Salesforce Release

Salesforce delivers hundreds of innovative features three times a year during seasonal releases: 

1. Spring

2. Summer

3. Winter

Spring happens in the month of Feb, Summer in the month of June, and Winter in the month of August. Save these important well in advance.

Upgrades happen automatically on specific dates that are published up to a year in advance on the Salesforce Trust website.  The first set of upgrades happens on sandbox instances 4-6 weeks before a release goes into production.

Salesforce Trust is very useful to check the maintenance window.

Get Early Access with the Sandbox Preview

Every Salesforce customer has access to at least one sandbox, a test environment, where they can build and test new features before releasing them into production. You can also use a sandbox to preview and test new features, in your own configuration, before they’re released. 

Some features are enabled automatically. Those features are immediately visible to all Salesforce users when the release is in production. With a preview sandbox, you can evaluate new features ahead of time and determine if any communication will be helpful. Your users will definitely appreciate the heads up.

Also, since many new features require an admin to enable them or do a little bit of configuration before they can be used, you can use the sandbox preview to:

• Explore live features and identify the ones you want to enable.

• Learn how to enable features that you want to use.

• Practice enabling and configuring features before the release, so you’re prepared to roll them out to your users.

Preview vs Non-Preview Sandbox:

Most of the time, refreshing a sandbox sends the sandbox to a preview instance. However, sandboxes that are refreshed during the sandbox preview period (typically 4-6 weeks before the production release) move to a non-preview instance. If you have a preview sandbox and want to keep it, don’t refresh it after the sandbox preview cutoff date, or you could inadvertently lose the upgrade.

How Does the Sandbox Preview Work?

It only takes a few simple steps to make sure you have access to a preview sandbox that gets an early upgrade.

1. Identify your existing sandbox instances.

2. Look up each sandbox instance in the Salesforce Sandbox Preview Guide to see if it’s a preview or non-preview instance.

3. Follow the recommendations in the guide to make sure you have at least one sandbox on a preview instance.

Review the Release Notes

When you dive into the Release Notes, use the Feature Impact filter to quickly find features of two types:

• Quick Wins. These features are automatically enabled and are available to your users without any preparation or configuration.

• Low-hanging Fruit. These features require minimal action, such as checking a box or making a simple configuration change, to be enabled and available to your users.

Before every new release, find the Quick Wins, and determine whether you want to communicate them to users before the release. There are two main reasons why you may want to give your users a heads up.

• To avoid confusion over anything new that appears when your users log in, and anything that changes their everyday experience.

• To highlight something cool and useful that can make them more productive.

To identify Quick Wins, use the Feature Impact filter and select Enabled for Users. You can also select your edition and focus on specific products.

To identify Low-hanging Fruit, use the Feature Impact filter and select Admins must Enable. This is extremely important because these are the features your organization misses out on if you leave them inactive. 

To get into details, please go through the trailhead module.