Salesforce Summer ’14 Release Notes

It’s about time to start looking at the summer release exams to maintain your Salesforce credentials. As usual my preferred way is to watch the videos provided. See my notes below. for both the Developer and the Administrator track. They might be useful in case you want to double check something.

Also see the release notes since there a loads of more information there.

 

Chatter

Communities Enhancements

• Communitiy engagement console. One-click access to a central place to monitor the communities health and manage its reputation system right within the community itself.
• Dashboards available in the overview area via different pages. Which dashboards that is displayed on the pages can be configured by an administrator.
• New community custom report types:
  • Network membership daily metrics
  • Network activity daily metrics
  • Network unique contributor daily metrics
  • Network tenant usage entitlement weekly metrics
• Salesforce Communities Analytics package available on AppExchange
• Reputation. Different levels and points for users depending on their actions.
• Enable Chatter access without login. Access public group and guest feed without a license.

 

Sales Cloud

Price Book Entry Enhancements

• Customize price book entries from the setup menu
  • Create custom fields, validation rules and page layouts

Opportunity Splits Enhancements

• Opportunity Splits can now be customized
  • Create custom fields, validation rules, triggers and page layouts
• Administrators can add custom split types based on any Opportunity currency field

Acitivites Enhancements

• Default new event global publisher action
• Activity Date and Date/Time available in formulas
• New Activity relationship object
  • user in custom report types
• Status and Related To columns in task lists

Salesforce for Outlook Enhancements

• Side panel is now available on Contact Manager and Group Editions of Salesforce providing access to all users
• Users can create more records using the Side panel publisher (account, contact, lead, opportunity, case and custom objects)
• Configure outlook publisher layouts and assign to specific user profiles to customize which actions are available for each outlook configuration
• Users can easily access online help documentation
• The system requirements are now checked when a user downloads Salesforce for Outlook
• Refresh token policies can be set for Salesforce for outlook

 

Service Cloud

Case Feed Enhancements

• Variable width Case Feed
• Auto-collapse  publishers on Case Feed
• Enable these settings in the Case Feed page layout
  • Use Full-Width Feed in the Console
  • Automatically Collapse Publisher

Salesforce Console for Service Enhancement

• New related list component
  • Related objects to the selected object in the left panel
• New look and feel of the Lookup component
• New interaction log buttons
  • New add call data button
  • New clear log button
• Users can save settings of their multi-components

Live Agent Enhancements

• Agents and customers can transfer and upload files during a chat.
• Agents can also transfer multiple chats to chat button queues or other agents.
• The Knowledge One widget has replaced the live agent article tool giving agents better access to articles they can share with customers.

 

Analytics

Analytics Enhancements

• Mass delete public reports that are not used in dashboards or analytic snapshots
  • Deleted reports goes into the recycle bin
  • Enable historical trending for forecasting items when using Collaborative Forecasts
    • Track historical changes using lookup fields

 

 Mobile

Salesforce1 Enhancements

• Use the Salesforce1 mobile browser app on more browsers
• Create and access publisher actions even if Chatter is not enabled
• Users can drill down to reports and records from dashboards
  • Up to 100 records
  • Tabular, Summary reports are supported
• See upp to 200 list views

 

Force.com

Permissions Enhancements

• Previously, Manage Users was the only way to grant certain user-management permissions. Now introducing eight new user-management permissions in Summer 14 to give more granular control (found in User section).

User Sharing Enhancements

• The button for manual user record sharing can now be enabled or disabled for all users (user visibility settings)

Spring ’14 Release Training Notes (Developer)

Thought I should share my notes from the Spring ’14 release training videos.
Below are the ones for the developer maintenance certification.

************************
* FORCE.COM
************************

Data Import Wizard (new)
– Data Management -> Data Import Wizard
– Use the same wizard for all available objects
– Accounts and Contacts
– Leads
– Solutions
– Custom objects

Steps:
1. Select object
2. Choose what to do with the imported data
– Add new records
– Update existing records
– Add new and update existing records
3. Where is the data located?

