Salesforce Spring '23 Release on Elements

Jun 13, 2023

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We are so excited to partner with the best in the CRM business, because their releases help you too! The Spring '23 release for Salesforce is currently rolling out, and below are some of the key enhancements we want to highlight as your Salesforce partner.

Fields Customization

Capture Inclusive Data with Gender Identity and Pronouns Fields

Boost data quality, build trust, and engage with customers in the ways they self-identify with gender-inclusive fields. Pronouns and Gender Identity are now included as optional picklist fields on the Lead, Contact, and Person Account objects. Use the vetted, default value sets or add your own picklist values to get a full picture of your constituents. Be sure to review any privacy implications of collecting this data before adding the new fields to your page layouts.

Limit the Number of Inactive Picklist Values

This update is designed to improve org health and performance by restricting the number of inactive picklist values in a custom picklist field. With this update, the ability to have an unlimited number of inactive picklist values is removed.

Where: This change applies to Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic in all editions.

When: This update is announced in Spring ’23 and is enforced in Summer ’23.

How: After this update is enforced, the Remove upper bound on inactive picklist values panel is removed from the Picklist Settings page in Setup. Then you can’t remove the upper bound on inactive picklist values, and the maximum number of inactive picklist values is 4,000.

Bulk Manage Picklist Values

Save time managing your picklists. You can now delete, activate, deactivate, or replace multiple custom picklist field values at once. Previously, you modified them one at a time. This feature is available only for custom picklists with predefined values. This feature is generally available.

Where: This change applies to Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic in all editions.

How: Go to the custom field definition page for the picklist field. In the Values and Inactive Values sections, there’s a checkbox next to each picklist value. You can select multiple values and use one of the new buttons: Delete Selected, Deactivate Selected, Replace Selected, or Activate Selected.

Clean Up Inactive Picklist Values

Manage your inactive picklist values and enforce limits on inactive values for custom picklists to improve system performance and overall health. You can now bulk delete inactive unused picklist values. Previously, custom picklists with many inactive values were difficult to maintain because you had to delete inactive values one at a time. This feature is available only for custom picklists with predefined values. This feature is now generally available.

Where: This change applies to Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic in all editions.

How: From the Inactive Values section of the picklist field, click Delete Unused Values. After you delete unused values, if a picklist is unbound and the total number of inactive values falls below the limit, the picklist is set to bound.

Lightning App Builder

Take Advantage of Dynamic Actions for Standard Objects

Add even more flexibility and control to actions on your record pages with dynamic actions for all standard objects, now generally available for desktop. Previously, dynamic actions were generally available only for Account, Case, Contact, Lead, and Opportunity for desktop. Dynamic actions for custom objects are also generally available for desktop and mobile. Assign actions in the Lightning App Builder instead of the page layout, and apply filters to control when and where actions appear for users.

Where: This change applies to Lightning Experience in Group, Essentials, Professional, Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, and Developer editions.

How: To enable dynamic actions for a standard object on desktop, add or select the Highlights Panel component on the object’s record page. In the Highlights Panel properties pane, click Upgrade Now, and step through the migration assistant to migrate actions, or start with new ones.

To add an action, click Add Action (1) in the properties pane. To assign visibility rules based on record field, device type, and other filters, in the Actions window, choose an action, and click Add Filter (2). An eye icon (3) next to an action’s name indicates that visibility rules are applied. If you migrated actions from a page layout, you can modify them in the Actions window.

With the Dynamic Related List – Single component, admins define and filter related lists directly from the Lightning App Builder. Like other related lists, dynamic related lists now include a View All link so that users can see a full list of related records. In the full related list, users can also add quick filters and see the filters that their admin applied. Previously, users saw only up to 30 records in a dynamic related list on the record detail page.

Pin Important Content on the Right Side of Record Pages

Use the new Pinned Right Sidebar (3 regions) template to create record pages in which you can show important information, such as customer details and chats, on the right side of their pages. Your users, such as customer service representatives, can then verify customer identity over various channels, such as web chat, and access customer chats from one place and avoid switching between subtabs or pages.

Where: This change applies to Lightning Experience in Professional, Enterprise, Unlimited, and Developer editions.

How: In Lightning App Builder, create an object record page, and select the Pinned Right Sidebar (3 regions) template from the template list. Then add the required components (for example, the Conversation component) to the pinned region.

