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Start Your Lightning Experience Rollout

Learning Objectives

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

  • Use the Lightning Experience Transition Assistant as your one-stop shop for transition tools, resources, and help.
  • Describe some of the major feature differences between Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic.
  • Describe potential issues with existing Salesforce customizations, and know where to get more details.
  • Evaluate your org’s readiness for Lightning Experience.

It’s Time for Lightning Experience

The time for Lightning Experience is now! All new Salesforce innovation is in Lightning Experience only. If you’re still using Salesforce Classic, it isn’t going away yet. But you obviously want to get all the features and functionality that your company is entitled to. That means launching Lightning Experience as soon as possible.

As an admin, you are your company’s trusted advisor for all things Salesforce and you’ll help decide how to prepare for and roll out Lightning Experience. We have tools and resources standing by to guide you along the way.

Your One-Stop Shop for Rolling Out Lightning Experience

Moving to Lightning Experience can be simple or more complicated, depending on the age and complexity of org and the number and types of users you have. Either way, you’ll find all the tools, resources, and help that you need in a single place—the Lightning Experience Transition Assistant. The Transition Assistant wraps everything up in a set of checklists that guide you through the process and keep you organized and on track.

Lightning Experience Transition Assistant

Based on our experiences and those of the thousands of Salesforce customers who’ve already made the move to Lightning Experience, we identified the recommended steps and best practices for completing a successful rollout. For easier manageability, we broke up the steps into three phases. You don’t have to do everything, but following along with the Transition Assistant ensures you won’t miss anything that’s important for your org.

Phases and stages in the Lightning Experience Transition Assistant

The Transition Assistant is available from Setup. From Salesforce Classic, click Get Started in the Lightning Experience Transition Assistant tile at the top of the Setup menu.

One of the first steps is to evaluate your org’s readiness so you can define your business and technical requirements, decide what your implementation will look like, and determine the level of effort for the project. Let’s take a closer look.

Supported Editions and User Licenses for Lightning Experience

Lightning Experience is available with these Salesforce editions and licenses.

Table 1. Salesforce Editions

Supported Editions

Unsupported Editions

  • Group Edition
  • Essentials Edition
  • Professional Edition
  • Enterprise Edition
  • Performance Edition
  • Unlimited Edition
  • Developer Edition
  • Personal Edition
  • Contact Manager Edition
  • Database.com Edition
  • Chatter.com Edition

Table 2. Salesforce User Licenses

Supported Licenses

Unsupported Licenses

  • Salesforce
  • All Salesforce Platform and Lightning Platform (excluding Force.com - Free)
  • Identity User
  • Company (Employee) Community
  • Chatter External
  • Chatter Plus
  • Chatter Free
  • Force.com - Free
  • WDC
  • Database.com
  • Content Only
  • Ideas Only
  • Knowledge Only
  • Site.com Only

Important

Important

To learn about browser options and limitations for Lightning Experience, see Supported Browsers for Lightning Experience in Salesforce Help.

If your org still uses Internet Explorer 11, be aware that we’re in the process of retiring support for this browser. There are significant performance issues when running Lightning Experience in IE11. Even if you opt into the extended support option for IE11, we recommend moving your users to an alternate modern browser like Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge as soon as possible.

Comparing Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic

To help users get things done faster, Lightning Experience delivers hundreds of exclusive features and redesigned classic features. Lightning Experience has good parity with Salesforce Classic, and the few remaining classic feature gaps are shrinking with each new Salesforce release. Here are some highlights of how Lightning Experience compares to — and surpasses — what you’re used to in Salesforce Classic.

Note

Note

This isn’t a comprehensive list of supported and unsupported features. For a more detailed list, see Lightning Experience Considerations in Salesforce Help.

Salesforce Data

Feature

Lightning Experience

Salesforce Classic

Sales data for:

  • Accounts
  • Campaigns
  • Contacts
  • Contracts
  • Leads
  • Opportunities
  • Orders
  • Person Accounts
  • Price Books
  • Products
  • Quotes

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Calendar, Events, Tasks

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Service data for:

  • Assets
  • Basic Cases
  • Lightning Knowledge
  • Work Orders

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Custom objects

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Chatter feeds, groups, and people

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Salesforce Files

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Other Sales and Service objects

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Home

An intelligent page filled with insights, a slick performance chart, and a helpful assistant feature, highlighting what’s most important each day.

