Spring ‘12 will soon arrive and by the recent warm weather in Minnesota, you would have thought it already had. While we wait patiently for the seasons to change, for Salesforce.com it already has. February marks the beginning of spring with their Spring ‘12 release- released in the last week.
The new release brings some features that I am excited about:
- Salesforce.com Analytics Edition
- Cross Object Workflow
- Data Bucketing
- Chatter enhancements
- Schema Builder enhancements (a personal favorite)
With the introduction of SFDC Analytics Edition comes the ability to create joined reports, allowing system admins to create reports that join data for the ability to see opportunities along with the proper associated Sales Team and products.
Next on my list of exciting additions is data bucketing. Now you no longer need to create a formula field to bucket data, instead, this can easily be done in a report. For example: whereas previously you needed to create a formula field that bucketed data into say, opportunities between $1 – $10K, $10K – $100K, $100K –$1000K, this can now be done in a report and not consume a field on the opportunity record. Salesforce will be providing the new analytic features at no additional cost.
Next up is cross object workflow, which will now support custom objects to standard and limited standard Salesforce.com objects. This will elevate the need to use Apex for this functionality. Clicks not code!
The Spring ‘12 release also provides many chatter enhancements. For example, you can now attach files in comments. Without this feature I found it personally frustrating, especially when the answer to a request is in a file that could not be attached directly to the thread. Salesforce has also increased the maximum size of chatter file attachments from 100MB to 2GB, as well as, provided better support for YouTube and other videos.
Lastly and my personal favorite is the new Schema builder enhancement. What I like about the new schema builder is the way you can now create objects and fields. The new enhancement is much quicker than the older method of going through setup and navigating the wizard for field type, size etc.
So if you had not had a chance to check out Salesforce.com Spring ‘12 release notes and videos, visit their website for more information. Have fun with these new enhancements!