– Field mapping with examples and error messages
– Review a summary before import
– Monitor import progress and results
– Makes it easier for all users to import data
– Can import up to 50000 records at a time
– The import wizard uses bulk api calls, meaning that imports may not process immediately and might be subject to delay

************************
* MOBILE
************************

Salesforce1 Mobile App
– Let’s you access your Salesforce data on the go
– Optimizied for easy navigation and data interaction on a touch screen
– View, update and create records
– View chatter feeds
– View dashboards
– Today feature to view all your events from the mobile calendar you selected and connects them to your salesforce tasks
– Customizations are available without any additional configurations
– Access Salesforce files, access Salesforce communities
– The Today feature is now available on Apple iPads
– Users can also access Salesforce1 using a supported mobile browser
– Salesforce1 is enabled for all organizations
– Administrators can manage the Salesforce1 apps from the Manage Apps -> Connected Apps
– Can control which users can use an app

– SalesforceA
– A mobile app for administrators
– Manage users from their mobile devices
– Administrators can now
– Freeze a user
– Deactivate a user
– Unlock a user
– Reset a user’s password
– View and edit a user’s information
– Assign permission sets

************************
* ANALYTICS
************************

Analytic Enhancements
Enhancements to reports
– When running a summary report, users can now sort the data in a grouping by any summarized field or custom summary formula in the report.
– Freeze the headers at the top or left of a report
– Hide report types from all users
– Remove footer information from exported reports
– Enable historical trending on the case object
Enhancements to dashboards
– Group and name dashboard filter values
– Display fractions as percentages in table components
– Edit a dashboard without needing the ‘View All Data’ permission

 

Salesforce Winter ’14 Developer Release Notes

Here are my notes on the Salesforce Winter ’14 Developer Release.
To prepare, check out the Winter ’14 Release Training videos and the developerForce details.

Enjoy!

 

Salesforce1 Platform

 

USER OBJECT ENHANCEMENTS

 

User Sharing

• The User object now supports organization-wide defaults, sharing rules and manual sharing (Eg. see only users from your own franchise)

• Set default access for internal and external users

  • Internal

    • Default ‘Public Full Access’

    • Public Full Access: View Chatter profiles and user record detail pages for all other users

    • Private: Restricts users from viewing the Chatter profiles and user record detail pages for all other users

  • External users (community and portal users)

    • Default ‘Private’

• New profile property ‘View all users’ lets the users with this profile to view all users, regardless of sharing settings.

• Use sharing rules to open up access

• When the OWS is Private, user sharing does not fully support

  • Customizable forecasting

  • Salesforce CRM Content

  • Standard Report Types

 

Additional enhancements to the user object

• Workflow rules have been enabled for the User object (beta)

  • User workflow rules instead of triggers to automate activities such as

    • Sending messages and emails to users

    • Deactivating user accounts

    • Synching user data with third-party systems

• User records follow the same save order of execution as used by most other objects’ records in Salesforce

• New ExceptionCode and StatusCode values

  • Re-testing exception handling on the User object is strongly encouraged

 

ADVANCED SEARCH SETUP

• New powerful setup search option -> Advanced setup search

• Search for

  • public groups

  • permission sets

  • profiles

  • users

  • roles

• This is a beta feature and is enabled in the User interface page in Setup

 

ENHANCED LOOKUPS

• Setup | Customize | Search | Search Settings

• With Winter 14 is it possible to search all fields in the enhanced lookup dialog  box (and not just Name)

 

APPROVAL ENHANCEMENTS

• Approval comment merge fields are now available in approval related email alerts

• Now possible to create an approval process with up to 30 steps (previously 15)

• Approval feed post templates in change sets

 

SANDBOX ENHANCEMENTS

• Configuration-Only sandboxes are now called Developer Pro sandboxes

• New sandbox type called Partial Copy

  • 5GB data

  • Refresh interval: 5 days

  • Salesforce samples a subset of the production data and loads it into the sandbox org

• Increase capacity

  • Developer Sandbox (10MB -> 200MB)

  • Developer Pro Sandbox (500MB -> 1GB)

 

SALESFORCE IDENTITY

• Users can gain one click access to other applications through a single login credential using Salesforce Identity.

• Single Sign-On

• “Bring their own identity”. For example, you can have your employees log in using their Active Directory credentials, your partners login in using Salesforce credentials and your customers log in using their Facebook credentials

• Control identity and access management for regular salesforce users and non-salesforce users.

• Users with identity management services only -> Salesforce users with identity license and salesforce profile.

  • Access to Chatter and connected applications configured for their profile

  • Identity licensed users will be directed to the App Launcher tab when logging in to Salesforce

Identity License

• Provides Single-Sign On for non-Salesforce users

Salesforce Identity Connect

• Provides integration with Active Directory (commonly user credential store) through the Identity Connect permission set license and software you install.

  • This allows the users to be able to log in to Salesforce using their Active Directory credentials.

