Eight Exciting Features of Salesforce’s Spring ‘21 Release

  • By Do Bartek
  • Feb 2021
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As we enter the early months of the much anticipated 2021, we are filled with hopes for a better year. And while 2021 may have started full of new headlines to rival 2020, from vaccines to worldwide protests, Salesforce powered through and rolled out a set of fantastic new features as part of the Spring ‘21 release to help customers adapt to the new world we live in and work in. 

Omniskope’s consultants scoured the release notes, and with their help, we have created this list of our top features of the Spring ‘21 release that will positively impact current and future Salesforce users. 

Continue reading below to learn more and see how these new features could be of use to you! 

Salesforce Meetings

Salesforce continues to create new solutions designed to make working outside of the traditional office a breeze. To compete with powerhouse virtual meeting providers like Zoom and Google Meet, Salesforce launched Salesforce Meetings. 

Now, users don’t have to leave their Salesforce dashboards anymore to attend meetings. Instead, they can directly launch a meeting in the web application. Not only can they stay on the application, but they can also take notes and look up important record information much faster. 

The new feature also is equipped with Salesforce Meeting Studio, which has a unique camera and presentation view designed to keep attendees engaged during meetings. Plus, with Meeting Digest, you gain a unified understanding of meeting attendees and relevant activities, ensuring team members are aligned going into a meeting.

Out-of-the-Box Payments

Having to integrate payment systems can be a costly pain. But now, with the Spring ‘21 release, Salesforce is making integrating payment systems simple and cost-efficient by pairing with Stripe payment tools for Commerce Cloud users. 

Without out-of-the-box payments, users won’t have to worry about choosing their payment system integration anymore or getting the right team to integrate it into their business flow. Plus, the payment system is globally acknowledged, giving you more time to focus on providing the best customer experience possible.

Field Service: Appointment Assistant

Field service management has come in handy for many companies that invested in the Service Cloud application. Those companies gained more control over their field technicians and other out-of-office workers. Nevertheless, it would be fair to say that the customers should also benefit from this feature.

Until now, Field Service Management has only helped dispatchers see the field workers’ live location. Salesforce has decided to retire the 4-hour wait window with a real-time update. The ability to track the technician helps prevent scheduling problems and makes it easy for clients to quickly and responsively make changes as needed. Additionally, the appointment assistant feature allows users to check on the safety protocols (customizable by each company) to make sure they are ready to welcome a new technician while following pandemic and industry requirements. 

Time-Based Flow Actions

Apart from a customer-centric business style approach, Salesforce also focuses on automation. From creating workflows to promoting users to use the process builder, Salesforce is slowly moving towards flows. With this continuous trend towards automation, it is possible that soon flows may be the only tool available to create automation in Salesforce, so now more than ever, it is worth investing your time and effort to learn more about flows.

Like scheduled action in process builder, the time-based flow action helps users move towards completely automating their Salesforce organization.  Before time-based flows, users could not make the move to only utilizing flows because of the time constraint, but now nothing stops users from immigrating towards this new feature. Users can now set a scheduled run of each action of the flow without going through it manually.

Einstein Opportunity Scoring

Imagine you are selling to two customers, one being from a familiar industry and the other from one that you’ve never had a chance to deal with yet. The last one also does not respond to your questions and delays all the processes. In this scenario, it is clear that you should invest more time with the customer that seems more promising than that one who doesn’t take the deal seriously. However, sometimes it can be hard to discern which contacts will be the most beneficial to your business. This is why Salesforce has made its opportunity scoring system better than ever before. With the new update, Einstein ranks your deals according to those thought to have the highest potential to turn into deals. 

Unlike before, when users needed at least 200 closed deals to start getting their deals ranked, Salesforce now has made it easier for small companies to get up to speed on opportunities scoring by eliminating the need for those 200 deals.  With a global scoring model, small companies or those new to Salesforce now have access to opportunity scores.

In-App Learning with Trailhead

Salesforce (and Omniskope) are big believers in the idea that there is always something new to be learned. This is why Salesforce created Trailhead. With the Spring ‘21 release, Salesforce improves its learning platform to provide users with the best experiences. 

With in-app learning on Trailhead, users are sure to not miss out on any new features. Vice versa, companies can motivate their employees to learn more about Salesforce to stay up to date and avoid falling behind the competitors. Trailhead can now be incorporated into your Salesforce organization, making it easier for users to access it and expand their Salesforce knowledge and skills.

Manual Record Sharing

Before the Spring 21 release, sharing each specific record meant that a user had to follow a three-step procedure when working in Lightning Experience.

The procedure went as listed below:

  1. Change from Lightning Mode to Classic Mode
  2. Search again for the particular record
  3. Manually share in Classic Mode

With the new release, though, Salesforce has simplified the process. Records can be designed with the role hierarchy and sharing rules. However, it is still essential for users to do manual record sharing. Now users in Lightning Experience can do so with a simple click on the record page.

Admission Connect & Student Success Hub

2020 came with a slew of problems and new, never-before experiences for everyone. Many seem to only think about the effects the pandemic had on businesses overlooking the drastic changes it made to schools and learning systems worldwide. With a sudden shift to virtual learning, many schools entered uncharted waters. 

Although schools are educational institutions, they also benefit from  CRMs. With the new release, Salesforce has addressed this problem by launching two significant features that allow schools to be more organized when managing students. 

The Admission Connect allows post-secondary admission staff to keep track of applying students. It is structured to help recruiters, and the admissions board focuses on analyzing applicants without wasting time finding and organizing them.

The second feature, the Student Success Hub, allows high school counselors to take care of in-class and out-of-class performances, allowing schools to focus more on helping students succeed. 

If 2020 has taught us anything, we cannot always predict what will happen both in our personal and work environments. However, Salesforce continues to be a reliable source, never halting their releases but instead quickly adapting to the changes and providing users with features applicable to current situations and needs. This is evident in their Spring ‘21 release. They continue to unveil features like Salesforce Meetings, Admission Connect, and Student Success Help designed to make working (and learning) in new, non-traditional environments uncomplicated. 

We can expect the next release in summer. We are curious to see what the world will look like then and what Salesforce will have for us. But until then, there is still plenty of exciting stuff coming out of the Salesforce Spring ‘21 release. 

Ready to take the next step and integrate a new feature or implement a Salesforce solution designed specifically for your business? Look no further than Omniskope. Our consultants are experts in Salesforce who always keep you at the forefront of everything they do to facilitate your digital transformation. Contact us today to learn more.

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