Another release around the corner and while I completely skipped the Spring release due to extra workload (and failed CTA board) I did find time for the Summer release which will hit our instances in a few days.
Here are the things I found interesting:
- custom address field – it took just around 15 years to get this type of field (in beta) which should mimic the functionality of the similar fields on account, lead and account. Fancy adding such field to other object? Now you can;
- Einstein Seach Manager looks super cool – so far I couldn’t really explain to clients which fields are searchable besides the general rules, now you can see per object and field basis.
- they renamed the Search Layouts to List View Button Layout. Not sure it is better naming, but lets see;
- report type details when creating a new report looks pretty cool – how many times I chose the wrong report type just to have to redo everything. Plus you can finally hide report types as you could in Classic. And row limit is in Lightning finally as well;
- Create Reports Based on Selected Salesforce Objects (Beta) – I didn’t get this one at all, have a feeling the objects are always in the name but there are probably some exceptions;
- median as a summary function in report – finally, some customers understand the difference between average and median and have been asking about this one;
- Control Access to External Object Records with Restriction Rules – so far External Objects didn’t support row level sharing, the restriction rules goes the other way around but should provide the same result at the end. Super excited about this one even though none of my customers will use it;
- possibility to delete/deactivate multiple picklist values at once – that’s small but important win, so far you always had to wait for a few minutes before deactivating each value, now it will speed up your work. Plus info when adding multiple values which one of them is the duplicate, another big win for me;
- no need to specify related lists on page layout and then add them to Lightning Page anymore and also ability to include the same object several times with different filters and fields. This sounds just awesome (didn’t test it yet);
- user mode database operations in APEX looks like a step in right direction and also to simplify developers‘ life. Or maybe not?
- travel modes in FSL sounds promising as well to better calculate the travel time.
- use formula for entry conditions – so far I had to use formula field, it is over now;
- sections headers on screens for better UI;
- test for flows (beta);
- milestones are automatically stopped if the records exit the entitlement process, no need to do it manually anymore.
Obviously there are plenty more, but just those above really catch my attention. Is it good or is it bad? Do the improvements of the platform slow down because it is so good and there is not much to improve or is it spread across so many clouds that for the „core“ there isn’t enough capacity for future development? Who knows, but the times when I was excited by each page of release notes are, sadly, over 🙁