Top Salesforce Highlights on the '23 Winter Release
5 min
Winter is coming. Yet unlike the rotten season finale of Game of Thrones, this winter is bringing some significant enhancements from Salesforce.
This article focuses on some key features that everyone will find helpful.
1. Dynamic Forms
Dynamic Forms were introduced in the Summer 20 release. It allowed Salesforce consultants and admins to have granular control of record pages. Dynamic forms allowed declaratively customising fields and sections of the pages according to business needs.
However, the Summer 20 release ONLY allowed dynamic forms on Custom objects. From the Winter 23 release, Dynamic forms will now be supported on a few selected standard objects (Accounts, Contacts, Person Accounts, and Opportunities). Salesforce aims to support all standard objects by September 2023.
As depicted in the image below, fields can be grouped into their own sections and can have visibility criteria applied to them all via configuration.
2. Set FLS on Permission Sets
Winter 23 now provides the ability to directly assign Field Level Security (FLS) of a new field to a Permission Set . Earlier, it was only possible to assign the FLS to profiles. Go to Setup | User Management Settings | Field-Level Security for Permission Sets During Field Creation (Beta) to enable this feature. FLS to Permission sets can also be set if the field type is changed.
3. Permission Set Expiration
Permission Sets can now be assigned with an expiration time. Imagine, a consultant hired for a specific time period and must have access to Order and other related objects. With Winter 23, the permissions to the consultant can be assigned via permission sets and permission set groups with an expiration time period. When the expiration time expires, consultants no longer has access to the permissions assigned via the permission sets or permission set groups.
4. User Access and Permissions Assitant
Salesforce has revamped the Permission Helper app and re-launced it as Permission Assitant. You can download the app from App Exchange.
The App, once installed and configured, can help Admin
- Troubleshoot any access issues for Users in the org.
- Convert profiles to editable permission sets.
- Analyze and report on Permissions and access.
- Understanding the granular permissions inside Permission sets.
5. Flows
Winter 23 officially sounds the death knell for Workflow rules. Admins will no longer be able to create new workflow rules. Existing workflow rules, however, would still work and can be edited.
6. Flow Enhancements
Flows is the automation tool of choice recommended by Salesforce. So, it is not a surprise that Winter 23 brings in lots of new features and enhancements.
- Some of the major Winter '23 enhancements include:
- Update Related Records of the triggering record (just like Process Builder)
- Improved Formula Builder. Formulas can now be built and validated upfront.
- ISCLONE() function is now available in Flows to help migrate Process Builders and/or Workflow rules
- Flow Elements can now be cut and paste making re-arraning elements a breeze.
- No-Code Flow Automated Testing is now GA.
7. Sandbox Enhancements
With Winter23, Sandbox list page reflects the type of the sandbox instance (preview, non-preview etc). This makes the process of identifying which sandboxes to refresh much easier.
8. Multi-Factor Authentication
Multi Factor Authentication (or MFA for short) would be auto-enabled for direct logins in the first half of 2023. By September of 2023, Salesforce will enforce MFA by making it a permanent part of the Salesforce log in process. Please refer to the knowledge article to help understand its impact on your organisation and how to enable it.
With the above feature sets, we have just scratched the surface of the changes and enhancements coming as part of the Winter 23 release.
For a full set of feature and cloud specific features coming as part of Winter 23, please refer to the Winter 23 Release Highlights trailhead.
Then head over to the Salesforce Release Process Trailhead to understand in depth the release process and when Winter 23 changes are coming to your production org.
.png)
