Salesforce release notes for Spring ’23 are available now. Though they are just the previews, and the features will be available at the latest general availability date that Salesforce announced, that is, between January 13 and February 10, there is still much to talk about and features to discuss.
As we know, every Salesforce release brings lots of new updates and new enhancements and features. So, we won’t be able to talk about each and every one of them, but we’ll focus on the most significant ones, in our opinion, which will bring a lot of change.
If you’re ready, let’s dive in.
Salesforce Security
Security and privacy are priorities at Salesforce, and they take data protection very seriously. With these new features, you can increase the security of your platform, enjoy more data visualization options in your Security Center, identify at-risk security settings better, and more.
MFA: Auto-Enablement
Salesforce is auto-enabling multi-factor authentication (MFA) for direct UI logins, and this change will start in Spring ’23. Throughout 2023, the MFA will be enforced by making it a permanent part of the Salesforce log in process.
This stronger security measure will provide extra protection against cyberattacks, credential stuffing, and account takeovers and will better safeguard your valuable business and customer data.
The MFA will be automatically enabled throughout several releases. Still, if you want to control your rollout schedule, it is recommended that you implement and roll out MFA on your own to avoid disruptions to your users or issues with other initiatives at your company.
If you need to learn how to roll out MFA yourself, Salesforce provides helpful content to guide users step by step on how to do it. You can check it out at this link, or if you have more questions about what to expect when the MFA is turned on, check Salesforce’s Multi-Factor Authentication FAQ resources.
Health Check
With this Health Check setting, you’ll be able to identify if you have any security settings that might be at risk for external URL redirection.
This feature will let you view and monitor if ‘Allow redirections to untrusted external URLs’ is enabled, and the update will apply to Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, and Developer editions.
Salesforce Shield
Another update in security for this Salesforce Spring ’23 release is the added functionalities to Salesforce Shield.
With these updates, you’ll be able to opt-in or out of generating and delivering event log files, get the category of the ‘Apex Unexpected Exception Event’ or get more information about the SOAP API Exceptions.
Additionally, from these updates, you’ll be able to add an extra layer of protection to the Financial Services Cloud by encrypting more Financial Services Interaction Data on the new Interaction Related Account object.
All these updates will be available starting Spring ’23. However, some others are still in Beta. And in the case of the new Interaction Related Account object, this will be only applied to editions that have both Shield Platform Encryption and Financial Services Cloud add-on subscriptions.
Salesforce Scheduler
Salesforce Scheduler now provides the option to schedule video appointments with Amazon Chime, view past and upcoming appointments, schedule appointments for Omnichannel service resources, and many more enhancements, but we’ll focus on the first two.
Schedule Video Appointments with Amazon Chime
This feature requires that you have an Amazon Chime account. But after the video call settings are enabled and configured, you can use Amazon Chime for all your video appointments and send notifications to unauthenticated users for future meetings.
The feature can be set up by your System administrator by going to the Setup page and the Video Call Settings. Additionally, it will be available in the Salesforce Lightning Console but not for APIs.
View Past and Upcoming Appointments Using My Appointments Calendar
By using the My Appointments micro calendar in Salesforce Lightning Console, customers will be able to view upcoming and past appointments, navigate the service appointment details and join video calls.
This feature will be available only in Experience Cloud sites by using the component ‘Build Your Own Template’ and can be set up from the App Manager in the Lightning Console.
Einstein Search
Salesforce brought several updates for Einstein Search in this Spring ’23 release, such as Search Manager, Einstein Search Answers, and more. Now, you can configure your searchable fields to get results tailored to how you work, get a specific answer from an article, or quickly onboard your team with a Learning Map. Let’s discuss two of them.
Searchable Picklists (Beta)
This feature is a Beta Service; however, with this component, you can configure searchable picklists in Search Manager to skip the additional workflows and get results that are relevant for a specific field in a Salesforce object.
You can try this Beta Service at your discretion, and it applies only to Lightning Experience in the Professional, Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, and Developer editions.
Einstein Search Answers (Pilot)
With Einstein Search Answer, you can accelerate your case resolution. The component rapidly extracts relevant texts from a knowledge article to help answer your questions. It enables you to interact with the answers and copy the link to your clipboard.
Note: This feature is being piloted and is not part of the purchased services yet.
Salesforce Flow
A lot has been said about Salesforce Flows, the new updates and features that bring the automation tool closer to replacing Process Builder, and all that is still yet to come. In this instance, we have new updates worth mentioning that will help the Salesforce team make Flow their declarative automation tool.
Flow Integration
What used to be MuleSoft Composer for Salesforce is now Flow Integration. With this tool, you’ll be able to integrate data from any system in any flow. Flow Integration allows you to design a real-time and integrated view of your customers and invoke processes in any flow.
This component will be available for an extra cost in Enterprise, performance, and unlimited editions that have enabled Lightning Experience.
Flow Builder
Flow Builder has been under construction throughout several Salesforce releases. Now with the new updates that have been added to this component, you’ll have the ability to get external data from web-based services into flow builder and use screen flow components to select records from predetermined lists in a flow screen.
Additionally, one of the most important updates for this component is that the Migrate to Flow tool can now migrate processes to flows.
Flow Orchestration
With this update, users will be able to complete assigned orchestration work items on their mobile devices. You can use Advanced Settings to get more control over the usage and execution of your orchestration, create record-triggered orchestration or enable sharing for Flow Orchestration objects.
To Sum up
As we mentioned at the beginning of the article, these new features and updates will be available between January 13 and February 10. And even though some of the features will be updated automatically, others will need the help of your Salesforce Admin to make them available.
If you need help getting to these new updates or need to know how they will affect your Salesforce instance, contact one of our Salesforce experts. We’ll be happy to help you implement the best Salesforce solutions so that you can use the platform to its fullest potential.