Get in touch

Salesforce Winter 2025 Release Notes: What You Need to Know

We are excited to present the latest updates and features included in the Salesforce Winter ’25 release. This release brings a host of new functionalities, enhancements, and improvements designed to help you get the most out of your Salesforce experience.…

28 min read

We are excited to present the latest updates and features included in the Salesforce Winter ’25 release. This release brings a host of new functionalities, enhancements, and improvements designed to help you get the most out of your Salesforce experience. In this document, you will find detailed information on the new features, changes, and important considerations for this release. Our goal is to ensure you have all the information you need to take full advantage of the new capabilities and to help you seamlessly transition to the latest version.

Key Highlights of the Winter ’25 Release:

  • Introduction of Agentforce and increased AI/Einstein capabilities
  • Enhancements to efficiently create and analyze reports
  • Greater visibility into how permissions are granted
  • Customization features to improve the organization of data
  • Performance and integration updates to Salesforce products

We encourage you to review these highlights and the release notes thoroughly and explore the new features to see how they can benefit your team and clients.

Help And Training Community

Release Timeline + Key Dates

The Salesforce Winter ’25 release will be rolled out according to the following schedule:

  • Pre-release Preview: Available from September 8, 2024
  • Sandbox Preview: Starts rolling out on September 15, 2024
  • Production Release: Phased rollout from October 5 to October 12, 2024

Key Dates:

  • September 8, 2024: Pre-release org available for testing
  • September 15, 2024: Sandbox preview begins
  • October 5, 2024: Start of production org rollouts
  • October 12, 2024: All instances updated to Winter ’25

Important: Specific release dates for individual instances will be available approximately 3-4 weeks before the start of the release window. Clients should check their Salesforce Trust page for exact dates applicable to their instances.

Action Items:

  • Review release notes and plan for new feature adoption
  • Test critical functionality in sandbox environments
  • Prepare end users for any significant changes
  • Schedule any necessary downtime or maintenance around your specific release date

For more detailed information on the release schedule, please visit: Salesforce Winter ’25 Release Date + Preview Information.

Resources + Documentation

To help you prepare for and make the most of the Winter ’25 release, we’ve compiled a list of key resources:

We recommend reviewing these resources to gain a comprehensive understanding of the Winter ’25 release and its potential impact on your Salesforce implementation. Pay special attention to any features or changes that align with your organization’s current use cases or future plans.

AI Spotlight

Artificial Intelligence continues to be a major focus in the Salesforce ecosystem, and this release brings significant advancements across the platform and products. The standout announcement from Dreamforce this year is the launch of Agentforce, which represents a major step forward in Salesforce’s AI capabilities.

Einstein

Einstein Copilot

Overview: As Salesforce continues to lay the foundation for their growing AI capabilities, this release features AI updates that further expand Einstein Copilot’s capabilities and that enable AI Agents to be used in the Salesforce ecosystem.

Feature Details:

Introducing the Agentforce Platform

Einstein Copilot Studio is now Agent Studio. As the platform grows to make way for AI agents, Agent Studio expands upon Copilot’s functionality by:

  • Autonomously identifying opportunities for action and anticipate next steps
  • Initiating tasks within the use cases and guardrails you specify, which are configured using natural language instructions
  • Having the ability to be deployed to channels outside of Salesforce

Agent (Copilot ) Topics

Agent Topics improves a copilot/agents’s efficiency when handling a question/request from a user. Instead of searching through a flat list of all actions assigned to it, the copilot can select a relevant topic, and from there, launch actions included within that topic.

New Topics and Actions for Agent (Copilot) Topics

A variety of topics and actions can be configured to expand the copilot’s AI capabilities. Some examples include: Single Record Summary, Close Deals, Create a Label, Log a Call, and Create a To-Do.

Additional Resources:

Plative Perspective:

These new additions and updates to Einstein will provide more flexibility, control, and better performance when using and building on top of your environments. In particular, Agent Studio’s ability to be used outside of Salesforce can enable our B2C clients to manage customer inquiries more efficiently.

Admins and developers should continue to customize the platform and leverage AI’s constantly growing features even more to maximize users’ productivity.

Risks and Considerations:

  • Keep an eye out for the updated naming conventions in the setup menu with the newly introduced Agent Studio.
  • Old Copilot Actions have also been updated to work in the new Topic-to-Action setup, so please note that the older Actions are still available but will be organized differently.