Feature

Lightning Experience

Salesforce Classic

Performance chart

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Assistant

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News

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Key deals

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Tasks

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Events1

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Calendar1

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Feed and publisher

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Items to approve

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Customizable dashboards

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Customizable home page components

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1 In Lightning Experience, Home show events remaining on a user's calendar today. Users can access all their events from the Calendar tab in the navigation bar.

Accounts and Contacts

Sales and service reps get a layout designed to help them find the information they need, fast.

Feature

Lightning Experience

Salesforce Classic

News

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Path

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Activity timeline

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Contacts to Multiple Accounts

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Account Logos

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Automated Account Fields

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Notes

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“Reference” page layout

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Related lists

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Integrated email and templates

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Twitter highlights

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Person accounts

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Account teams

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Account hierarchy

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Contact hierarchy

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Find and merge duplicate accounts and contacts

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Matching and duplicate rules for business accounts, person accounts, and contacts

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Opportunities and Leads

Sales reps in Lightning Experience find a turbo-charged workspace for managing opportunities and leads. View related information in the Quick View. Create tasks and events, log calls, and send emails, and track all those activities in the Activity Timeline.

Opportunities

Feature

Lightning Experience

Salesforce Classic

Workspace page layout

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Activity timeline

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Path

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Notes

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Visual view of opportunities (Kanban)

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Integrated email and templates

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Opportunity teams

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Opportunity splits

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Similar opportunities

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Big deal alerts

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Leads

Feature

Lightning Experience

Salesforce Classic

Workspace page layout

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Activity timeline

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Path

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News

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Notes

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Change lead owner to a queue

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Integrated email and templates

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Lead conversion customization via the API

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Find and merge duplicate leads

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Matching and duplicate rules for leads

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Kanban View

Sales reps can use the Kanban view, a visualization tool, to review deals organized by each stage in the pipeline. With drag-and-drop functionality, sales reps can move deals from one stage to another, and get personalized alerts on key deals in flight. Kanban is available on opportunities, leads, tasks, and many other objects.

Feature

Lightning Experience

Salesforce Classic

Charts

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Drag and drop

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Intelligent Alerts

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Type-ahead list view search

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Sharing settings

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Data.com

Feature

Lightning Experience

Salesforce Classic

Data.com Prospector: Search for companies and import them as accounts

Accessed via the Get More Accounts button on the Accounts list view. You can filter on the following fields:

  • Annual Revenue
  • Company or Website
  • Country or Territory
  • Location Type
  • State

To filter on other fields, use a web tab.

See Get More Accounts Using Data.com in Lightning Experience.

Accessed via the Data.com tab or Search Global Ultimate DUNS button on D&B Company records.

Data.com Prospector: Search for contacts and import them as contacts

Users can search for a contact when it’s related to an existing account. On the account detail page, click the Get More Contacts button, and use the search box and filters.

To search for other contacts, use a web tab.

See Prospect for Key Contacts in Your Accounts Using Lightning Experience.

Accessed via the Data.com tab or Get Contacts button on accounts.

See Prospect for Key Contacts in Your Accounts Using Salesforce Classic.

Data.com Prospector: Search for contacts and import them as leads

Web tab required.

Accessed via the Data.com tab.

Data.com Prospector: Export companies or contacts to a .csv file

Web tab required.

Accessed via the Data.com tab.

Data.com Prospector: See key company insights on accounts

Accessed via the Get More Insights button on accounts.

See Prospecting Insights in Lightning Experience.

Accessed via the Prospecting Insights button on accounts.

Data.com Prospector: See key company insights on opportunities

Accessed via the Get More Insights button on opportunities.

See Prospecting Insights in Lightning Experience.

Not available.

Data.com Prospector: Prospect for accounts within the same corporate hierarchy

On accounts and opportunities, accessed via the Get More Insights button (Data.com Insights component) or via the Company Hierarchy component.

See Prospecting Insights in Lightning Experience.

Accessed via the Company Hierarchy button on accounts.

Data.com Clean: Administrative settings

Not available. Use Salesforce Classic to administer Clean jobs and configure Clean settings.

Administer Clean jobs, and configure Clean settings.

Data.com Clean: Clean accounts with company data

Bulk cleaning: Clean jobs for accounts.

