Prepare for NPSP and Salesforce Releases

Learning Objectives

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

State the frequency of release cycles for both NPSP and Salesforce.
Identify the actions you need to take after NPSP and Salesforce releases.

Time to Update

An NPSP admin hard at work on an update

While Salesforce’s continuous cycle of innovation is one of its biggest advantages, it can also be a challenge for admins to keep up—particularly for those also-admins who juggle supporting Salesforce with fulfilling other roles at their organization.

Establishing a strategic and workable habit around new releases is one of the most valuable things you can do as an admin. A good release strategy will help you and your users stay on top of all the changes and take full advantage of your investment in Salesforce. Make it a priority!

In this unit, we’ll review the release cadence for NPSP and Salesforce and provide tips on how to manage innovations.

Continuous Innovation with NPSP

NPSP is a constantly evolving application driven by Salesforce.org developers and contributions from everyday users and admins like you.

Knowing what's included in a release and when the release is happening will help you:

Know when a troublesome bug has been addressed.
Take full advantage of new features and your investment in NPSP.
Think through how new features may affect existing customizations.
Test updates in sandboxes before they hit production.

We release new NPSP features three times each year—Winter, Spring, and Summer—to allow you time to learn about, implement, and test these new tools. These changes are pushed to sandboxes first and production two weeks later.

NPSP bug fixes are also pushed to your production org automatically every two weeks after a week-long preview in sandboxes.

As an admin, you have control over most new NPSP features made available in your org, because you’ll need to enable them before they’re visible for your end users. You’ll get to test features in your sandbox and determine the right time to introduce new functionality to your users. We’ll discuss sandboxes in the coming two units.

Triggers and Classes in a given release are always added automatically, but this won't matter much to you unless you're a developer.

Components of an NPSP Release

The exact timing of all sandbox and production updates, along with which issues have been addressed, are announced in the Nonprofit Release Readiness group in the Trailblazer Community linked in the Resources section on this page. The group is where you can find all release announcements, updates, and resources for nonprofits.

When an NPSP release is posted, it generally consists of three components:

Critical Changes requiring urgent and direct follow-up by admins.
Changes, which list NPSP updates and features included in the release.
Issues Closed, including bug fixes and other identified operational issues rectified in the NPSP release.

The additional installation instructions section includes the following:

Push Schedule: Timing of when the release will be pushed to sandboxes and production orgs.
Latest Release Installation URL: A direct link so you can manually apply the update if needed (see Resources for more details).
The Trialforce Template ID: For partners using Environment Hub. (You don’t need to worry about this one unless you are a consulting partner.)

Unless you‘ve been suffering directly from a particularly nasty bug (this is very rare!), the most frequent release announcements, bug fix announcements, can generally pass by with little or no action on your part. The three releases each year that include new features or functionality, however, will require dedicated time from you and your organization to review the changes and consider their impact on your users. Salesforce will give you plenty of advance warning when a great new feature is coming your way in NPSP.

Let’s check in with Gorav Patel, admin at the (fictional) nonprofit No More Homelessness (NMH), as he prepares for a big NPSP feature release.

Take Full Advantage of NPSP Releases

Gorav follows the Nonprofit Release Readiness group in the Trailblazer Community. You should sign up, too! Check out the link in Resources.

Whenever he gets a new release announcement, Gorav first looks for anything that might impact his org. With new feature releases, Gorav follows this checklist, a best practice for any admin.

Review the release notes in detail.
Use a sandbox to test the new features before enabling them in production. Any new fields and objects included in a release are by default not visible to anyone, including system administrators, so they have to be enabled—even in your sandbox.
Connect with key users to determine how the organization can take advantage of new features.
Evaluate whether any new features conflict with customizations already in the org.
Evaluate whether any new features necessitate an update to security settings.
If you decide to implement a new feature, develop a communication and training plan for staff to learn about the new features.

By following this checklist, Gorav is able to stay on top of new features, from release to training. But NPSP’s aren’t the only major releases he needs to follow.

Salesforce Platform Seasonal Releases

Like NPSP, the Salesforce platform is constantly evolving. We also deliver new functionality to customers three times a year in the Spring, Summer, and Winter releases. Salesforce platform releases arrive about a month before each of the seasonal NPSP and Salesforce for Nonprofits releases.

We get that this might seem a little confusing. What’s NPSP and what’s Salesforce? It isn’t always easy to distinguish the two. When people talk about Salesforce or the Salesforce platform, they’re usually talking about Sales Cloud Enterprise Edition. NPSP sits on top of Sales Cloud Enterprise Edition licenses, so you’re positioned to take advantage of all of the new Salesforce features available for both.

While the Salesforce platform release itself happens automatically, most admins need to put in some work before and after the upgrade. Salesforce auto-enables some features (release notes point these out), so be sure you know what’s coming if you don’t want your users to be surprised. In this case, “Surprise!” isn’t as fun as it might sound.

A great way to learn about seasonal releases and to start your release plan is to take the Prepare for a Salesforce Release trail. Each seasonal release also comes with its own Trailhead module, which helps you learn specifics of the features included in the new release.

You can also attend the free—yes, free!—Salesforce Release webinars, in which an intrepid guide from Salesforce will introduce you to new, important features and give you an opportunity to ask questions. Watch the Trailblazer Community for announcements and information on how to sign up.

The Importance of Releases

Keeping up with NPSP and Salesforce releases might seem like just one more thing that you don’t have time to do. However, understanding when releases happen and what steps you need to take is critical to getting the most out of the technology and, ultimately, helping you better meet your mission.

When you’re prepping for a release, you’ll be doing that important work in a sandbox org. In the next two units, we’ll learn more about this helpful tool and best practices for how to use it.

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