
JavaScript buttons, links, and alerts | Lightning Experience Configuration Converter — JavaScript Buttons tab | JavaScript buttons, links, and alerts aren’t supported in Lightning Experience. Use the Configuration Converter to scan your org for these elements. The tool can automatically recreate many buttons, links, and alerts as Lightning-friendly alternatives. And it provides guidance on how to manually recreate items that can’t be automatically converted. |
Hard-coded URLs | Lightning Experience Configuration Converter — Hard-Coded URLs tab | Hard-coded references to your org’s instanced URL, such as https://na189.salesforce.com, aren’t recommended, because your instance name can change with an org migration. Use your org's My Domain login URL instead. You can find your org's My Domain login URL on the My Domain Setup page. Then use the Configuration Converter to locate your hard-coded URLs and update them with one click. |
Visualforce pages | Lightning Experience Configuration Converter — Visualforce Pages tab | Most Visualforce pages work as-is in Lightning Experience. But there
are a few Salesforce Classic features and attributes that aren’t compatible with the
new interface. The Configuration Converter scans your org for pages that might need
modification and provides instructions on how to proceed. You can also use the tool to automatically apply the Lightning look-and-feel to your Visualforce pages, without affecting how they appear in Salesforce Classic. |
AppExchange packages | Lightning Experience Configuration Converter — AppExchange Packages tab | Scan your org for AppExchange packages and find out which ones are ready for Lightning Experience and which should be updated or replaced. |
Attachments and classic notes | Magic Mover for Notes and Attachments tool | Move your org off attachments and classic notes so you can give your users a better experience and stop supporting unnecessary features. Download this Salesforce Labs app from AppExchange, then run it to automate the conversion of classic notes to enhanced notes and attachments to Salesforce Files. |
Classic Knowledge base | Lightning Knowledge Migration tool | If your company uses Classic Knowledge, Lightning Experience users must switch to Salesforce Classic to do things like find or create Knowledge articles. Moving your Classic knowledge base into Lightning Knowledge gives your Lightning Experience users a seamless experience and much better workflow. When you’re ready, the Lightning Knowledge Migration Tool does most of the heavy lifting for you. |
To learn more about each of these tools, see Adjust Your Existing Customizations in Salesforce Help.
Set Up User Access to Lightning Experience
As you execute your rollout plan to launch Lightning Experience, make sure that the right users are getting access to the new interface. You can fine-tune access with permission sets and custom profiles, which is great for doing a phased rollout to a pilot group or specific teams of users. Or go for it and set your entire organization loose if things are ready for everyone. You can also control who immediately switches to the new interface, who stays in Salesforce Classic until they switch themselves, and who can’t switch back to the classic interface. The power is yours.
Decide Who Can Use Lightning Experience
Users require the Lightning Experience User permission to access Lightning Experience. By default, this permission is automatically enabled for all users with a standard Salesforce profile. Custom profiles don’t usually include the permission.
Custom profile users: Decide who gets Lightning Experience access now and who you’ll set up later. Consider these options.
- Want to roll out Lightning Experience to a subset of custom profile users without giving access to everyone assigned to the profile? Create a permission set that includes the Lightning Experience User permission. Then apply the permission set to the desired users.
- Ready to roll out Lightning Experience to everyone assigned to a specific custom profile? Or do you want to enable all your custom profile users? Adding the Lightning Experience User permission to profiles is the fastest way to mass-enable the new user interface for users.
- Have you created any custom profiles by cloning a standard profile? Starting with Winter ’16, custom profiles inherit the Lightning Experience User permission from standard profiles. You can edit these profiles to disable the user permission, as needed.
Standard profile users: If you’re not ready for some of these users to access Lightning Experience yet, move them to custom profiles that don’t include the Lightning Experience User permission.
What Happens When Users Get Access to Lightning Experience
-
Users who existed when Lightning Experience was turned on
All users who existed at the time Lightning Experience was enabled retain Salesforce Classic as their default interface. This is true whether a user already had the Lightning Experience User permission or was assigned the user permission at a later date. It doesn’t matter if the user permission is assigned via a standard profile, a custom profile that has the permission enabled, or a permission set.
-
Users added after Lightning Experience is turned on
Things change for users who are added to your org after Lightning Experience was enabled. These users get Lightning Experience as their default interface when they’re assigned the Lightning Experience User permission—whether at the time they’re added to the system or at a later date. Again, it doesn’t matter if the user permission comes from a standard profile, a custom profile that has the permission enabled, or a permission set.
Lightning Experience-enabled users can continue accessing Salesforce Classic! These users automatically get the Switcher, which allows them to switch between the new and classic interfaces, as needed.