Manual cleaning: Available using the Company Info for Accounts data integration rule (Premium Clean required).

See Update Accounts and Leads with Key Company Information.

Bulk cleaning: Clean jobs for accounts.

Manual cleaning: Clean button on accounts.

Data.com Clean: Clean contacts with contact data

Bulk cleaning: Clean jobs for contacts.

Manual cleaning: Available using Data.com Contact Clean, a free component from Salesforce Labs on AppExchange.

Bulk cleaning: Clean jobs for contacts.

Manual cleaning: Clean button on contacts.

Data.com Clean: Clean leads with contact data

Bulk cleaning: Clean jobs for leads.

Manual cleaning: Not available.

Bulk cleaning: Clean jobs for leads.

Manual cleaning: Clean button on leads.

Data.com Clean: Clean leads with company data

Available using the Company Info for Leads data integration rule (Premium Clean required).

See Update Accounts and Leads with Key Company Information.

Not available.

Data.com Clean: View and refresh D&B company records

Accessible via a link on an account or lead. A Salesforce Classic tab opens. The tab doesn’t interrupt the user’s Lightning Experience session.

Accessible via a link on accounts or leads and from the D&B Companies tab.

Collaborative Forecasts

Feature

Lightning Experience

Salesforce Classic

Forecasting on:

  • Opportunity splits
  • Overlay splits
  • Custom currency fields on opportunities
  • Product families

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Custom measure (currency and number) forecasts on Opportunity, Opportunity Product, Opportunity Split, and Line Item Schedule

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Revenue and quantity forecasts

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Product and schedule date forecasts

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Territory forecasts

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Forecast sharing

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Manager and owner adjustments

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Cumulative forecast rollups

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Support for multiple currencies

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Quotas

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Forecast hierarchy

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Choose the product families to forecast on and the order they appear in (from Setup, if the product family forecasts feature is selected)

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Forecasts grid organized first by period, product family, and then user to show product family forecast totals

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Forecasts grid expansion remains the same during each session

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Timestamp showing refresh time and date

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All-zero rows hidden for all forecast types

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Adjust your own product family forecasts

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Opportunity split details in the opportunities list

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Adjustable column width

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Quota attainment information

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Jump to the forecasts of users you have access to view

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Forecasts Settings

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Most Likely forecast category 

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Campaigns

Feature

Lightning Experience

Salesforce Classic

Campaign member status charts

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Import campaign members

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Add individual campaign members

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Campaign member status updates via import

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Clone campaign members

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Add and manage campaign members from a list view

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Add campaign members from reports

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Salesforce Einstein

Feature

Lightning Experience

Salesforce Classic

Analytics

Einstein Discovery

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Chatter

Einstein Recommendations

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Community

Einstein Related Articles

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Einstein Feed Search

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Customization

Einstein Prediction Builder: Setup

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Einstein Prediction Builder: Predictions on Records

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Einstein Next Best Action: Strategy Builder

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Einstein Next Best Action: Recommendations

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Development

Einstein Language

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Einstein Vision

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Sales

Einstein Activity Capture

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Einstein Lead Scoring

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Einstein Opportunity Scoring

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Einstein Forecasting

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Einstein Opportunity Insights

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Einstein Account Insights

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Einstein Automated Contacts

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Service

Einstein Bot Builder: Setup

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Einstein Bot Builder

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Einstein Case Classification: Setup

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Einstein Case Classification: Agent Console

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Customer Service

Feature

Lightning Experience

Salesforce Classic

Assets

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Case Assignment Rules

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Case Comments

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Case Feed Filters

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Case Teams

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Console1

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Einstein Bots and Case Classification2

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Entitlements3

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Field Service

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Knowledge4

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Lightning Flow for Service

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Chat

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Messaging

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Macros5

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Milestones—Case6

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Milestones—Object

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Omni-Channel

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Open CTI

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Products

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Quick Text

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Service Contracts

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Service Set-up Flows for:

  • Communities
  • Email-to-Case
  • Facebook and Twitter
  • Help Center
  • Knowledge
  • Chat
  • Messaging
  • Omni-Channel

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Embedded Service for Web7

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Solutions

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SOS

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1 The Service Console in Lightning Experience doesn’t yet have full parity with the Service Console in Salesforce Classic. Learn more.