Access Information Easily on Object Record Pages with Screen Readers and Hover

The new layout of the page title template on object record pages makes the record name available for screen readers and hover. Record page titles update when you open the page. And the title appears when you hover over it.

Sharing Information

Enable Stronger Protection for Your Users’ Personal Information

Enable Enhanced Personal Information Management to prevent external users, such as portal or community users, from accessing other users’ personal information. This feature, which replaces the Hide Personal Information setting, secures more personally identifiable information (PII) user record fields. You can also decide which custom and standard user fields are considered PII. This release update was first available in Spring ’22 and was scheduled to be enforced in Winter ’23, but Salesforce postponed the enforcement date to Spring ’23.

Where: This change applies to Salesforce Classic (not available in all orgs) and Lightning Experience in Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, and Developer editions.

When: This release update was first available in Spring ’22 and was scheduled to be enforced in Winter ’23, but Salesforce postponed the enforcement date to Spring ’23. To get the major release upgrade date for your instance, go to Trust Status, search for your instance, and click the maintenance tab.

How: From Setup, in the Quick Find box, enter User Management Settings, and then select User Management Settings. To view and modify fields that are concealed, click in this field set.

For customers who enabled the Hide Personal Information setting, but haven’t enabled the Enhanced Personal Information setting, Salesforce hides these personal information fields in user records from external users in Spring ‘23.

Alias
EmployeeNumber
FederationIdentifier
SenderEmail
Signature
Username
Division
Title
Department
Extension

When the Show Nicknames preference is enabled, these fields are also hidden.

Name
First Name (component of the Name field)
Last Name (component of the Name field)

Note - When you enable Enhanced Personal Information Management, guest users lose access to their own PII fields. For example, guest users can’t see their own email information.

Learn Who Can Access Records and Why

Understanding who can access a record is critical to securing record access in your organization. Check out a record’s sharing hierarchy to view who it’s shared with. You can also see the user’s reason for access and find out if a user’s access is blocked by a restriction rule.

Where: This change applies to Lightning Experience in Professional, Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, and Developer editions.

How: To see a list of users who have access, click Sharing Hierarchy from the Action Menu on the desired record. To see why the user has access to the record or why access is blocked, click View next to the user’s name.

When you click View, all applicable sharing reasons appear, including the names of owner-based and criteria-based sharing rules.

If a restriction rule blocks access to the record, a message appears to confirm that access is blocked.

Languages

Specify a Default Language for Unlocked and Second-Generation Managed Packages

When you create a new package version, you can set a default language for the package. Setting a default language lets subscribers customize component labels in Translation Workbench, even if you don’t include translations in the package. If you create a package without specifying a language, the language defaults to the user language of the Dev Hub user who created the package. This functionality previously existed only in first-generation managed packages.

Where: This change applies to unlocked and second-generation managed packages.

How: Use the --language parameter when you create a new package version, and include the language code listed in Supported Languages in Salesforce Help.

Activities

Track Field History for Activities

See a list of changes to events and tasks after you turn on field history tracking in the Object Manager. Track up to six fields so that your team can see what’s changed in the Related tab for events and tasks. The Activity Record History component is automatically added to default event and task Lightning pages.

Take Action More Quickly in the Dynamic Activity Composer

The dynamic activity composer gives reps activities at the click of a button and offers more choices than the tabbed activity composer.

Where: This change applies to Lightning Experience in all editions.

How: Users click the buttons to perform the action, or they can click the dropdown menus for more actions.

The dropdown menus offer new features. In the Email dropdown, if a user has more than one email address, they can choose from up to three addresses to send the email. Users can also get to their email preferences quickly. And users can easily add email to their to do list.

NOTE - Reps can still set email preferences from their personal settings by going to My Email Settings in Setup.

In the Log a Call dropdown, users can choose from multiple phone numbers.

As with the tabbed activity composer, admins can add custom actions to customize the menu. For email, custom actions, such as Email 1 and Email 2, are of type Email. For Log a Call, custom actions such as Log A Call 1 and Log A Call 2 are of type Log a Call.

NOTE - Name your actions intentionally. The button name is from the name of the first action that’s on the layout.

New Task and New Event don’t have actions defined already. You can add custom actions.

Get the Play-by-Play with Field History Tracking for Activities

See a list of changes to events and tasks when you turn on field history tracking. Track up to six fields so that sales reps can see what’s changed in the Related tab for events and tasks.