• Can synchronize between Salesforce users and Active Directory users

Branded Login Pages

• Administators can declaratively customize My Domain pages by modifying the logo, background color and right-frame content.

• Administrators can add alternative Identity Provides to a login page. Users can authenticate through their respective authentication services.

Environment Hub

• Users can view, connect and acccess multiple Salesforce organizations from one place.

• Provide easy single sign-on integration between Salesforce organization

• Administrators will assign one Salesforce organization as the “hub” and link other related or member Salesforce organizations as “spokes”. A “spoke” can be a production or a sandbox org.

• Environment Hub enables auto-mapping of users between Salesforce organizations based on the federation ID and formula fields, so that administrators can establish single sign-on between the hub and member organizations – enabling users to switch between orgs without having to to log into each organization separately.

Security

• Introduces two-factor authentication using time-based tokens and session security levels.

  • Two-factor authentication requires the user to enter a generated token in addition to their login credentials when accessing Salesforce.

  • Time-based tokens add additional user verification to prevent unauthorized access to Salesforce and Salesforce services when your policies require an additional security level.

  • Administrators will be able to force users to use two-factor authentication on each login by enabling the “Force two-factor authentication on UI login” permission on a user’s profile or permission set.

  • Users will be required to generate the time-based tokens from a supported mobile authenticator application such as Salesforce Authenticator or Google Authenticator.

  • Time-based tokens help to:

    • Verify a user’s identity

    • Prevent unauthorized access to Salesforce services

  • Security levels allow you to require high assurance authentication when a user attempts to access certain resources. There are two security levels:

    • Standard

    • High Assurance

 

Session Security level options

• Username Password (standard)

• Delegated Authentication (standard)

• Two Factory Authentication (high assurance)’

 

Policies can be set up to control which security levels to be used:

• Access policies

• Session policies

  • Can identify action to happen when someone tries to access the resources without the appropriate access level. For example:

    • Block Reports

    • Raise session level

Salesforce Authenticator

• A mobile application that generates time-based tokens

OpenId Connect Support

• Salesforce has added the ability to easily configure an OpenID Connect client and accept Identity from any OpenID Connect compliant Identity Provider, such as Google.

SITE.COM ENHANCEMENTS

• Importing HTML-pages is now supported

  • Upload a zip file containing the HTML page and all its related files and site.com places the components in the correct categories and converts the HTML page into an editable site.com page.

• Support for multilingual sites now available

  • Create versions of the site in different languages. All languages are maintained within the site.

• Live Mode

  • Site administrators, designers and contributors can now preview pages, templates and widgets as they would appear at different resolutions and on different platforms, including tablets, smartphones and computer screens.

• Available in sandbox environments

• Broken link finder

  • To help search pages for broken links

• Widgets have been enhanced to include custom properties. Now each instance of a widget can be customized

ADDITIONAL ENHANCEMENTS

• Permission sets now support permission set licenses

  • New way to add features for specific users

• Additional permissions and settings are now available via the Metadata API for profiles and permission sets

• State and country picklists are now available on the following stadnard objects:

  • Accounts

  • Campaign Members

  • Contacts

  • Contracts

  • Leads

  • Person Accounts

  • Quotes

  • Service Contracts

• Monitoring of deployment processes has been enhanced to provide more timely and precise information

• The freeze button is available on user detail records.

  • Blocks the user from logging in

 

Analytics

 

HISTORICAL TRENDING

• Available for Opportunities and custom objects

• Analyze how your opportunity or custom object data changes over time. You can build tabular reports to give you a side-by-side comparison of records data between two or more points in time, color coded to give you an instant view of what’s changed, or summarize the changes in a matrix report to see the big picture.

  • Enable in Setup | Customize | Reports & Dashboards | Historical Trending

• Salesforce will create up to 3 months of historical data for each object

• A new historical trending custom report type is created for each object that you enable, which users can use to create reports. This report type adds new features to the report builder. For example, current data is displayed in ‘Today’ columns and past data us displayed in ‘Historical’ columns.

• Use the Historical Date Picker to show data from additional points in time, which appears in an additional column for each historical field.You can display up to five historical dates in this way.

• Each historical trend report can contain up to 100 fields

• Up to 5 million rows of historical trending data can be stored for each object

• You cannot created historical trending reports in the report wizard, must use the report builder

• Not supported in IE6

EMBEDDED ANALYTICS

• Add report charts to standard and custom page layouts

• Up to two charts can be displayed in a record detail page

• Add report charts to a page layout through the page layout editor

• The new ‘Report Chart’ option in the palette area displays up to 200 of the most recently viewed available reports.

