Top 4 Features for Salesforce Platform Winter ’24

Application Architect – SSC, Derek Camp shares helpful Salesforce Platform Winter ’24 Release takeaways for Salesforce Admins. 

For me, the Winter release is always the most depressing of the three. It’s announced during the summer and released during the fall. But as one not a fan of cold and snow, this release feels like a portent of gloom. Additionally, it means an avalanche (see what I did there?) of “Winter is coming” memes. However, I have to remind myself that half the world experiences this time of year as warm and not to judge a release by its name. 
So, let’s put on the Indiana Jones theme from my John Williams Essentials playlist and adventure forth as I share my takeaways from the Salesforce platform Winter ‘24 Release! 

1. IdeaExchange Winners

Overall, this is a big release for IdeaExchange Prioritization winners. The Salesforce regularly opens voting on top ideas from the IdeaExchange for those unfamiliar. The winners are then folded into Salesforce’s release roadmap. It’s easy to lose track of their progress, so I appreciate it when the release notes call out that they’re delivering on an IdeaExchange prioritization winner.  

The ideas delivered are centered around allowing reports on more things, particularly those typically in setup. Just recently, we were figuring out how to enable a manager to see who has a particular Permission Set assigned and, thus, who is consuming feature licenses. Now, with a bit of setup for Custom Report Types, there are lots of tasty reports to be made and some new clarity into information about your users!   

• Report on Custom Permission Set and Permission Set Group Assignments – I harped on this last time. Still, Salesforce is moving towards a Permission Set-based security model and away from Profile-based. Profiles aren’t going away, but having this kind of reportability on your users and their permissions will be very important during this security model transition!   
• See Who Has Access to Accounts from Manual Shares and Account Teams with Reports – This elicits mixed emotions. On the one hand, it’s an IdeaExchange winner, meaning people voted for it. On the other hand, it is narrowly focused on the Account Share object. It’s still progressing and opening this kind of reporting and visibility is essential, especially for troubleshooting. But I hope it’s the first step of many. 
• View Public Group Members with Reports – This isn’t a sexy change, but it’s essential, especially for clients with hundreds or thousands of groups.  

2. More Fun with Permissions

While we’re on the topic of user permissions, I found these other changes to be quite exciting. Yes, I’m a nerd; also, yes, you should be paying more attention to permissions and security. 

• See What’s Enabled in a Permission Set More Easily (Beta) – Permission Sets are complex; how do you know what’s enabled within them? You click this button! Sadly, it’s not an inline summary. Also, sadly, it’s just a beta feature at this point.  
• See API Names for Object and Field Permissions in Permission Sets – Oh, thank God! This is so incredibly needed. Another on the “if you know, you know” changes…  
• Automate and Migrate User Access with Improved User Access Policy Filters (Beta) – User Access Policies will be an essential feature in the future. I’m glad to see some improvement here, even though I’m bummed it’s still a beta feature. 

3. Dynamic Forms

To me, the headline for Salesforce platform Winter ’24 is – Dynamic Forms! There are still holdouts, but for the most part, this feature is widely available. And for mobile too! There are some important considerations and limitations regarding Dynamic Forms, but I’m sure those will be overcome in time. I hope you are like me and feel unblocked from embracing Dynamic Forms. (As I type this sentence, I’m listening to the Superman theme on my John Williams Essentials playlist, and I feel the analogy is appropriate – Dynamic Forms will make you an #AwesomeAdmin!)    

• Use Dynamic Forms on LWC-Enabled Standard Objects – The release note is awkwardly worded, but the important takeaway is that dynamic forms are now more available than not. Note, Campaign, Product, Task – these still lack dynamic forms. But the important part is that you could use this for Accounts, Contacts, Opportunities, Cases, and custom objects. This moment, for me, feels like a big final moment. I personally now consider dynamic forms “usable”.  
• Also, Dynamic Forms on Mobile!   

4. Small Changes, Unless They’re Big 

Some updates in this release make my “it’s not an issue unless it’s a big issue” list. I mean that these changes shouldn’t impact most of you, but it could be significant if they do affect you. So, it’s better to be aware and think about them than to be surprised and have some lost productivity while you untangle things.  

• Prepare for the New Setup Domain – It’s interesting that Setup is now in salesforce-setup.com. I’d like to know more about why this is happening because this feels like one of those “stealth” changes. Most people won’t have an issue, but some will have a big issue. If your company has a strict firewall policy, think about this.  
• Disable Keyboard Shortcuts – But why would you? Actually, this is fun because it surfaces the fact that there are keyboard shortcuts in the first place! You should be using them!  
• Enable Faster Account Sharing Recalculation by Not Storing Case and Contact Implicit Child Shares (Release Update) – Neat performance improvement. It’s a release update, meaning it’s coming for you regardless of whether you want it. Some edge cases here might need investigation – the release note calls them out and references a Knowledge Article about it. Account Owners gain visibility to community-owned issues and contacts in some scenarios; SOQL queries or Apex tests that look for implicit share records won’t return results anymore. So, this is something to consider!  
• Enable Faster Account Sharing Recalculation by Not Storing Opportunity Implicit Child Shares (Release Update) – Like the previous note, this is a good thing, but it might be rocky if you’re unprepared. 

wAIt a Minute… 

As the Star Wars Imperial March comes on the John Williams playlist, it feels like I am missing something big and impending, marching across Salesforce and all tech. Where was all the talk about AI stuff? It’s there; it’s everywhere! I wanted to make sure you weren’t blinded to all the other cool stuff coming in addition to the cool AI stuff!    

Now, everyone put on the Harry Potter theme (gosh, John Williams is a classic maker) and make something magical in Salesforce! 

– Derek Camp, Application Architect, SSC