In the Spring '17 release, Salesforce has made some large strides in increasing usability and adding a ton of new features with regards to Email and Calendar integration. From both a technical and a user perspective, Salesforce has really focused on connectivity with this release (not to mention how generally pretty some of these features are).
Since the 400+ pages of release notes are a bit hard to digest all at once, here is a breakdown of the new features (with a couple sweet pics of what they should look like).
Google Integration (Beta)
Does your company currently use Gmail or wants to make the switch, but had some reservations on how well it would sync? Well, the time to get testing will soon be upon us. These features are going to be in Beta for Salesforce (managed from Lightning and Classic) and could be the solution for getting your reps connected and constantly engaged.
Lightning for Gmail (Beta)
It is time to have Salesforce connected to Gmail and be able to quickly search for and relate Salesforce records from within Gmail. This feature will also provide the ability to relate records to Google Calendar events! Take a look at an example of what the user will see when this is enabled in Gmail:
Here is how the details will look when attached to a record in Lightning for Gmail:
Users will be able to view Salesforce contacts, leads, accounts, opportunities, and cases relevant to the Gmail messages they received or sent. For the Admins out there, you will be able to customize this functionality and allow most custom objects to be included in Lightning for Gmail.
Lightning Sync for Google (Beta): More Sync Functionality and More Google Event Details in Salesforce
Once this feature gets fully vetted and released, it should allow for a much easier sync of contacts to Gmail. They can also see their Google Calendar meeting attendees directly from Salesforce. The best part is that, for those older orgs, this functionality will be available in both Lightning Experience and Classic.
Microsoft Integration
Lightning for Outlook
Sales teams will be able to view records and drill down into the details of a Salesforce record directly from Lightning for Outlook. This includes being able to see the Chatter feed, activity timeline and related lists. Best of all, Lightning for Outlook will support inline editing to modify records directly from Lightning for Outlook.
For the developers out there, Email Application Panes will be highly customizable and include custom Lightning components that utilize email content, event descriptions, start date, end date, participants and location!
For awareness to the Admins out there, Salesforce will stop offering support to some of the retired Microsoft Applications (please check out the release notes for the specific versions that will not be supported).
Don't Forget...
As always, do not make purchasing decisions based on pre-release information, and make sure to fully test all new functionality (such as the Google Integration (Beta) features) before getting your whole team too excited. Want to learn more about this release? Check out our blog, and stay tuned for this upcoming event...
466 pages of release notes? How about 35 minutes with our experts?
Listen to our Salesforce Spring '17 webinar recording from February 8, 2017 to learn the features and updates Salesforce has in store.