Where: This change applies to Lightning Experience in all editions.

How: Pick which fields to track in the Object Manager. From Setup, go to the Object Manager and select the Event or Task object. Select Fields & Relationships, then click Set History Tracking.

Find the Activity History list in the Related tab on default event and task pages. The list stays empty until you set up field history tracking in the Object Manager.

Or add the Activity Record History component to your custom event and task lightning pages.

Flow Updates

Select Multiple Options in Dynamic Forms for Flow

It’s now easier and more straightforward for end users to select multiple options from a multi-select picklist field. And flow builders can now use multi-select picklists with the Checkbox Group and Multi-Select Choice components.

See Element Descriptions on the Flow Canvas

Now you can easily see what each element is doing within a flow in Auto-Layout. Previously, to see the user-provided description, you opened the element.

Add Lookup Fields to Your Flow Screens with Ease

Easily add Lookup fields to flow screens and create a record directly from the Lookup field with Dynamic Forms for Flow. On the Records tab, hover over a Lookup field from your record resource, and then drag in your desired Lookup field.

How: Previously, you had to set up lookup fields via the Lookup component. In addition, you can create a record right from the Lookup field within a Flow Screen. Previously, there was no way to do this from Lookup.

Convert Processes to Flows with the Migrate to Flow Tool

The updated Migrate to Flow tool can help your transition to Flow Builder. In addition to workflow rules, you can now use the Migrate to Flow tool to convert Process Builder processes into flows. Flows can do everything that processes can do and more.

Why: The Migrate to Flow tool supports only record-triggered processes. Custom event and custom invocable type processes aren’t supported. Processes containing scheduled actions, custom metadata types, and field traversals aren’t supported. For supported processes, you can migrate these action types.

Record update
Record create
Invoke flow
Invoke Apex
Email alert

How: From Setup, in the Quick Find box, enter Migrate to Flow, and then select Migrate to Flow. On the Migrate to Flow page, select the process that you want to convert into a flow, and then click Migrate to Flow. Then select which criteria you want to migrate to the flow. After the process is migrated, you can test the flow in Flow Builder. Test the new flow, and if everything works as expected, activate the flow and deactivate the process you converted.

Use Flow Screen Components with Flow in Slack

Screens in flows that run in Slack can contain the following flow screen components: Checkbox, CheckboxGroup, Currency, Date, Date & Time, Display Text, Long Text Area, Number, Picklist, Radio Button, and Text.

How: In Flow Builder, build a screen flow that includes only screen components supported in Slack. When you save the flow, select the Make Available in Slack checkbox in the Advanced area of the Save the flow dialog box.

Send a Screen Flow to Slack with an Action

Use the Slack Send Message to Launch Flow action to send a Slack message that contains a button that invokes a flow designed to run in Slack. This method of running a flow from Slack allows you to set input parameter values for flows with text variables available for input.

Where: The Slack Send Message to Launch Flow action works with Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic in Essentials, Professional, Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, and Developer editions. Slack apps, tools, and services that have been approved and installed by your Slack workspace owner are available for use in Slack desktop, mobile, and web apps.

How: In Flow Builder, build a screen flow that includes only screen components supported in Slack. Add text variables to the flow that are available for input. When you save the flow, select the Make Available in Slack checkbox in the Advanced area of the Save the flow dialog box. Finally, activate the flow.

Then, in a second flow, include the slackSendMessageToLaunchFlowflowName action, where flowName is the API name of the flow to send. In the Set Flow Input Values section, assign text values to the input parameters.

To run the flow from Slack, a user must be authenticated through the selected Salesforce Slack app. They must also have the Run Flows permission.

Find the full list of Flow updates here - Salesforce Flow

Reports and Dashboards

Filter Custom Report Types by Objects or Fields

Quickly find custom report types that include selected Salesforce objects or specific Salesforce fields. You can filter report types by up to four objects or 20 fields to ensure that the report contains the data you need.

How: To see this in action, create a report. In the Create Report window, click Filter. Select either Salesforce objects or Fields and search. Fields included via lookup or part of composite fields (such as geolocation or address) aren’t available as filter options.

