From data entry to workflow productivity, Salesforce delivers efficiencies across all departments.
In this post, we give you some extra insights into the Lightning Platform from a productivity and technical point of view.
5 Productivity-Enhancing Features
1 - Enhancements in Chatter
In today's organisations, improving communication and collaboration between teams and departments is essential.
In Chatter, users can tag other colleagues, allowing them to connect and interact with each other. Managers and employees alike now have the ability to correspond and discuss sales opportunities, edit documents together and chat about topics of interest.
Also, the ability to hyperlink to a specific record when posting in chatter is highly beneficial. Users can now easily draw attention to records from within Chatter, so other users can quickly click and find records straight from the feed.
Another way Chatter is helping to improve productivity is the ‘My Drafts’ section. If you are in the middle of writing a message and have to click out suddenly, Chatter will record your half-written message and save it as a draft for when you come back.
2 - Utility Bar, Global Actions and Macros
The ability to create a new record from any location in Salesforce is more beneficial then one might think. No more having to write notes down on paper or opening a new tab when in the middle of working on something. Global actions give the user the option to multi-task and add tasks and activities quickly while working. Users’ can now input data without getting distracted or interrupting what they are working on.
With ‘Global Actions’, users can set up their layouts to use features specific to them anywhere in Salesforce. All users can add quick notes, files, contacts, etc. quickly with the utility bar. Global Actions also allows users to set up additional features in their layout, like a ‘Send email’ action. Using this, users can quickly send an email wherever they are in Lightning experience.
‘Macros’ can be set up to do a series of tasks for you. These tasks can include things like logging a call with details, emailing an update to your team, starting an email using a template and setting a task to follow up in 2 days, etc. Setting up action macros can greatly reduce the time spent manually inputting data.
Always only ‘one click away’ from what you need.
3 - Personalised Navigation and Favourites
In the navigation section, a time saver and productivity enhancer for many are the Keyboard shortcuts. Some users find it much easier to use only the keyboard without a mouse. These shortcuts give them the option to do just that. There is actually a shortcut to shortcuts. You can view the shortcut menu by clicking: Ctrl+/ on Windows and Cmd+/ on macOS.
4 - Reports, Dashboards and Console Apps
We all know the struggle when you have too many tabs open and your browser crashes. Especially if you are working on multiple accounts or reports in Salesforce. All your data could be lost if not saved. With the Lightning Console app, users can work and edit multiple records at one time with the benefits of ‘Subfolders’ and ‘Subtabs’. Save time and avoid using multiple tabs in the browser. With multi subfolder and subtabs within the Lightning console, you can work more productively and safely. Everyone with a Salesforce licence has access to console apps. Save any stage or report to the dashboard and filter down more with Winter’19 update. For more information on the Console app and how to set up, you can read more here.
5 - Search Enhancement and Path
With the new improved search options, you can now explore and examine data in a smarter way. To begin searching, simply start by typing a name, account, records, object, etc. to find what you are looking for.
A Lightning Path component displays the progress of a specific process. Path allows admins to define what data is being brought to their users, steps they need to take to move a process forward, as well as create a set of rules and guidelines for successful completion. The Path is rendered as a horizontal bar with one chevron for each picklist item. Path not only works great for sales processes, but also works great with Cases, Quotes, Contracts, Orders, Accounts, Person Accounts, Campaigns, and Custom Objects.
3 More Productivity-enhancing features
- Customisable Home Pages - With the customisable homepage, each user can have a unique set up that is most beneficial to them. The whole reasoning behind the customisability in Lightning is that it increases productivity and time efficiency. Customisable home pages mean unique experience for every user, as every user is different. It allows users to work more productively and at their own measure.
- Dynamic Record Pages - Apply Logic and filter conditions to the properties of the component in the Lightning App Builder to change how it appears on a Lightning page.
- Enhanced List Views Capabilities - With enhanced list views capabilities, users can create new records and edit multiple records directly. Based on fields users have access to, they can filter out records on those fields.
What all users should be taking advantage of:
The FREE mobile app
The mobile app is included with every user licence without any additional charge. A lot of users are not even aware of how much they would enjoy using the mobile app. Sales reps and other on the road can benefit from using the app while on the go. They can easily update opportunities without having to stop and take out their laptop, while managers can check on their reps at any time, anywhere.
Pre-made 3rd party apps
There are tons of pre-made 3rd party apps for any types of needs your business has. Pexlify currently offers 2 apps on the AppExchange, Forcecast(Predictive analytics) and QA Scorecard (evaluate and score agents). 3rd party apps can help your company improve in every department from sales to marketing and everything in between.
Your Questions Answered by an Expert:
We sat down with one of our technical leads to get a better understanding of the challenges and benefits of migrating to Salesforce Lightning.
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What are the biggest technical challenges when migrating to lightning?
- Identifying functionality supported in classic and not in Lightning.
- Reviewing functionality of javascript buttons or Visualforce pages that don't work in Lightning.
- Making sure users are comfortable with the new UI and functionality. -
What are the biggest benefits to Lightning?
New functionality released by Salesforce only works in Lightning. For example, nearly all Einstein features only work with Lightning components. Migrating to Lightning is important to make sure you can enjoy the updates to existing and new features. As well as Salesforce functionality, most new Appexchange products are only released in Lightning. -
Best features in Lightning from a technical point of view?
- Cross-device usability: the same Lightning components can be re-used in Salesforce desktop, mobile app and the community.
- The Home Page: the home page in Lightning has a lot more functionality and can be configured differently. It's a lot easier to make the homepage useful for users
- Path: simple but yet very useful visual feature that Salesforce added into Lightning
- Kanban view: same as the path, it's mostly a visual feature but can be very helpful for different teams to manage their workflow/pipeline -
What, if any, are the improvements to the backend or how is it easier for developers to code and build components?
For developers, the main difference is, of course, the "Lightning Components" development instead of "Visualforce".The main advantage is the reduction in lazy loading out of the box. In Visualforce, we used to bypass this in a custom way when we had large Visualforce pages. Now in Lightning, every component is loaded in the background so the page loads much faster. The component itself also reacts a lot faster, as it's using Javascript.
Another big change from a technical point of view is that the same component can be used on the Salesforce mobile app and the desktop application. Previously, Visualforce pages would not work on mobile which then made developing for mobile very difficult.
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Any other comments or ideas from a technical side on why users/admins should migrate to lightning?
The main reason is that this is where Salesforce is going, therefore in order to keep enjoying the new features that Salesforce release, it is better to migrate to Lightning. On top of that, there already is a lot of features that work better in Lightning.
We see a lot of users/admins who want to stay in classic because they're used to it and unsure of the location of some features in Lightning. It's understandable that changing the UI you've been using for so long can be hard. Some of our customers have been using Salesforce classic for so many years and know exactly where everything is. There is no magic answer for that, but sometimes you just have to start getting used to something new that you know is much better.
Differences between Classic and Lightning
To start, there are undoubtedly a lot of differences between Salesforce’s Lightning and Classic. The main differences being the UI, framework and design system.
New design, smarter views and a customisable home page.
We have created an infographic listing the main differences between Classic and Lightning, section by section.
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Interested in improving your productivity with lightning? Find out more about our Lightning migration options here.