2 Einstein Bots and Einstein Case Classification must be set up in Lightning Experience.

3 There are some limitations using Entitlements in Lightning Experience. Learn more.

4 Enabling Lightning Knowledge changes your org’s data model to use record types rather than article types. To move from Salesforce Classic Knowledge to Lightning Knowledge, use the Lightning Knowledge Migration Tool. Test your data migration in a full-copy sandbox org before enabling Lightning Knowledge in your production org. After you enable Lightning Knowledge, you can’t disable it. Lightning Knowledge works differently, and doesn’t yet have full parity with Knowledge in Salesforce Classic. Learn more.

5 Conditional expressions in macros are available in Lightning Experience only.

6 In Lightning Experience, the Business Hours field is not available on the Case Milestones Case related list.

7 Embedded Service for Web setup is available in Lightning Experience only. However, embedded components can go anywhere on your website.

Reports

Sales and service reps who use reports find an improved user interface, including the ability to easily create filters and add enhanced charts. And Salesforce admins find features on the dashboard editor, including flexible layouts and spanning columns. However, some report features aren’t yet available in Lightning Experience, including feeds and scheduled reports.

Feature

Lightning Experience

Salesforce Classic

Enhanced report charts

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Row-level formulas (beta)

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Hide totals and subgroups from report view

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Interactive filters when viewing reports

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Report Builder

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Currency selector in the Report Builder

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Product standard filter for the Opportunities with Contact Roles and Products report type in the Report Builder

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Select a campaign option on the Show Me filter for Campaign report types in the Report Builder

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Bucket fields

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Custom summary formulas

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Matrix, Summary, Tabular report formats

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Stacked summaries in the Matrix report format

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Column (non-stacked) summaries in the Matrix report format

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Role hierarchy filters

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Create report folders and subfolders

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Joined reports

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Pie charts

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Schedule report refreshes1

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Follow reports

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Report notifications1

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Export reports

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Historical tracking reports

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Conditional formatting

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Favorites

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1Available in Lightning Experience by subscribing to a report.

Dashboards

Feature

Lightning Experience

Salesforce Classic

Display more than 3 columns

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Tables with up to 10 columns and 200 rows

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Dashboard Builder

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Flexible layouts

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Themes and palettes

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Create dashboard folders and subfolders

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Filtered dashboards

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Dynamic dashboards

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Schedule dashboard refreshes1

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Post dashboard components to feeds

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Visualforce components

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Favorites

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1 To get updates to dashboards in Lightning Experience on a schedule, subscribe to them. Dashboards scheduled in Salesforce Classic run as expected in Lightning Experience.

List Views

List Views have gotten an upgrade in Lightning Experience, including some super new stuff like the ability to create a quick chart from a list view or add filters with an improved, easy-to-use interface.

Feature

Lightning Experience

Salesforce Classic

Charts

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Create filters on the fly

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Search for a list view

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Find data with the list view search bar

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Pin your favorite list view as your default list

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View records visually (Kanban)

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Create and edit lists

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Sortable columns

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Resizable columns

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Sharing Settings1

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Filter logic

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Inline editing

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1 In Lightning Experience, sharing list views marked as “Visible only to me” or “Visible to all users” is supported. Sharing with certain groups of users isn’t supported.

Other Features and Products

Feature

Lightning Experience

Salesforce Classic

Custom org brand images and colors

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Custom branding of Salesforce apps

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Personalized Navigation Bar

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Favorites

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Activities-related composer windows

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Create and edit records

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Inline editing record detail fields

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Inline editing in lists

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Enterprise Territory Management

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Salesforce Communities1

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Partner Portals

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WDC

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1 To create or disable community users, log in as a community user, and use delegated administration, switch to Salesforce Classic.

What About Existing Salesforce Customizations?

Most of your declarative and programmatic customizations work seamlessly in Lightning Experience. But some customizations aren’t useful or relevant in the new interface. And some require updating to take full advantage of Lightning Experience. Here’s an overview of issues to consider.

Note

Note

This isn’t a comprehensive list of supported and unsupported features. For a more detailed list, see Lightning Experience Considerations in Salesforce Help.

Salesforce Apps

The Salesforce apps you created in Salesforce Classic work in Lightning Experience without any modifications. But users can’t personalize the objects, tabs, and other items that appear in the Lightning Experience navigation bar until you upgrade the Classic app. It’s easy to upgrade Classic apps to Lightning apps with the App Manager in Setup.