Einstein for Sales

Einstein Conversation Insights

Overview: Salesforce introduces Generative Conversation Insights, a powerful new feature that uses generative AI to analyze sales call transcripts and provide custom insights. This tool allows users to query a large language model (LLM) about various aspects of sales calls, enhancing the understanding of customer interactions.

Feature Details: Users can define prompts to extract insights such as customer sentiment or deal terms from call transcripts.

Configure Custom Insights with Generative Conversation Insights

Plative Perspective: This feature could significantly enhance our clients’ sales processes by providing deeper, AI-driven insights into customer interactions. It aligns well with Plative’s commitment to leveraging cutting-edge technology to improve business outcomes for our clients.

Risks and Considerations:

  • Available in Lightning Experience for Enterprise, Performance, and Unlimited editions, requiring Einstein Conversation Insights and Einstein for Sales.
  • Limited to 5 active generative insights, which may restrict extensive customization.
  • Privacy and data security concerns should be addressed when implementing AI analysis of call transcripts.

Further Customize the Forecast Guidance You Receive in Copilot

Overview: Salesforce has enhanced the Get Forecast Guidance copilot action by powering it with a customizable flow, allowing customers to tailor copilot’s forecasting responses to their specific needs.

Feature Details: Users can now modify the Get Forecast Guidance flow in Flow Builder to adjust risk criteria, number of opportunities displayed, gap-to-quota formulas, and other elements.

Link: Help And Training Community

Plative Perspective: This enhancement offers Plative clients greater control over their forecasting processes within Salesforce. This flexibility can lead to forecasting insights that are more accurate to a client’s unique business processes, potentially improving decision-making and sales strategy.

Risks and Considerations:

  • This feature is only available in Lightning Experience and the Salesforce mobile app for iOS and Android, with specific edition requirements (Enterprise, Performance, and Unlimited) and the Einstein for Sales add-on.
  • Users need specific permissions (Run Flow, Use Einstein Copilot for Salesforce) to access and use this feature, while customization requires the Manage Flow permission.

Core Platform

Email, Calendar, and Integrations

Retirements

Salesforce Inbox Retirement

  • Effective: Immediate
  • Impact: Salesforce Inbox has been retired. Users will need to transition to alternative email integration solutions.
  • Action: If you’re currently using Salesforce Inbox, migrate to Email Integration with Outlook or Gmail.

Salesforce for Outlook Retirement

  • Effective: December 2024
  • Impact: Salesforce for Outlook will no longer be supported after this date.
  • Action: Plan to transition to Salesforce Outlook Integration or Einstein Activity Capture before the retirement date.

Einstein Automated Contacts Retirement

  • Effective: February 2025
  • Impact: This feature will be discontinued and replaced by Automatic Contact Creation.
  • Action: Begin using Automatic Contact Creation (see details below) and plan for data migration if necessary.

These retirements represent significant changes to email and contact management workflows. It’s crucial to plan for these transitions well in advance to ensure continuity of operations and minimal disruption to your teams.

Draft Personalized Sales Emails with Einstein

Overview: Einstein Sales Emails is a new feature that empowers sales reps to create personalized, data-driven emails quickly and efficiently.

Feature Details: This tool uses Salesforce data and generative AI to draft customized emails for contacts and leads. Users can choose from pre-made email types or use AI to generate content based on specific instructions.

Click Draft with Einstein.

Draft the email.

Proposed draft email appears for review.

Review and send.

Resources: Einstein Sales Emails Release Notes

Plative Perspective:

For Plative clients, Einstein Sales Emails could significantly enhance sales productivity by streamlining email communication and ensuring personalized outreach. This tool aligns well with our focus on optimizing Salesforce implementations for improved efficiency.

Risks and Considerations:

  • Available only in Performance and Unlimited Editions and requires Einstein for Sales
  • While Salesforce prioritizes data security, clients should be aware of how their data is used in AI-generated content.

Automatic Contact Creation Replaces Einstein Automated Contacts

Overview: Einstein Automated Contacts is being retired in February 2025. Users are encouraged to transition to Automatic Contact Creation, which offers enhanced capabilities for building comprehensive contact profiles.