Manage Access to Salesforce Classic
When you’re ready for users to call Lightning Experience home, there are several options for driving adoption. Choose what’s right for each user.
- Encourage users to stay in Lightning Experience by automatically switching them out of Salesforce Classic on a daily or weekly schedule. Users can return to the classic interface, but they’ll keep getting switched back to Lightning Experience at the next scheduled interval. See Encourage Users to Stay in Lightning Experience.
- Start cutting the cord to Salesforce Classic. For users who have everything they need in the new interface, remove the Switcher link. See Make Lightning Experience the Only Experience for Some Users.
- When you’re ready for everyone to dive into Lightning Experience without looking back, turn off Salesforce Classic access altogether. See Turn Off Salesforce Classic for Your Org.
Set the Default Interface to Lightning Experience
When users are trained and ready to do their jobs in Lightning Experience, give them a head start by making it their default interface. You can assign the default interface on a user-by-user basis.
- From Setup in Lightning Experience, enter Lightning in the Quick Find box, then select Lightning Experience Transition Assistant. From Setup in Salesforce Classic, click Get Started in the Lightning Experience Transition Assistant tile at the top of the menu.
- Select the Roll Out phase.
- Click Launch Lightning Experience to expand the stage.
- Click Switch Users next to Make Lightning Experience the
default interface.
You see at a glance which users have the Lightning Experience User permission and can be switched, which users are already using Lightning Experience as their default environment, and which users can’t be switched because they don’t have the Lightning Experience User permission yet.
- Click the + button next to the users you want to switch.
- Save your selections.
Selected users automatically see Lightning Experience the next time they log in to Salesforce.
You can’t use this tool to switch a user’s default interface back to Salesforce Classic. But a user can switch back to the classic interface on their own, using the Switcher in their profile menu.
Verify that Lightning Experience is Turned On
On January 7, 2020, the Turn on Lightning Experience critical update automatically enabled Lightning Experience for orgs that hadn’t already done so. To verify that Lightning Experience is turned on for your org, use the Lightning Experience Transition Assistant.
- From Setup, select the Transition Assistant tile at the top of the menu (1).
- Select the Roll Out phase (2).
- Click Launch Lightning Experience to expand the stage (3).
After Lightning Experience is turned on for your org, the Turn on Lightning Experience toggle (4) is grayed out. It’s not possible to disable Lightning Experience after it has been turned on.
When Lightning Experience is enabled, users who have the Lightning Experience User permission can switch themselves between the new and classic interfaces, as needed. Let’s see how that works.
Switching Between Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic
Ideally, Lightning Experience meets the needs of everyone in your org. But just in case someone needs to access a feature or tool that’s in the classic interface, we provide the Switcher. All users who have access to Lightning Experience automatically get the Switcher. Which they can use to...wait for it...switch between Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic anytime they need.
Where is the Switcher?
In the Lightning Experience header, click the profile picture and select Switch to Salesforce Classic.

In the Salesforce Classic header, click Switch to Lightning Experience. (The Switcher link is also available from a user’s profile menu.)

A Few Switcher Gotchas
Switching between Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic affects the underlying URL routing logic and can lead to some unexpected results when links are resolved. There can be snags with bookmarks and sharing links in emails or Chatter posts—especially if only a subset of your users are working in Lightning Experience.
Keep these details in mind if you’re rolling out Lightning Experience in phases.
- If a user clicks a link to something that’s not supported in Lightning Experience, Salesforce switches to Salesforce Classic in a new tab while the original Lightning Experience window stays open.
- Users who don’t have the Lightning Experience User permission aren’t able to access links to Lightning Experience pages, including links that are shared in email or posted to Chatter.
Resources
- Trailhead: Lightning Experience Rollout
- Trailhead: Lightning Experience Features
- Blog: Pro Tip: Boost Productivity with Activity Actions in Lightning Experience
- Blog: Pro Tip: Tailor the Activity Timeline for Your Lightning Experience Users
- Blog: Pro Tip: Boost Note-Taking with Enhanced Notes in Lightning Experience
- Blog: Pro Tip: Simplify File Management with Salesforce Files in Lightning Experience
- Help: Guide Users with Path
- Help: Set Up the Lightning Experience Home Page
- Help: Console in Lightning Experience
- Help: Adjust Your Existing Customizations
- Video: Lightning Experience Transition Tools
- Help: Get Started with the Lightning Experience Configuration Converter
- Video: Convert Your JavaScript Buttons
- Video: Prepare your Visualforce Pages
- Video: Prepare Your Salesforce Apps for Lightning Experience
- Video: Lightning Experience at Your Pace
- Help: Profiles
- Help: Permission Sets