Summer ‘22 release notes are out! Here is a useful page showing the various features and how to enable them once the release is live. Below are some of my favorites:
MFA Requirement Is in Effect, and Enforcement Is Coming
Multi-factor authentication (MFA) has been contractually required for all Salesforce orgs since February 1, 2022. This is just another reminder to implement MFA if you have not already. Salesforce will automatically enable and enforce MFA in the future. This is the roadmap for when MFA will be enforced. If you need any assistance with the setup and rollout of multi-factor authentication for your Salesforce instances, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
Custom Address Fields (Beta)
Salesforce is finally adding an address field type that will allow you to create custom address fields on standard and custom objects. This is a compound data type, just like the standard address fields on Account and Contact. The custom address fields will support the Google address lookup functionality and state and country picklists (if enabled). I expect this enhancement will cause some refactoring of managed packages with custom address objects and will ultimately be a boon for verticals where address management is not sufficiently solved by the out-of-the-box address fields on Account and Contact.
Flow
Once again, Salesforce is delivering the goods when it comes to enhancements to Flow. These are just a few of the changes.
Use Formulas as Flow Entry Conditions
You can now construct formulas to define flow entry conditions. This is going to allow you to define more complex flow entry logic with calculated values if necessary.
Add Section Headers to Flow Screens
Flow just keeps getting better and better as a flexible way to collect information from users with automations driven by underlying business logic. The latest UI release for Flow is the ability to have collapsible section headers on flow screens. This will help break up long screens and results in a nicer user experience. This is an enhancement to the existing “Section” component where you can optionally choose to include a header with a label.
Convert Workflow Rules to Flows with the Migrate to Flow Tool
This is your triannual reminder that flows are the future. Eventually, Salesforce will deprecate workflow rules and Process Builder. You should start planning on migrating all of your logic from those legacy automation tools over to flows. This release includes updates to a handy utility for migrating from workflow rules. There are still some limitations around certain formulas so make sure you read the release notes carefully.
In addition, rather than doing a straight conversion from workflow rules to flows, many organizations would benefit from using this as an opportunity to analyze the underlying business logic. Do you still need all of these automations? Are there ways you can accomplish the same results more efficiently?
Reach out to us if you are looking for any assistance in this process.
Flow Tests (Beta)
This might be the feature I am most excited about! Salesforce has always required test code coverage for Apex code. Having this test code run whenever deployments are made to production helps ensure that metadata that is being deployed does not cause a regression in existing functionality. Flow is a very powerful tool that can cause a headache if not used properly. Flow tests are a step in the right direction of bringing some better testing oversight to this powerful automation platform.
Flow tests allow you to define the initial triggering record and assertions that should evaluate to true. If any of the assertions evaluate to false, the test run would fail and you can provide a custom failure message. You can have multiple flow tests per flow.
Note that there are some limitations (record-triggered flows only, only supports immediate flow paths, etc.) but this is a feature that I predict will see lots of enhancements in future releases.
Salesforce & Slack (Beta features)
There are a number of beta features that become available in this release for the integration between Salesforce and Slack. These include a number of new invocable actions to be used in flows: create a slack channel, invite users to a slack channel, pin messages, and more!
Perhaps most exciting is the ability to send a message to a channel or person with a button that launches a screen flow. The acquisition of Slack by Salesforce is starting to pay dividends and organizations that use both are going to reap the rewards of a unified work platform in the coming years.