Feature Details: Automatic Contact Creation allows contacts to be created automatically from email and calendar interactions. Users can set a threshold for contact creation or suggestion based on the number of times a person is mentioned in email or event activity.

Resources:

Plative Perspective: For Plative clients using Einstein Automated Contacts, this transition presents an opportunity to streamline contact management processes. Automatic Contact Creation can help maintain more accurate and up-to-date contact databases with less manual effort.

Risks and Considerations:

  • Clients need to plan for the transition before February 2025 to avoid disruption.
  • The new feature requires Einstein Activity Capture to be enabled.
  • Data quality should be monitored to ensure accuracy of automatically created contacts.

Analytics

Lightning Reports and Dashboards

Overview: The latest updates enhance Lightning Reports by integrating Einstein Generative AI for easier calculated field creation and improving the management of custom report types.

Feature Details: Users can now leverage Einstein Report Formula Generation to simplify the creation of row-level and summary formulas by describing calculations in plain language. Additionally, the Custom Report page in Setup has been redesigned for better accessibility and flexibility in managing custom report types.

When editing a report, select “Create Formula” in the Fields panel, or select “Add Summary Formula” or “Add Row-Level Formula” in the Columns menu.

In the (1) Einstein tab, you have the ability to (2) describe the calculation that you want in natural language. If the formula looks good, (3) click Insert Formula and (4) Einstein fills in all the fields for you.

Provide feedback on the accuracy of Einstein’s responses by hovering over the message to access the thumbs up/down icons.

Resources:

Plative Perspective:

These enhancements will empower Plative clients to create more tailored reports efficiently, allowing for better data insights and decision-making without needing extensive technical expertise.

Risks and Considerations:

  • Users may need training to fully utilize the new features effectively.
  • There could be a learning curve associated with the new layout and functionalities.
  • Ensure that existing reports are compatible with the new features to avoid disruptions.

Data Cloud Reports and Dashboards

Overview: The latest updates to Data Cloud enhance reporting capabilities, allowing users to create reports more efficiently and customize their data analysis.

Feature Details:

Create Data Cloud Reports with a Single Click

Users can now create reports with a single click directly from the Calculated Insights or DMO list view, as well as from the object’s record page. This streamlines the reporting process compared to the previous requirement of using the Reports tab.

Include Smart Totals Only in the Reports You Want

The option to enable or disable smart totals for reports and charts on DMOs allows for greater flexibility in data representation. For instance, smart totals can be activated in a Sales Order DMO report to ensure each line item is counted only once in subtotals and grand totals, while users can turn it off for reports that require a complete tally of individual visits.

Highlight Min and Max Aggregates for Date Fields (Beta)

The new feature to highlight minimum and maximum aggregates for date fields (currently in beta) enables users to easily identify trends and key dates within their data. For example, users can analyze sales cycles by reviewing the earliest and latest sales order dates grouped by fiscal quarter.

Create Data Cloud Reports with a Single Click

On the Calculated Insight or Data Model tab, select Create Report from an object’s Actions menu.

Include Smart Totals Only in the Reports You Want

To apply or turn off smart totals, use the toggle in the report footer.

Resources:

Plative Perspective:

These enhancements will streamline reporting processes for Plative clients, enabling them to gain insights faster and tailor their reports to meet specific business needs.

Risks and Considerations:

  • Users may need training to fully utilize the new features.
  • There could be potential data accuracy issues if smart totals are not applied correctly.
  • The beta feature for highlighting min and max aggregates may require further testing before full implementation.

Customization

Permissions

Overview: Several significant improvements have been made to user and object management that provide visibility into how permissions are granted.

Feature Details:

Get Insight into How a User’s Permissions Are Granted

The User Access Summary allows administrators to see which profile, permission sets, and permission set groups grant specific permissions to a user. Additionally, the improved User Access Summary page now displays standard and custom user fields that match the User Details section of the user’s assigned profile page layout.

See How Object Access Is Granted in Object Manager.

This read-only summary allows administrators to quickly check object permissions, showing which permission sets, permission set groups, and profiles grant access to an object and the level of access granted.

User Access Summary Feature:

Enhanced User Access Summary Page:

Object Access Summary:

Resources:

Plative Perspective:

These enhancements are highly beneficial, streamlining user/object management processes in both simple and complex Salesforce orgs. The consolidated view of user information and the ability to quickly identify permission sources will save time, improve efficiency in user administration, and enhance security management when working with clients.

