Summer '23 Top Changes for Power of Us Grant Holders (Small but Mighty) 

So it's that time. Summer release notes are out and all billion pages (615 actually) can be found here with an easy HTML browsing side panel.

I review things that I believe are going to make a small nonprofit or educational organization more efficient to run or that will require prompt attention. Lots of features come out that take too much admin or dev cost to be helpful to small but mighty organizations initially. And do remember that this is a preview. Features can and do change and even get cut or delayed before rollout. Here's what I found.

[If you like a more detailed version... it's on my blog now.]

The number one thing to look out for: no more new process builders. I'm still not a fan of going out and quickly migrating to flow for small nonprofits. I have converted some of my highest volume process builders using the migration tool. It mostly went smoothly. (I owe the community a blog about that soon). But if you don't have urgent needs, I still recommend waiting a bit more. With this release, the migration tool supports scheduled action migration. 

No more new Process Builders means you have to build flow starting with summer! If you've never done it, there are some excellent teachers out there. Look for new content, however. Lots has changed in the last year. Here are some resources I like learning from:

• “Rotive” YouTube videos by Brian Hays(very new user friendly)
• “Salesforce Break” YouTube videos by Andy Utkan (regularly reviews new features)
• If you've never programmed, I recorded a BAM (Be a Multiplier) teaching series that taught flow for admin beginners with no programming background. My videos are available by request in a managed learning environment for free.

And be sure to use a source to learn flow! It’s changed so much. Learn only modern best practices!

Another thing to watch out for will be outgoing email changes. This caused problems in my org in Spring 2023, and it's changing more in Summer. To meet rising security expectations, we need to adopt these changes! 

• You must verify any email address that is identified as a sender within Salesforce. If you don’t, the email will not be sent! This includes org-wide addresses, user addresses, and any associated with communities. We have more control with this release.
• We get the ability to add even more transparency with advanced features like DKIM and DMARC. 
• Small nonprofits usually don't have anyone with skills to follow all this so I'm hoping some consultants will help clear up everything. To complicate matters, sandbox orgs have a little bit different email setups so some of this is challenging to test out. 
• See Email Experience in the HTML outline of the release notes for more information.

Here are the features I’m excited about:

1. App pages now have accordions and tabs to better organize tasks and provide better user experience. I believe these may provide the best way to host helper flow apps that aren’t particularly “record pagey” for both desktop and mobile.
2. In-App Guidance can now target specific fields. This may be a very focused and quick way for a solo admin to help users adapt to a small but important change in a page layout.
3. Flow email action is not pretty much on par with email alerts. And Flow Data Table has been updated with more records, search, and an email core action that supports Lightning Email templates. These are typically the modern things to be doing in flow. Users deserve data tables so they really know what they are seeing and selecting. Separate the template from the flow and log actions so users can know that happened.
4. Dashboard Widgets are new and allow for the addition of static images and text to help a dashboard communicate more clearly.  Why is this feature unlimited edition only? I feel like this is unnecessary. This simple feature isn't a a huge deal, not likely a performance issue, so why dies it need to be restricted? Please change your mind, Salesforce. IT's not too late! It's time dashboards got love. We've been patient while you've done Einstein Analystics and Tableau but we need some love on the basic features please!
5. Quick actions on standard related lists are now available (beta) on the desktop. This makes for exciting new possible ways to mass edit and add records while looking at a related list.
6. The email composer for cases gets an open beta update, with potential future changes impacting daily user life. You’ll want to watch this one. I find it hard to believe changes to the activity email composer won’t be far behind.
7. Custom calendars have a beta enhancement, making them more user-friendly. Calendars are a great way to visual data if you can get over the user training hurdle.
8. Dynamic fields for mobile are now available (beta), which is absolutely critical for small organizations with mobile users.

The reasons for my excited and more details can be found in my [blog article]. I’ve included a few screen shots. I'll be back with configuration and application notes as soon as the final summer rolls out for my org! 

@Hub Heroes @MVPs & AppExchange All Stars @Nonprofit Hub @The Blog Group @Salesforce.org MVPs @Nonprofit and Education MindShare Summer23 (not topic found)

In app Guidance:

Flow Email Action:

Flow Data Table:

Dashboard Widgets:

Dynamic forms on mobile:

 It is worth noting that Industries Cloud is bringing out the new GrantMaking feature (which is shared by customers from the Public Sector and the non-NPSP based Nonprofit Cloud). This may not be of interest to small nonprofits, but it's worth considering. A small nonprofit can request to split licenses between NPSP and Industry Cloud and then work out data sharing. It's a brand new possibility with high potential value for the right organizations. For the first time in history, there are release notes available under Industry Cloud for Education and Nonprofit. These are new offerings that Salesforce continues to caution are NOT compatible with NPSP or EDA. It's the consensus view of almost all consultants that Salesforce for Nonprofits is not a minimum viable product at this time, but it will eventually overtake NPSP. I personally remain unconvinced that there are no strategies for rapid migration when the product is ready or even strategies to have different orgs coexist using Data Cloud or other forms of external data.

Proofreading and summary bullets aided by ChatGPT.