A Spring Fling!

Remember that Spring 14 release we were talking about months and months ago? Well it’s finally here for everyone. Just last week, NA6, NA7, NA8, and NA9 were upgraded. And next weekend, the remaining servers will finally be moved to Spring 14.

The official statement from Salesforce came via email to administrators when the delay was announced back in January. The statement noted: 

At salesforce.com, ensuring customer success through trusted system availability, performance, and reliability is our top priority. We’ve made the decision to postpone the rollout of Spring ’14 to your ### instance with these priorities in mind.

We have identified open items related to the performance and functionality of the Spring ’14 release and are working around the clock to identify, test, and apply fixes for these issues. To give customers the best possible experience with the Spring ’14 release, we are rescheduling the release to complete additional testing.

We appreciate your patience and apologize for any inconvenience this change may cause for you or your organization.

A setback, but understandable. I personally would rather wait for a finished product that functions properly than have the release rushed to meet some arbitrary deadline that they’ve set for themselves. But then it gets a bit more complex because, two months later, we all received the same email again. Now, I’ve been doing this awhile, and have only ever seen one other release reschedule (back in Spring of 2010).

What is is about these Spring releases that are so tricky? My theory is this: the winter release always delivers fast wins from announcements made at Dreamforce. People hear about something & they want to use it right away, and Salesforce tries it’s best to deliver. But then that lets the poor Spring release to do clean up work, and to round out projects that may require a bit more refinement. This is a tall order considering that it’s all coming from the world’s most innovative company, so the spring release gets packed with a lot of tiny nuances that add up to a complex upgrade.

Do you have your own theory on what happened with this release? Share in the comments below! And don’t get too comfortable. The Summer 14 release is just 3 months away!

Summertime & the Livin’s Easy

Yes dear readers, it’s true. Just as Jesus did with Lazarus, I am reviving this blog – and just in time to talk Summer 13! Normally, its the winter releases that I get all amped up about, but Summer 13 is packing some HEAT!

Click for the release notes

There are so many features that I want to discuss, that it was really hard to narrow it down for this post. Thankfully, I was given a chance to chat about some features on the ButtonClick Admin podcast yesterday, so I can use this post to talk about a few of the items that we didn’t have a chance to cover them.

Spring’s the Thing!

Yes dear readers, it’s RELEASE NOTES TIME!! Cue the fun noises!

Click through to access the release notes.

Salesforce has dubbed this the release that will allow you to “Connect to Your Customers in a Whole New Way” – which is fantastic for organizations that are ready to take on all the awesome new functionality that is being released. But I’m here to look past the shiny new stuff (Communities, Chatter Answers, etc) to the bits that are going to matter to all the rest of us.

♪ Summer lovin’ happened so fast ♪

Yes, I know we are still several weeks out, but after reading through the Summer 12 release notes, I am super excited about some of the enhancements found in those 186 pages and I couldn’t wait to write about some of the stuff that’s upcoming.

Click for release notes!

There are so many things in this next release, that it is even hard to pick and choose which to write about. One of my favorite things about this release is that it doesn’t seem to be too heavy in one area, which has been the case in previous releases. Instead, Summer 12 has something for everyone – admins and end users. Here are just a few of the things that I’m most excited about.

• Chatter Messenger – I’m super excited about this one (and not just because I suggested it over a year ago), but I believe this will dramatically help to increase productivity. Imagine if you are working on a deal & want to ask the inbound rep who booked it a question. Instead of an email or Chatter post where you have to wait for a reply, you can quickly ping them from the opportunity record and get an answer in seconds. Or imagine the impact on case resolution time if support reps can do all their communications within Salesforce. This will be 

I’m a groupie!

I’m so fortunate to be a co-leader of the Boston User group – the biggest and (in my opinion) best one out there. And I know I’ve blogged about user groups in the past.  So maybe you feel as though you should go, but maybe you aren’t sure why. So here are my reasons for attending meetings as long as I have been.

• Networking – The number one reason to go to you local user groups – the people! I’ve found the Salesforce community to be the most helpful one I’ve ever encountered. By attending a meeting, you might find someone who can help you fix a  troublesome validation rule, or give unbiased opinion on a partner product you are considering. Or maybe you can pay to forward & help another user with an issue they are having. It’s like the Salesforce Answers site, but live!
• Product Information – With three releases a year, and release notes that frequently are 100+ pages, it can be hard to stay on top of all the Salesforce platform can do. At the user group meetings, you will often have someone (maybe even a Salesforce employee) presenting on the most recent release or newest features (or if you’re lucky, a preview of an upcoming release).
• Answers – Some what of a combination of the previous two points, but at a user group meeting, you’ll have the chance to ask a live person any questions you may have and (hopefully) get an answer. And sometimes, hearing the questions that other users have can help you to rethink about how your company is using Salesforce.
• Free Goodies – And if all those reasons don’t convince you, you can often get some free Salesforce or partner swag at the user group meetings. At the Boston User Group, we even raffle off a Dreamforce pass or two every year.

These were my reasons for attending long before I became a co-leader, and are the reasons that I’m so thrilled to help run a group myself. What do you get out of the User Group meetings that you attend?