Hi everybody!

It's been more than our normal month between releases so I wanted to give an update and preview the next release.

While we were on an aggressive monthly release cadence since the product went GA in December, we are now starting to see reasons to slow down the cadence a bit. In this particular upcoming release we are making substantial and complex app updates that did not make sense to break up into separate releases, so I decided to delay the monthly cadence to allow the work to mature more. I currently anticipate that this release will ship on August 26. Once this release ships we will most likely shift into a cadence typified by releasing new modules** when they are ready, instead of packaging lots of smaller core-app changes.

So what are we doing in this release? Well, honestly, a huge amount. Here's a preview:

• New global electricity emissions factors from electricityMap (https://api.electricitymap.org) which I am very, very excited for. This is IEA data +++ and it's far more granular than IEA data for a variety of countries (for instance, it splits Japan into 9 grid subregions).
• Building a way for any user to add in 'supplemental' Scope 1, 2 and 3 data into any Energy Use Record or Carbon Footprint record. Now you will be able to add a custom calculation, use a process or flow to insert the results into one of the new supplemental fields, and have the value roll up into the total results.
• A total restructuring of the four business travel scope 3 record types. This affects both the Energy Use Record and the Emissions Factor objects. We are building in new flexibility on units, currency and calculations. For example, on Air Travel records, now you'll be able to define your own definition of short, medium and long-haul flights, you'll enter data in miles or km, and the EA dashboards will show results in either unit. Similar changes are being made for Ground Travel, Hotel Stays and Rental Cars. 
• A re-build of the way renewable energy was being handled. All RE calcs now include hydroelectricity, and we've added a large set of new fields to show RE without hydro. You will choose which fields to show on your page layouts to adhere to how your organization accounts for RE. (For example, Salesforce does not factor hydro into our RE calcs, but most companies do.)
• New record-locking functionality to protect records from edits or future package updates. For instance, you've finished the 2018 inventory? Lock those Carbon Footprint records and they will not be touched by any future package upgrade, even if we change fields or add new emissions factor data.
• Moving 20+ fields from formula fields to apex-calculated fields. This makes the app much more efficient and predictable. Yes, I understand, declarative admins much prefer formula fields. The problem is that when you have a mix of formula and apex fields, you can have unpredictable results in the view state in Lighting Experience when a user views a record (because the formula field will update but the overall record will not). 
• A long list of small updates to the Einstein Analytics dashboards to keep up with the changes above, and other changes we're making.

That's not all, but probably enough for a preview. :)

**New modules??? Oh yes! We are currently working on a Data Gap Filling module that will be a huge addition to the product (shipping Sept. I hope -- #SafeHarbor), as well as a way to estimate your supply chain scope 3 emissions (shipping Oct. I hope -- #SafeHarbor), which will be even huger! More to come.....