Salesforce Winter '25 Release: Key Features & Updates

KEY DATES:

Pre-Release Org Sign-Up | August 8, 2024
Release Notes Available | August 14, 2024
Sandbox Preview, Release Overview Deck & Feature Matrix, Release Module | August 30, 2024
Release Site | September 6, 2024
Release Weekends
- September 6, 2024
- October 4, 2024
- October 12, 2024
Release Readiness Live! | October 8-11, 2024

Winter (’25) is coming! How is it already that time of year, you ask? While we can’t answer that, we can tell you that Salesforce is gearing up for their most anticipated release of the year—and Demand Chain is here to help you prepare. There’s a lot to unpack in this release, so grab your coffee (or other caffeinated beverage of your choice) and get ready to dive in!

As of August 8, 2024, admins could sign up for a pre-release Developer Edition environment and gain access to the new features. To explore updates for the products you use, be sure to check out the Release Notes that became available August 14, 2024.

During each release, Salesforce provides a Sandbox Preview Guide to help you determine the right next steps for your sandbox. Sandbox previews began 08/30/2024 and enable you to test, catch and report bugs before the major release hits your production instance. Let’s “Be Release Ready” together!

Admin POV:

User Access Summary

To simplify the process of determining what a user can access in Salesforce, administrators now have the ability to quickly view all permissions granted to a specific user with just a few clicks. Initially introduced in Spring ’24, the “Access Granted By” feature in Winter ’25 further enhances this capability by allowing administrators to see the specific sources of a user’s access.

Inline Editing with Enhanced User List View

Configure user list views in Salesforce just as you would any other list view. With the Winter ’25 release, you can now view, sort, filter, and even modify user records directly within the list view, all without the need to navigate away.

Conditional Formatting for Fields

You can now apply conditional formatting to fields on pages where Dynamic Forms are enabled. By utilizing rulesets—a collection of rules—you can customize icons and colors based on specific criteria related to the value of the field or other fields on the page.

Enhanced Custom Report Setup (Beta)

Enhance your custom report types with the redesigned Custom Report page in Setup. The updated summary page offers greater flexibility and visibility into your report details. New features include drag-and-drop sections, field search and name customization, and the Lookup Fields button, which lets you add up to 1,000 fields to the report type layout.

Sales Cloud

Optimize Strategic Planning with Account Plans

Empower your sales team to adopt a strategic approach to account planning and growth. Account plans enable you to view opportunity details, conduct a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats), capture customer needs, set measurable objectives, and visualize key stakeholders.

Seller Home Now Available for All Apps

Enable your sales team to start their day with a comprehensive view of their business using Seller Home. Previously available only for select standard apps, Seller Home can now be added to any standard or custom app with the Winter ’25 release.

Forecasting Updates

Assign Opportunity Splits to Territories: Sales teams can now assign opportunity splits and opportunity product splits to territories to see how territories contribute to overall sales goals.
Opportunity Splits by Territory Forecasts: Previously, forecasts could only be based on the user role hierarchy for opportunity splits. With the ability to forecast on the opportunity split itself, collaborative selling teams are enabled to work better together to increase overall forecast accuracy.
Forecast Submissions: Help better inform the forecast for the entire sales team and your business by utilizing forecast submissions. These are typically a weekly “best estimate” from the sales reps that get snapshotted at the time the submissions are made.
Manager Judgement Enhancements: Judgement values are now available in reports and dashboards and sales leaders can now see values rolled up for all forecast managers beneath them. Prior to this release, judgement values only rolled up to the immediate manager, which hindered the ability to reconcile forecasts against judgement amounts.

Service Cloud

My Service Journey (Beta)

Enhance your exploration of Service Cloud and view details of the full feature set. With My Service Journey, you can quickly discover capabilities that are relevant to your business and easily filter by specific business areas, Salesforce edition, and/or newest available. If you find something you’re interested in but don’t have access to it, easily reach out to your Salesforce AE directly from My Service Journey.

Enhanced Messaging Channels and Capabilities

Salesforce has expanded the messaging offering to include additional types like LINE Messaging, Bring Your Own Channel (BYOC), BYOC for Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS), and Unified Messaging for SMS.

Flow

Flow Action Buttons Generally Available

Spring ’24 introduced us to Flow Action Buttons. With Winter ’25, the beta flag is gone and you have the ability to disable the buttons with specific criteria.

Flow Repeater Enhancements

Make it easier for end users to change a collection of records in a screen flow by prepopulating data and presenting it to users directly within the Flow. You can also decide whether users can add new items or not.

Transform Element Enhancements

Additional data types are now available to be used as Target Data values (e.g. Boolean, Date, Picklist, Text).

Developer POV:

Real-Time Preview of Lighting Web Components

Preview your Lightning Web Components in real-time by enabling Local Dev (Beta) in your developer sandbox. The preview updates automatically whenever changes to the source code are detected. No more waiting for your changes to deploy and manually refreshing your browser window to see the results. This feature replaces the older Local Development Server (soon to be deprecated) which worked but was unreliable.

Manufacturing POV:

Inventory Search and Transfer

Enable your inventory managers to maintain optimal inventory levels, fulfill product and part demand, and transform your inventory processes. Easily search for and track inventory stock in warehouses, distribution centers, manufacturing plants, and other locations.

Consider Decimal Values When Calculating Forecasts

Accurately calculate the forecasted quantities with the new decimal fields on Sales Agreements. A new node has been added to the Data Processing Engine (DPE) templates that is mapped to the fields that support decimal values for Sales Agreements.

AI/Data Cloud POV:

Salesforce’s Winter ’25 release introduces a wealth of new and enhanced Einstein AI features designed to transform how businesses leverage artificial intelligence. As AI continues to drive innovation, Salesforce Einstein leads with tools that enhance productivity, customer engagement, and data-driven decision-making.

The main updates are found in the Einstein Feature Summary table referenced below. In addition to those items, there are some interesting advancements called out in the addition sections. Make sure to spend time understanding where the AI features impact your salesforce org.

Main Einstein Feature Summary Table

The Winter ’25 Salesforce release notes highlight key Einstein AI features across various Clouds, including Communications, Education, Field Service, Industries, Marketing, Sales, and Service. It provides a concise overview of each feature, such as Einstein Quick Quote, Alumni Metrics, and AI-driven insights, along with references to specific pages in the release notes. These features demonstrate how Einstein AI is enhancing productivity and decision-making across different Salesforce platforms.

Einstein Personalization: Data Cloud

Einstein Personalization is a Customer 360 application that works with Data Cloud to provide personalized experiences across Salesforce clouds.

Customized Work Summaries in Copilot

Now, you can customize how Einstein drafts Work Summaries in Copilot. Get summaries that meet your team’s needs by adding your own formatting rules or restrictions to the prompt template that guides Einstein responses.

Sales Signals

Sales managers and their teams can access more features from Sales Signals, including more relevant metrics, key themes, and featured mentions. The Signals page is revamped to match the updated ECI interface. Topic details pages also offer more metrics and relevant data.

Einstein Impacts to Email

AI brings many enhancements to areas of SF where emails are generated.

Flow Builder

Many AI enhancements to how flows are built or optimized. There are 7 updates to flows in this release that are sure to make your user experience more dynamic.

AI Accelerator and Scoring Framework

Get predictions across multiple Industries clouds by using AI Accelerator. Effortlessly build generic propensity models without writing any code by using Scoring Framework.