Stay in Lightning Experience When Editing Lightning Reports

The Lightning Report Builder now has all the features of Salesforce Classic, so you don’t need to go back to Classic to access certain features. To help you remember, we removed the Edit in Classic button from the Row Level Actions menu on the Lightning Reports page.

Where: This change applies to Lightning Experience in Group, Essentials, Professional, Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, and Developer editions.

Create Personalized Report Filters

Set up a single dynamic report filter that displays personalized results for each user. For example, create an opportunity report for your sales team with a single Opportunity Owner filter that personalizes the results for each member of the team.

How: When setting up a filter on a user field, such as Opportunity Owner or Created By, select the relative value option. The filter value changes to the currently signed-in user.

Stay Informed on Dashboard and Report Subscriptions

You’re no longer in the dark about which reports, dashboards, or other analytic assets your users are subscribed to. Manage data access by determining what kind of attachments are sent, who receives them, and who the running user is. Stay on top of scheduling and limits with a quick report showing when subscriptions run and who set them up. Create a custom report type on Analytic Notifications to view the source, owner, running user, and schedule of subscriptions.

Access Optimal Views on Mobile with Enhanced Reports

Enhanced Reports optimizes your reports for consumption on mobile devices without reconfiguring the report formats. In this improved mobile experience you get a responsive user interface, faster load times, and more consistent performance.

When: Enhanced Reports are available February 13, 2023, for iOS and Android mobile devices.

Find the full list of reports & dashboards updates here - Reports and Dashboards

Domains

Enhanced domains and partitioned domains change the format of the login URLs for your Salesforce org and your sites. To help you log in faster, when you log in with a custom domain on login.salesforce.com or test.salesforce.com, the autocomplete function includes these new formats. As always, you can also visit the login URL directly.

Where: This change applies to Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic in all editions.

How: For example, when you click Use Custom Domain on test.salesforce.com and enter mycompany--uat.sa, the autocomplete function populates the Custom Domain field with mycompany--uat.sandbox.my.salesforce.com.

Get Your Packages Ready for Enhanced Domains

To prevent disruption for your customers when enhanced domains are deployed in Spring ’23, update your packages. Search for hard-coded URLs for the domains that Salesforce hosts, such as content files and Visualforce pages. Then update the hard-coded URLs to use a relative path or dynamically generated hostname. When you follow this recommendation, the link works regardless of the org type, My Domain settings, and whether enhanced domains are enabled.

Where: This change applies to unlocked packages and to first- and second-generation managed packages. Enhanced domains are available in Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic in Group, Essentials, Professional, Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, and Developer editions.

Email Experience Updates

Let Customers Pick Their Own Meeting Times in Lightning Experience

When emailing customers, reps can now avoid the back-and-forth and include a link to their Outlook or Gmail calendar so that the customer can choose their own meeting time.

Who: Users with the Use Inbox user permission, available with a High Velocity Sales, Sales Cloud Einstein, or Inbox license, can use this feature.

How: When creating an email, reps click the scheduling icon and select Add Scheduling Link.

The recipient receives the email, clicks Book a Meeting, and the rep’s calendar appears. The recipient chooses the best meeting time for their schedule, the event is confirmed, and the meeting is on the books.

Define Email Preferences in the Activity Composer

Your users now have a more convenient place to set their email preferences. Previously, reps set their email preferences from their profile settings.

How: From the Email dropdown in the activity composer, select Set My Email Preferences.

Verify Your Email Address to Send Email Through Salesforce

Salesforce now requires that you use a verified email address to continue sending emails through Salesforce, such as sends to contacts or leads. Most users verify their email address as part of the sign-up process. However, some users continue to use email addresses that were created and verified before the current verification process was established. If you send an email from an email address created before the current verification process, Salesforce rejects this email message and doesn’t complete the send. Unverified email addresses can’t be used for sends until the user resets the password or verifies the email address

How: To verify your email account, reset your password.

Verify Ownership of Your Salesforce Domain for Email Verification

You can bypass the email address verification status check if you prove that you own the email sending domain. Salesforce verifies ownership of sending domains using DKIM keys.

Where: This change applies to Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic in all editions.

Why: An active DKIM key indicates that you own the specified domain. Otherwise, ownership can’t be proven and this setting doesn’t function.

How: To enable this verification method, in Setup, select Verify the ownership of email sending domains by DKIM keys.

Review Hourly Send Limits for Single Emails

Users sending emails through the email composer can send up to 250 emails per hour. The org daily limit for single emails remains the same.

