"Why did the orange popsicle go away," the voice on the other side of the phone asked.
"Huh?" I confess, it takes awhile for my brain to process these types of questions.
"There's a coffee picture there now, or something. Hot Chocolate? In Salesforce --"
I'm surprised when I run into other Salesforce.com Administrators who don’t know about new features in the latest release – aren’t even aware that their system has been upgraded.
“It has?”
“Oh, sure! In fact, you’ve probably had six or more upgrades since you started your Salesforce.com subscription a couple years back.”
“Really? No way!”
Yes way.
It's a testament to the seamless service that SaaS companies offer. When you don’t have to worry about the hardware or software operating under the application, you tend to forget it’s there. You forget that someone out there IS worrying about the technology, and they are constantly improving on it. And yet, if you don’t pay attention to those new releases, you’re not getting as much out of the platform as you could be. I’ve found that many Salesforce.com System Administrators casually glance at the release notes, or don’t review them at all. Consequently, they don't take advantage of the more powerful (and free!) features that Salesforce.com rolls out to it's customers each release cycle.
In the wake of the Winter’09 release, I’m following up with various System Administrators I’ve worked with over the past few years, and asking them to do a Winter’09 Feature Audit. It works like this: I ask them to list all the features in the Winter’09 release (over 50 of them!), and group them into three categories: Features Implemented / Using Now, features that might be helpful to my business (need to explore), features I won’t use.
Do this with every release (including the past releases that you "casually glanced at"), and I promise you’re going to learn a thing or two. This process is going to enforce you to read the release notes carefully. You’ll understand the potential impact of every release feature on your organization, and you’ll soon start to see how you can get more from Salesforce.com than you have in the past.
One week after release, here’s my Winter’09 Feature Audit List:
FEATURES IMPLEMENTED / USING NOW
- Salesforce Idea Enhancements
- Ideas HTML editor
- Case Teams
- Storage Enhancements
- Edit “Case Comments” permissions
- “Transfer Cases” permission
- Notify Case Owner when Case Ownership Changes Setting
- Schedule and Email Reports
- Support for Tagging Dashboards
- Password Strength Checker
- Community Nickname Userfield
FEATURES TO EXPLORE
- Mobile Object Permissions
- Mobile View Criteria Enhancements
- Partner Portal Enhancements
- Email-to-Case Now Supports the CC and BCC Fields of Inbound Email
- Email-to-Case Preserves File Extension on Attachments
- Salesforce Call Center Supports the *, # and + Characters
- Click-and-Create Events
- Email to Salesforce Enhancements
- Account Lookup During Lead Conversion
- Choosing Lead Status Defaults During Lead Conversion
- Opportunity Dependant Fields and Custom Save Logic
- Visualforce Enhancements
- Visualforce Email Templates
- Apex Enhancments
- Force.com Web API Enhancements
- Force.com Development as a Service Enhancements
- Force.com Connect for Outlook: Streamlined Contact Associations
- Support for New Logical Operations
- Support for Self Relationships in Cross-Object Formulas
- Language Support
- Improved Component Management
- User License Enhancements for Developer Edition
- Support for Activities, Workflow, and Approval Processes on Junctor Objects
- Recall Actions for Approval Processes
- Case Comments Workflow
- Default values for Encrypted Custom Fields on User Records
FEATURES I WON’T USE
- Ideas Multi-select Categories Field
- HTML Messages for Customer Portal
- Salesforce Content Support for Google Docs
- Salesforce Mobile for iPhone
- Record Ownership Filter Enhancement for Activities
- Salesforce-to-Salesforce Enhancements
- Campaign Influence
- Budgeting and Planning Fields for Campaign Influence
- Mass Removal of Campaign Members from Campaigns
- Converting Existing Files to Google Docs
- Force.com Connect Offline: Custom Object Tabs
- Force.com Connect for Lotus Notes: Streamlined Contact Associations
- Images Supported in Dashboard Emails for Lotus Notes
- Custom Objects Managed Package Field Changes
- Custom Report Types Managed Package Changes
- Managed Folders and Letterhead Editable and Deleteable in Subscribers Organization
- Removing a Released Component from a Managed Package
- Field Management
- Protected Components
- SAML Start and Logout Pages
But wait, we're not done yet! I’ve got my list, have you made yours? Come back tomorrow with your Winter'09 / Organizational Feature Audit list, and we’ll discuss what to do with them.
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