It would be easy for a CRM platform that outperforms all others to rest on its accomplishments. Not doing so is what helps separate Salesforce from all other CRMs. The Salesforce summer 2021 release proves that there’s always room for improvement, no matter how great something already is.
The Salesforce Summer 2021 release is much like your favorite restaurant adding a new, incredible dish to their menu. While all the features and platforms you love remain, the updates and additions of the summer ’21 release are like premium ingredients that only make things better.
While some of the features take effect immediately following the release, others require administrator action before you can take advantage of them. It would be best to make your employees aware of the updates so the new options don’t catch them off guard.
This blog is designed to help you learn about some of the most exciting elements of the summer ’21 release for Salesforce overall, as well as individual platforms within.
General Improvements to the Salesforce Platform
With the summer ’21 release, Salesforce is rolling out many new features and improvements to enhance your experience. The new Your Account app makes browsing, buying, and managing your products more manageable than ever. All you need to do is have a Manage Billing admin active in the app. In no time, you’ll be able to:
- Add and subtract seats and licenses to your current subscriptions
- Explore and research available apps and add-ons
- View current and expired contracts, as well as your products and services
- Submit support cases
- Reach out for more product information
- Use Salesforce Checkout to read over and pay any outstanding invoices
Salesforce has also improved the user experience by housing all Release Notes in Salesforce Help. Along with the features you’ve grown accustomed to, you now have access to enhanced search, filter, log, and feedback options in a simplified interface. Starting in July, you’ll no longer have access to the original version of the Release Notes portal.
Another noteworthy feature is requiring multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all Lightning Experience, Salesforce Classic, and Salesforce mobile app users. MFAs are one of the most straightforward and effective ways to stop unauthorized users from accessing your critical data. The MFA requirement goes into effect on Feb. 1, 2022.
Additional improvements to the Salesforce platform include:
Updates to Address Industry-Specific Needs
Salesforce remains the CRM market leader, but it also recognizes that each industry has its requirements and needs. The summer 2021 release focuses on building upon its platform to meet those needs across various sectors.
Financial Services Cloud focuses on improving the functionality and effectiveness of Salesforce for banking, wealth management, lending, and insurance organizations. The enhanced automation, data analytics, and customer relationship management capabilities help deliver long-term clients that help your business grow.
The Manufacturing Cloud allows organizations to manage sales agreements and accurately predict account forecasts with its newest features. You can update the information for active, approved, inactive, or canceled contracts while also updating product quantities.
Additional industry-specific updates within the summer 2021 release include:
Brand New Sales Opportunities
Using the new Pipeline Inspection gives your sales team a clear view of sales pipelines to predict future revenue. The pipeline offers consolidated insights about metrics, growth opportunities, recent changes, and numerous filtering options. Sales managers can use the platform to gain insights about their team and individuals to identify opportunities for improvement.
Implementing Sales Cloud Einstein generates highly accurate scores to evaluate the likelihood of converting a lead. You can break down leads based on where they were sourced, and Einstein AI determines conversion patterns based on similar clients. Even better, Einstein Lead Scoring has a guided setup feature to ensure the most accurate results possible. Instead of spending hours trying to close a deal with a lukewarm lead, you can use Einstein AI to find your most viable opportunities and focus on turning them into clients.
Salesforce is now integrated with Google and Microsoft, allowing you to sync events through Lightning Sync and the side panel action menu for Outlook. This integration makes keeping appointments and tasks conflict-free simpler than ever. You won’t have to reconcile one source of data against another to make sure you don’t miss a meeting; all of your essential information will be in one place.
High Velocity Sales and its new features generate engagement reports for individual team members or your whole team. With the update, you can view engagement on leads and contacts along with sales cadences. Managers can choose from daily, weekly, or monthly reports to see who is engaging customers and how often.
Additional updates to the Sales platform include:
Service Platform Updates
Perhaps more than any other Salesforce platform, the Service Cloud has undergone substantial updates. Thanks to user feedback, Service Setup is now even easier to set up right out of the box. Users gain a default help center, automated emails, and sample data to input as a way to learn more about the platform. The new setup also walks you through how to grant access to your team for critical features.
The Workforce Engagement platform helps you run your data center at optimal efficiency. While this sounds like it may cause problems within your organization, the feature actually allows for greater schedule flexibility and more growth opportunities. The customer experience also improves because they are connected to ideal sales agents more quickly.
Marketing Cloud Enhancements
Salesforce’s Marketing Cloud delivers unmatched customer journeys. With the Marketing Cloud, you have a detailed view of your clients and the ability to utilize their data from any source. You can now plan a unique sales journey through personalized content across all devices and channels. You have real-time results showing how effective each of your interactions with a client is to optimize your future results.
The automated tags in the Marketing Cloud Einstein summer 2021 release help unlock critical insights into which features your audience finds most engaging. This innovative feature also analyzes content to predict customer reactions, ensuring your message always has the highest impact possible.
Pardot Improvements and Addition
Salesforce’s Pardot B2B marketing platform has already used automation to redefine what is possible in marketing activities. With the summer 2021 release, you now have even greater control over who your messages reach. Furthermore, you also get a simplified user experience for email marketing campaigns.
The Pardot platform update offers a new opportunity to delegate setup tasks. The updated platform includes settings to designate an administrator to set up Pardot and manage tasks within. This gives the admin access to all configuration possibilities within Salesforce Marketing Setup.
The update also includes Einstein AI features to help increase email engagement and create a better understanding of your accounts. Starting in June, Object Sync for Pardot is available to all Salesforce users as a way to maximize dataset performance in Tableau.
Development Enhancements
The new Salesforce Development enhancements help create fast actions to invoke a Lightning web component, create custom styling hooks, and use audits to track user engagements. The new Einstein Vision and Language application programming interface (API) allows you to bolster your apps with image recognition and natural language processing capabilities.
Lightning Design System allows you to create user interfaces compatible with Salesforce Lightning’s best practices, concepts, and design language. So whether you are using Lightning, Visualforce, Apex, or a Salesforce API, you can now develop incredible apps, integrations, and packages.
When you implement the new Development updates, you also experience new or improved features, including:
- Lightning Components
- Einstein Vision and Language
- Visualforce
- API
- Apex
- And much more
Security and Identity Updates and Improvements
Along with MFA, Salesforce has created a more secure and efficient platform. These features include updated OAuth 2.0 flows and augmented customer protection with Embedded Login email verification and updates.
The new Real-Time Event Monitoring permission set monitors changes to permission granting and even allows for Transaction Security policies for individual users. The summer ’21 release also allows you to further protect your customers by blocking them from being redirected to unknown URLs.
Turn to Abstrakt Cloud Solutions for All Your Salesforce Implementation and Consulting Needs
While it’s always exciting for companies to learn about how they can improve their processes via Salesforce releases, it can also be a bit overwhelming. With over 388 pages of notes released by Salesforce, you may struggle to find the time to read over the release. Abstrakt Cloud Services is the No. 1 Salesforce CRM implementation and consulting provider, and we’re here to help you maximize the results of the new release.
Whether you’re looking to leverage the power of Salesforce’s automated marketing tools or need help managing their CRM platform, Abstrakt has answers. Please reach out today to find out how you can grow your business with the power of Abstrakt and Salesforce.