The other advantage to upgrading apps is you can then customize them with:

  • A unique color and logo
  • Standard and custom objects
  • Lightning component tabs
  • Visualforce tabs
  • Lightning page tabs

To learn more, see Upgrade Classic Apps to Lightning Apps in Salesforce Help.

Actions and Buttons

If you’ve already created and used actions in Salesforce Classic, you know that they appear in the Chatter publisher, while standard and custom buttons appear above the details on a record page. And if you use the Salesforce mobile app, you know that all action types and buttons are co-mingled on the action bar. In Lightning Experience, we continue to blur the line between actions and buttons. But instead of displaying in a single place, actions and buttons are grouped by type in several different areas on the record page.

By default, Lightning Experience includes the actions and buttons defined in the Salesforce Mobile and Lightning Experience Actions section on the global publisher layout. Or you can customize what’s available using the same section on object page layouts. Here’s the logic that determines where on the record page an action or button appears.

  • Global actions with the Log a Call action type or the Create a Record action type for events, notes, and tasks display in the Global Actions menu in the header.
  • Most quick actions, productivity actions, standard buttons, and supported custom buttons are added to the action menu in the highlights panel.
  • Object-specific activities-related actions, such as Log a Call, New Event, New Task, and Email, display in the composer on the Activity tab if you’re using the activity timeline. Otherwise they appear in the activities related lists.
  • Standard Chatter actions appear in the composer on the Chatter tab.

The order of actions in each area is based on the order in which they’ve been added to the global publisher or object page layout.

To learn more, see Actions in Lightning Experience in Salesforce Help.

Custom JavaScript Buttons

Custom buttons and links that use a JavaScript content source aren’t supported in Lightning Experience. Custom buttons that define the content source as a URL or Visualforce page work as you’d expect. Check out these resources for migrating your JavaScript custom button and link functionality to Lightning-friendly options.

Visualforce and Lightning Components

Visualforce is supported in Lightning Experience and most of your existing Visualforce pages work without any revisions needed. But things have moved around in the new interface, so do some testing to confirm that your Visualforce pages behave as expected.

Here are a few things to consider.

  • There are a few Salesforce Classic features and attributes that may not be compatible in Lightning Experience. Use the Lightning Experience Configuration Converter to evaluate the status of your org’s Visualforce pages and get workarounds for pages with issues.
  • If your Visualforce pages use JavaScript, there are things you should check. Visualforce doesn’t “own” the whole page when shown in Lightning Experience, and because of that, your JavaScript code needs to play by some new rules.
  • If your Visualforce pages use the built-in standard components, their look-and-feel matches Salesforce Classic, whether users access them in the new or classic interface. But it’s easy to assign Lightning Experience stylesheets so the same page gets classic styling in Salesforce Classic and Lightning styling in Lightning Experience. You can use the Lightning Experience Configuration Converter to automatically apply the stylesheets to desired pages.
  • Check out the Salesforce Lightning Design System (SLDS) for a collection of design patterns, components, and guidelines for creating interfaces that fit in with Lightning Experience. The SLDS is available at www.lightningdesignsystem.com.

What about UI customization? For new development, Salesforce recommends using Lightning Experience low-code tools and Lightning web components over Visualforce for the most modern, performant, and responsive functionality. Lightning Platform provides various ways for advanced administrators and developers to build custom functionality, and it supports newer, complex business processes that aren’t available with Visualforce. To learn more about Lightning web components, see the Build Lightning Web Components trail and the Lightning Web Components Developer Guide.

Salesforce APIs and Apex

Most of the programmatic tools and processes you’re used to are largely unaffected by Lightning Experience. We’ve kept our promise that our new releases won’t break your dependencies on Salesforce APIs. API tools like Postman haven’t changed. Your development environment is the same as ever.

While your Apex classes and API calls work fine, some features aren’t yet supported in Lightning Experience. If a user is in the new interface and executes some Apex code that interacts with an unsupported feature, the user can’t complete the task. To address this scenario, we’ve added capabilities to determine a user’s interface preference from both the API and Apex. You can use this functionality to add logic to your existing code so that your users don’t encounter errors.