• Filter the chart to show only data for the record being viewed

• Reports must

  • Be in either summary or matrix format

  • Contain a chart

  • Use a report type with the ID field needed for filtering

  • Be saved in a shared folder

• You can only add report charts from the enhanced page layout editor. The mini console and the original page layout editor are not supported

• Charts refresh by default every 24 hours, but can be refreshed manually by clicking a button. All refreshes are subject to hourly limits

ANALYTICS ENHANCEMENTS

• Show or hide role hierarchy at the top of Opportunity or Activity reports they are viewing. By default the role hierarchy is hidden

• Resize the reports and dashboards list on Reports tab

• The new ‘Create and Customize List Views’ permission allows administrators to control which users can create and modify their own personal list views. On by default for all users.

• The new analytics folder sharing model (introduced in Summer ‘13) is now on by default

Salesforce Spring ’13 Developer Release Exam Notes

I just passed the Salesforce Spring ’13 Developer Release Exam.

Training videos are usually provided the same way as for the admin part, but this time we got a specific developer resources page for the Spring ’13 updates instead.

I prepared by reading all topics on this page and listening to the Spring ’13 Release Developer Preview Webinar. Do this and perhaps take advantage of my notes and you’ll do fine. Just make sure you got all the basics with the Salesforce.com data- and sharing model covered.

• Recommended from Salesforce is also to review the Force.com Multitenant Architecture White paper.
• Review the document topics listed below (search Salesforce Help):
  • Overview of Object Relationships
  • Considerations for Relationships
  • Creating Custom Object Sharing Rules
  • Criteria-Based Sharing Rules Overview
  • Securing Data Access
  • Overview of Sharing Settings
  • Setting Your Organization-Wide Sharing Defaults

 

BULK, METADATA, AND STREAMING API UPDATES

Bulk API
Compressed Reponses:
You can now request gzip-compressed responses from Bulk API, which reduces network traffic and improves response time.

Metadata API
Organization Settings Changes:
In Spring ‘13, several Metadata API types have been updated or added to improve support for organization settings. For the declarative file-based API, all organization settings types are accessed via the Settings name and setting component member.Each organization settings component gets stored in a single file in the settings directory of the corresponding package directory.

Streaming API
Tasks Supported:
Tasks are now supported in PushTopic queries.

Increased Limits for Unlimited and Enterprise Edition Organizations:
Streaming API now has increased limits for Unlimited Edition and Enterprise Edition organizations

FORCE.COM CANVAS UPDATES
http://wiki.developerforce.com/page/Force.com_Canvas

• With Force.com Canvas you can develop in the language of your choice and easily surface the app inside of Salesforce. The app can be inside your firewall, living on Heroku, in SAP or basically anywhere.
• Lightweight and easy-to-use JavaScript libraries allow your app to authenticate and communicate without having to deal with cross-domain network issues. This provides your users with a single command center to drive all their apps.
• Force.com Canvas allows you to authenticate by using OAuth 2.0 or a signed request. This means that your app can connect to Salesforce at a data layer while remaining seamless for users.
• Developers: Create your app and allow your customers to install it with a single click. Administrators: Easily install apps from developers and quickly manage who in your org can use the app.
• The canvas app is within an iframe of the visualforce page
• The Force.com Canvas SDK is an open-source suite of JavaScript libraries and provides simple methods that use existing Salesforce APIs (SOAP API, REST API, Chatter REST API) so you can build a seamless end-user experience inside of salesforce.com.
  

Force.com Canvas Limits:
Two new limits:

• Number of calls per day per user: 5,000.
• Heroku Quick Start calls per day per user: 100

Support For Internet Explorer Version 8 added:
The full list of supported browsers is:

• Mozilla® Firefox® (preferred)
• Google ChromeTM
• Microsoft® Internet Explorer® version 8
• Apple® Safari® (be sure to set the Block Cookies setting to Never)

Expose a Canvas App on a Visualforce Page:

• You can now expose a canvas app on a Visualforce page by using the component. This means you can display a canvas app anywhere you can display a Visualforce page.  I.e. use the standard visualforce component <apex:canvasApp> to surface this app from any custom page.  As before you can also access the canvas apps from the Chatter tab.
• Use the parameters attribute to pass controller values into your canvas app.
• Change canvas size
• Example:
  <apex:page sidebar=”false” showheader=”false” standardController=”Invoice_Statement__c”>
  <apex:canvasApp developerName=”denv_warehouse” parameters=”{‘orderId’ : ‘{!Invoice_Statement__c.Id}’}” />
  </apex:page>where ‘denv_warehouse’ is a connected app.