Find the full list of Email Experience updates here - Email Experience

Supported Browsers and Devices

See the supported browsers and devices for Lightning Experience

MFA Auto-Enablement

MFA Auto-Enablement: Find Out When and How Your Org Is Affected

As of February 1, 2022, Salesforce requires all customers to use multi-factor authentication (MFA) when accessing Salesforce products. To help customers meet this requirement, Salesforce is automatically enabling MFA for production orgs in several phases via the MFA Auto-Enablement Release Update. For orgs in the first phase, MFA is auto-enabled with Spring ’23. For orgs in the second phase, MFA is auto-enabled with Summer ’23.

Where: This change applies to Lightning Experience, Salesforce Classic, and all Salesforce mobile apps in all editions.

When: To know when your production org is affected, monitor the Release Update node in Setup for the MFA Auto-Enablement Release Update.

Phase 1 orgs: The release update for this phase was made available in Winter ’23 and goes into effect with Spring ’23. To get the major release upgrade date for your instance, go to Trust Status, search for your instance, and click the maintenance tab. Note that the MFA release update usually takes effect at the time your org is updated to Spring '23, but in some cases there could be a delay of several hours to a few days before MFA is auto-enabled for your users.
Phase 2 orgs: If you see the release update after Spring ’23 finishes rolling out, your org is scheduled to be auto-enabled with Summer ’23. In rare cases, it can take several weeks for the update to appear after the Spring ’23 release is complete.
For orgs not included in phase 1 or 2, the release update will be available in a later release.

How: The release update automatically turns on this setting: Require multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all direct UI logins to your Salesforce org. Users who have the Multi-Factor Authentication for User Interface Logins user permission experience no changes.

When MFA is turned on for your org, the process for logging in to the UI changes. After a user enters their username and password, they must verify their identity with an MFA verification method such as an authenticator app, security key, or built-in authenticator. If users haven’t done so already, they’re prompted to register a verification method the next time they log in after this release update goes into effect.

To prepare for this update, we recommend taking these steps.

Verify whether your org has exempt user types that need to be manually excluded from MFA before MFA auto-enablement occurs. See Exclude Exempt Users from MFA in Salesforce Help.
Train your users on how to acquire, register, and log in with MFA verification methods. See Change Management for a Successful MFA Rollout for guidance and customizable templates.

If your users aren’t prepared to start using MFA when Salesforce auto-enables it, you have two options.

Your users can skip MFA registration for 30 days and can log in as usual. This grace period begins on the day the org is auto-enabled, and the same 30-day window applies to all users in the org. For example, if a user logs in five days after their org was auto-enabled, 25 days remain before they’re required to register for MFA.
In the unlikely event that users experience issues with MFA, you can temporarily disable it. But keep in mind that when your org reaches the MFA enforcement milestone in the future, Salesforce will re-enable MFA and the option to disable it will be removed.
1. From Setup, in the Quick Find box, enter Identity, and then select Identity Verification.
2. Deselect Require multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all direct UI logins to your Salesforce org.
3. Save your changes.

Chatter Free and Chatter External Users Are Automatically Excluded from MFA Auto-Enablement and Enforcement

Salesforce users with the Chatter Free or Chatter External license are exempt from the multi-factor authentication (MFA) requirement. When the Require multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all direct UI logins to your Salesforce org setting gets turned on, either by you or by Salesforce, the setting automatically excludes these users. Keep in mind that you may need to exclude other MFA-exempt use cases on your own.

Einstein Activity Capture

Simplify your users’ experience by ensuring that events on the activity timeline are available in standard reports and other Salesforce platform capabilities. If you start using Einstein Activity Capture in Spring ’23 or later, your users’ events appear on the activity timeline only if the events are Salesforce records. Also, if you had the Only Show Events That Are Salesforce Records setting enabled, you no longer see that setting.

Where: This change applies to Lightning Experience in Essentials, Professional, Enterprise, Performance, and Unlimited editions.

How: For the best experience, make sure that your reps’ events appear on the activity timeline only if the events are Salesforce records. Turn on the Only Show Events That Are Salesforce Records setting on the Einstein Activity Capture settings page.

After you turn on the Only Show Events That Are Salesforce Records setting, you can’t turn it off.

Find the full list of Einstein updates here - Einstein updates