Improvements that matter to your staffing firm - Summer '24 Salesforce Release Top 10

As I reviewed the hundreds of pages that come with each Salesforce release I was struck by the fact that Salesforce releases TONS of new features that the average user will never know about or understand. That sounds negative, but I think it is admirable.

Let me explain by telling a short story.

The first couch I ever bought when I was in my 20s was cheap, but it was new and I thought it looked awesome. I mean, microfiber is cool right? What I didn't know (and couldn't know) was that the internal structure was a disaster. The couch started to fall apart after about 6 months.

I decided to do some surgery and see what was happening. I tipped the couch back and cut open the bottom.

I couldn't believe what I saw.

The internal structure of the couch could only be described as chaotic. It was haphazardly thrown together with boards going here, there, and everywhere. I imagined the assembly line instructions being, "Put that stack of wood into this couch frame. We don't care where you put it, but you can't have any boards left when you are done."

So, the outside looked great but the inside was a mess.

Salesforce, while not perfect, invests heavily in building and improving the stuff under the surface. I respect that. It is a long-term play that benefits all who configure and use the tool. Frankly, I would never put the uber technical updates in a list like this. They are too boring. BUT... they matter. Deeply.

Without further ado, here are the top new non-boring admin and user features that you and your team can put to use right away:

Full disclosure: The descriptions of the improvements come directly from the Salesforce release notes. Also, you can click on any of the blue text to view the actual release note.

Sales and Recruiting Improvements - Top 5

Draft Personalized Sales Emails with Einstein - Einstein Sales Emails empowers busy sales reps to move quickly and expand deals through personalized and informed email content that buyers love. Einstein uses your sales data to generate personalized emails for contacts and leads, a method known as grounding. Sales reps can draft common emails, like a follow-up or a meeting invitation, by choosing an email type or by using generative AI. Email types can include product information or related objects.

Visualize Key Contacts on the Buyer Relationship Map - On opportunities and accounts, you can now visualize contacts across company levels with the buyer relationship map. Discover key stakeholders, deal champions, potential risks, and more. Let insights recommend contacts for you to add and update.

Create Contacts Automatically from Email and Calendar Interactions - Never create a contact from scratch again. You can also set a threshold to create or suggest contacts after they’re mentioned in your email or event activity up to 3 times.

Add Company and Buyer Information to Contacts Automatically - Let Einstein generative AI identify and add your contacts’ phone, address, title, seniority level, department group, and buyer attributes automatically from email interactions. Build content-rich profiles for all your contacts to show on buyer relationship maps to help close deals.

Organize and Find Records Easily with Personal Labels - Now users can apply their own labels to records to help them organize, track, and find the records they need quickly and easily. Add labels to records related to a region, project, campaign, or anything else that helps keep work organized. Labels that users add to records are separate from labels that are added to To Do List items.

Admin Improvements - Top 5

Fix Formula Syntax Errors with Einstein for Formulas - Einstein for Formulas now helps you fix syntax errors in a formula in addition to providing an explanation for a formula that’s used in Formula fields, default field values, and record validation rules. Create a formula or use an existing Salesforce formula in the Formula Editor and get an explanation generated. For any syntax errors in the formula, use the fixed formula suggested by Einstein.

IdeaExchange Delivered: Set Conditional Visibility for Individual Tabs in Lightning App Builder - Customize tab visibility in the Lightning App Builder according to your business needs. You can set the conditions to dynamically show or hide an individual tab in the Tabs component. This change applies to tabs on LWC-enabled record pages.

IdeaExchange Delivered: Use Blank Spaces to Align Fields on Dynamic Forms-Enabled Pages - Customize field alignment in Dynamic Forms field sections with the new Blank Space component. Find it on the Fields tab when viewing Dynamic Forms-enabled Lightning record pages in the Lightning App Builder. You can use a blank space on its own to separate fields vertically inside a field section. To further enhance the alignment of your field section content, you can also use a blank space in conjunction with the field section property Align fields horizontally.

IdeaExchange Delivered: Get a Summary of a User’s Permissions and Access - If you've wondered what permissions, public groups, or queues a user is assigned, you're in luck. With the User Access Summary you can see this information directly from the user’s detail page, saving you time, clicks, and effort. There’s no need to run queries or look through each profile, permission set, public group, or queue when troubleshooting or managing access.

IdeaExchange Delivered: See What’s Enabled in Permission Sets and Permission Set Groups (Generally Available) - It can be tricky to track all the permissions included in your permission sets and permission set groups. To make managing your users’ access easier, you can now see all enabled object, user, field, and custom permissions on one page. You can also see which permission set groups include the permission set and vice versa. This feature, now generally available, includes some changes since the beta release. The summary page has an improved interface, and we added the ability to see included custom permissions and permission sets in permission set groups.

Wrapping it up

My Summer '24 release rating for my clients? I would give it a 8 out of 10. From the personal labels (I think recruiters will love them) to drafting emails using Einstein, I think there are number of updates that will help staffing firms in meaningful ways. Additionally, the improved ability to manage permissions for users will be super helpful, especially to our clients with global teams and complex security needs.

Hopefully this list helps you get the most out of the new release and spurs on some ideas that will help your business launch into the second half of '24 successfully.