CONNECTED APPS
A Connected App is an application that integrates with salesforce.com using Identity and Data APIs, such as SOAP API or REST API. Connected Apps use the standard OAuth 2.0 protocol to authenticate, provide Single Sign-On, and provide tokens for use with Salesforce APIs. In addition to standard OAuth capabilities, Connected Apps allow Administrators explicit control over who may use the application, and various security policies which should be enforced.

Connected app = API Client
Can be a:

• Web application (including Force.com canvas)
• Mobile application

As a developer you publish to an install URL and give out so that admins can use it to bring the app into their org.

Setup -> Administration Setup -> Manage Apps -> Connected Apps

TOOLING API
New in API version 27.0, the Tooling API provides SOAP and REST interfaces that allow you to build custom development tools for Force.com applications.

• Next generation API for building custom development tools
  • REST and SOAP
• Manage working copies of code artifacts
  • Apex class/triggers, Visualforce Page/Component
• Manage debug process
  • Trace flags, heap dump markers, Apex Code/SOQL overlays
• Manage debug artifacts
  • Heap dumps, debug logs

For example, you can:

• Add features and functionality to your existing Force.com tools.Eg. plugins for development tools
• Build dynamic modules for Force.com development into your enterprise integration tools.
• Build specialized development tools for a specific application or service.

DEVELOPER CONSOLE UPDATES
The new Progress tab in the Developer Console includes a panel that displays all asynchronous requests in real time. To see only the operations that are in progress, select Hide Finished Runs. To terminate any deployments that haven’t finished, click Cancel All Deployments.

On the Logs tab, select Show My Current Logs Only(previously called This Session Only) to display only logs generated by you since opening the Developer Console. Deselect to see all debug logs saved for your organization, including newly-generated system logs created by other users.

On the Heap Dumps tab, select Show My Current Heap Dumps Only (previously called This Session Only) to display only heap dumps generated by you since opening the Developer Console. Deselect to see all heap dumps saved for your organization, including newly-generated heap dumps created by other users.

CONNECT IN APEX – DEVELOPER PREVIEW
Connect in Apex exposes Chatter API resources as objects in Apex. Use classes in the ConnectApi namespace to develop Chatter applications on the Force.com platform without using Apex callouts (HTTP callouts to the chatter api)

• New and improved methods
• New feed item templates to make feed items easier to render by defining their layout

TRIGGERS FOR CollaborationGroup AND CollaborationGroupMember
Triggers are now available for CollaborationGroup and CollaborationGroupMember sObjects. You can create the triggers by clicking Your Name > Setup > Customize > Chatter > Triggers, and then selecting CollaborationGroup Triggers or CollaborationGroupMember Triggers.

SETTING ID FIELDS FOR UPDATES
Starting with Apex code saved using Salesforce.com API version 27.0, the Id field is now writeable on sObject instances for all sObject types—standard objects, custom objects, and generic sObjects—for update operations. The insert operation doesn’t support setting Id fields on sObjects.

This change enables you to update existing records that correspond to sObject instances you already have, such as sObjects you obtained from deserializing JSON input. To do so, set the Id field on the sObjects to IDs of existing records in the database and call update. This call updates the corresponding records with all the other fields that are set on the sObjects.

CRITICAL UPDATES

Invalid URLs Blocked:
This critical update blocks custom links or custom buttons from rendering invalid URLs when their content source is of type URL. It doesn’t affect custom links or custom buttons whose content source is either OnClick JavaScript or Visualforce Page. You can locate the update under Your Name > Setup > App Setup > Critical Updates. Prior to Spring ’13, we rendered all custom link and custom button URLs even those with invalid markup. However, with this update, when you create or edit the URLs, we display an error if the URL is invalid. In the user interface, custom links and buttons defined with invalid URLs display as disabled and show an error message on hover.

Visualforce PDF Rendering Engine Improvements:
This update improves the consistency of how the Visualforce PDF engine processes page resources, such as images and CSS files. Prior to the Spring ’13 release, some images and CSS files would not display properly on Visualforce pages rendered as a PDF document.

Single View State Enhancement:
Decreases Visualforce page size, and improves loading time and rendering efficiency. Prior to the Spring ’13 release, Visualforce pages with more than one form tag would generate multiple copies of the view state in the HTML markup.