AppExchange Apps

Many apps from AppExchange feature customizations, including custom objects, custom buttons, Visualforce pages, and more. Salesforce partners are testing their apps in Lightning Experience and applying for Lightning Ready and Powered by Lightning certification. Apps that are Lightning Ready work in Lightning Experience and fit in with other apps and pages in the interface. If an app is supported in Lightning Experience, a Lightning Ready sash appears on its AppExchange listing. If an app isn’t supported in Lightning Experience, use it in Salesforce Classic instead.

Note

Note

Your org can use apps without Lightning Ready certification in Lightning Experience, but some features might not be available or work as expected. These apps can also appear visually inconsistent with Lightning Experience because they use Salesforce Classic styling. For the best experience, use apps that aren’t certified as Lightning Ready in Salesforce Classic.

Evaluate Your Org’s Readiness for Lightning Experience

Now that you’ve seen how Lightning Experience compares to Salesforce Classic, and understand about possible issues related to common Salesforce customizations, it’s time to get personal. To analyze exactly how your org’s implementation will work in the new interface, turn to the Lightning Experience Readiness Check.

This tool generates a personalized Readiness Report that shows you which features and customizations are ready for Lightning Experience now and provides recommendations for addressing items that may need some attention. It also shows you which users will benefit from Lightning Experience now versus later and estimates the level of effort for your transition project. Most existing features and customizations work as-is in Lightning Experience, so you may be delighted to learn there’s nothing significant to address. Either way, the Readiness Report is a valuable resource for planning and rolling out Lightning Experience.

The Readiness Report is saved to Salesforce Files as a PDF document. You get an email when the report is ready.

Curious what exactly is covered in the report? Check out What Does the Lightning Experience Readiness Check Evaluate? in Salesforce Help.

Run the Readiness Check from the Lightning Experience Transition Assistant in Setup.

Screenshot of the Lightning Experience Transition Assistant in Setup

  1. From Setup in Salesforce Classic, click Get Started in the Lightning Experience Transition Assistant tile at the top of the menu (1).
  2. Select the Discover phase (2).
  3. Click Evaluate Lightning Experience Benefits and Readiness to expand the stage (3).
  4. Click Check Readiness next to Check your Lightning Experience readiness (4).

Screenshot of the step for running the Readiness Check from the Transition Assistant.

Tip

Tip

We’re continually updating and expanding the scope of what the Readiness Check evaluates, so we recommend rerunning the tool occasionally. If you’re in the early stages of your transition, run the check every 2 to 3 months to see what’s new. If you’re actively rolling out Lightning Experience, run the check monthly, if not more often.

We’ve also put together an enablement pack with sample documents and templates, including a gap analysis checklist. You can use this checklist to expand your evaluation to features and customizations that aren’t covered by the Readiness Check.

Take Lightning Experience for a Test Drive

An important step in your evaluation efforts is seeing with your own eyes how your real data, business processes, and customizations work in the new interface. Exploring your production org in Lightning Experience is also a great way to test drive new features and see how they benefit your teams.

If you’re assigned to the standard System Administrator profile, you can switch to Lightning Experience at any time. But if you don’t have access to the new interface yet, check out the Preview feature in the Lightning Experience Transition Assistant. It lets you explore your org in real time, and is a great way to review the state of features and customizations that aren’t evaluated by the Lightning Experience Readiness Check. To learn more, see Preview Your Org in Lightning Experience in Salesforce Help.

There are also a few other options for trying out Lightning Experience.

  • If you have a sandbox, that’s an ideal place to play around with settings and customizations in earnest.
  • Don’t have a sandbox? Give Lightning Experience a test drive in a safe space by signing up for a free Developer Edition or Admin Playground.

Plan Your Lightning Experience Rollout

One of the best investments you can make in your Lightning Experience rollout is to have a clear plan. A plan helps you do things in the right order, identify key resources, communicate with everyone, and have a clear end date in mind. As part of the plan, decide on your strategies for moving users to the new interface and preparing them for their new work environment. We recommend rolling out in phases, starting with a pilot, so you don’t have to do everything at once and can learn and refine as you go.

Depending on the size of your organization, you could be working with a Change Management department or have a project manager assigned to the rollout. Or perhaps you’re the one charged with organizing and executing the rollout from start to finish. However the work gets divvied up, use the Lightning Experience Transition Assistant as your guide. And check out the Lightning Experience Rollout module for a review of best practices.

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