Top Ten Nonprofit Candy Spring 2022
Spring 2022 release notes are out in preview form.
I looked through them for the things that all my small nonprofit friends (and big ones) should be looking to leverage. Here’s my list. Spring arrives by Feb 11 for everyone. And remember, especially if you are new to Salesforce, releases are not optional. They just happen. I’ll have a blog when the release arrives detailing any actions I needed to take to unpack the goodness.
I've included the top few here and the full blog post is at Mightyforce.org https://mighyforce.dreamhosters.com/2021/12/spring-2022-top-ten-candy-for-power-of-us-license-holders/ The entire blog is too lengthy for a Trailblazer post.
- Einstein Search is now on by default. It’s a great feature and just keeps getting better. I think it’s an unsung hero of Salesforce core user productivity, right behind the Lightning App Builder. Lightning App Builder allows remaking our apps to let users never leave the page to get work done even when it involves multiple related objects. Einstein search sort of builds on that to allow users to interrupt their work to quickly tackle short random tasks without disrupting the page they have in progress. You simply type in using the search bar to find and browse information (including multiple layers deep in the data model), to launch a modal edit or to click an action button. I can find details of a contact or account, differentiate similar contacts, delete or edit an opportunity, access quick actions to run flows or edit records, check volunteer or program history all without loading a new page or losing any work on my in progress in the page. If you haven’t adopted it, it takes a bit of getting used to but it should definitely become a way of providing user story solutions more often. Productivity and user happiness will increase!
2. A new explorer for report types when you create a new report. I love reports. I’ve always been saddened by how hidden the object model is in report type definitions and how much damage one can do by being unaware of the underlying logic in a report type. We took a giant step with a BETA feature that provides a new way to browse reports types and select the right one. It’s not all I would have hoped for but it’s a great start! If you are adventurous, I recommend enabling this beta for your power report creators. Teaching users list views is still number one in my option, but a user who can build reports confidently is a great asset!
3. Inline editing became much faster and more user friendly! Now editing multiple values works more like a list view. Edit several items and then save all at once. Winter 2022 saves each change and reruns the report, which can be very slow. I love this improvement. If you haven’t trained users to curate and clean-up data by editing away the wrinkles from a report yet, it might be time! No need to go find the record to edit only to come back and rerun the report. It can fuel a big win for user productivity and for data quality.
4. A big surprise: We now can convert from workflow rules to a record triggered flow, one for one and seamlessly! In addition, the setup UI provides a couple of ways to view graphically all the record triggered flows on an object. This doesn’t yet include process builder, but one assumes it will eventually. And you can’t edit the order or other parameters of the flows yet, but one hopes that will come, too. In making flows on par with other automations, You can now tweak a setting in your record triggered flows and control order of execution between all flows! Huge! The “Process Builder” adage “one object / one automation” isn’t very sound any more as a fixed rule; there have always been architectural and performance reasons to combine and separate automations in various circumstances. Tools to view them all and control order of execution solve a lot of gritty issues though.
The workflow rule converter is super simple: select a workflow rule and convert it. The old is deactivated and the new is activated. Because of workflow rule simplicity, it should just work.
There is also already an unofficial converter for Process Builder to Flow at unofficialSF.com that keeps getting better and better. It pretty much supports all the Winter 2022 features already. Don’t rewrite anything by hand from old automations into flow. Help is on the way! https://unofficialsf.com/the-new-converttoflow-app-migrates-most-of-your-process-builder-processes/
5. The flow editor gets lots of good improvements. Perfect, since so many people are starting to use it for the first time! Autolayout and manual layout now fully supported including switching back and forth to be most efficient as you design. This makes changing logic so much easier when you find you need to, and updating old manual flows if you have them (or inherit them) is so much nicer with autolayout. Keyboard shortcuts have been added for moving around the flow editor and opening elements! So much nicer when you use it frequently. My favorite: Open a subflow from within the calling flow! When you do need to open a new browser window for a second flow, the flow names now appear in browser tabs to help find them faster when you have multiple open flows. Goto element were introduced last time to be used sparingly, but you can now also connect logic inside a flow to go elsewhere. And finally, we can now get shortcuts to our most used flow items at the top of the add element dialogue box. After all, the flow editor is starting to have a lot of components with so many automation actions available within flow.
6. We can build nicer UI with our flows now. Read the blog for the details (as they can't be listed on too lengthy a post on Trailblazer): translate more of the elements, let the user choose one or more records from a collection easily and directly, Phones, emails, and picklists are now also supported (in addition to text, numbers, and dates) for direct flow screen placement from a record variable.
7. The calculation side of flow also gets better. Read the blog for details about how we can filter collections from one collection to another!
8. MFA is now required. MFA may not be a snazzy feature, but don’t get caught on this one without a solution in February. Do this NOW! #I suspect it will cause pain to ignore this requirement and there is no way to meet it automatically as far as I know. Salesforce is talking about allowing people to apply to defer MFA requirements for a time but I haven’t seen anything final on that yet. It is tied to the user license and terms of use.
I usually do 10 items but by grouping flow into editor, UI, and processing, I think I’ve covered a lot of great features. There are three items in the main blog I'm watching but don't make my top ten list because I am unsure how small nonprofits can leverage them. (Scoping, Your Account, Orchestrator).
Salesforce gets better with each release (almost always). I looked for some things and am rather disappointed to see zero progress. Perhaps it will make it soon. If not, please lobby for more support of these important areas that need to grow and catch up. I covered them in the blog: mobile lack of equality with desktop, Salesforce Core: approvals, rollsups, Lighning page App Builder core features (support for dynamic interactions on the standard components). Please lobby for these in future.
#Nonprofit Success Pack @Nonprofit Success Pack @Nonprofit and Education MindShare @Nonprofit User Group, Dallas, US @Nonprofit User Group, Austin, US @Nonprofit User Group, Houston, US @Nonprofit User Group, Houston, US @Nonprofit Release Readiness @* Release Readiness Trailblazers * #Spring22Treasure @Hub Heroes @Nonprofit Hub
My privilege and thank you! Working on summer candy predictions this weekend!