Risks and Considerations:

  • The User Access Summary and Object Access Summary features are only available in Lightning Experience, while the improved User Access Summary page is available in both Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic (though not in all orgs).
  • Administrators may need training to fully utilize these new features and understand the new layout of user information.
  • Clients should review their current user management processes and update them to incorporate these new tools for maximum benefit.

Make Inline Edits with the Enhanced User List View

Overview: The new Enhanced User List View feature allows administrators to view, sort, filter, and modify user records directly from a list format.

Feature Details: This new feature enables quick updates and modifications to user records without navigating away from the list view.

Resources:

Plative Perspective:

This enhancement will significantly improve efficiency for Plative clients, especially those managing large numbers of users. It streamlines the user management process, allowing for quicker updates and easier bulk modifications.

Risks and Considerations:

  • While this feature improves efficiency, it’s important to maintain proper change management processes, especially for sensitive user data modifications. Inline edits should be made with caution to ensure accuracy. 

Lightning App Builder

Overview: The introduction of the Dynamic Highlights Panel and Conditional Formatting feature enables greater customization within organizations, allowing important pieces of information to stand out on a page.

Feature Details:

Configure Record Highlights in Lightning App Builder

What previously could only be done in compact layouts is now a brand new Lightning App Builder component. The Dynamic Highlights Panel allows administrators to add up to 12 of their most important fields and is fully configurable, responsive to screen size changes, and uses dynamic actions by default. If required, the component can be enabled on mobile.

Make Fields Stand Out with Conditional Formatting

Conditional Field Formatting allows administrators to apply custom icons and colours to fields on Dynamic Forms-enabled pages based on defined criteria and rules. The formatting uses rulesets that determine how and when formatting appears on a field (for example, when an icon will appear when a field equals a certain value) and can change dynamically based on field values or other field values on the page.

Dynamic Highlights Panel:

The Dynamic Highlights Panel can be enabled for mobile with one click in Setup:

Conditional Formatting:

Resources:

Plative Perspective:

These features can aid clients in quick identification of important information, potentially improving decision-making processes and productivity across both desktop and mobile platforms.

Risks and Considerations:

  • The Dynamic Highlights Panel is supported only for LWC-enabled objects, which may limit its use for some standard objects such as Tasks.
  • Performance impact on mobile devices should be monitored, especially for complex page layouts.
  • Not all clients will have immediate access to Conditional Formatting, as it will be released on a rolling basis starting in early September 2024 with pre-release and sandbox orgs.
  • Formatting choices should be made and implemented thoughtfully, as a lack of clear guidelines could result in visual clutter and inaccessibility.

Development

Updated API Calls to Use Your My Domain Login URL

Overview: Salesforce is requiring users to update instanced URLs in API calls to My Domain login URLs to prevent service interruptions. This change is necessary because API traffic using URLs with previous instances will no longer be routed correctly after org migrations or instance refreshes.

Feature Details: Instanced URLs, which contain specific Salesforce instances (e.g., ap2.salesforce.com), need to be replaced with My Domain login URLs. This change is necessary because API traffic using URLs with previous instances will no longer be routed correctly after org migrations or instance refreshes.

An org’s My Domain login URL can be found in the My Domain page in Setup.

Resources:

Plative Perspective:

This update is crucial for Plative clients who use API integrations with Salesforce. It ensures continued functionality of their integrations and prevents potential disruptions to their business processes. Plative should proactively assist clients in identifying and updating any affected API calls to maintain seamless operations.

Risks and Considerations:

  • All API integrations need to be reviewed and updated before October 12, 2024.
  • Clients need to identify all instances of hard-coded instanced URLs in their codebase. This change may impact third-party integrations, which also need to be addressed.
  • Testing of updated API calls is crucial to ensure continued functionality.

Flow

Troubleshoot Configuration Issues Systematically With the Errors and Warning Pane

Overview: The new Errors and Warnings pane in Salesforce enhances the troubleshooting process for flow errors by providing a clear, organized view of issues that prevent saving and activating flows.

Feature Details: This feature allows users to easily identify and address flow errors with links to the Flow Builder canvas, and it can be toggled on or off with a Show Error button that displays the total number of issues.

Resources:

Errors and Warning pane in Flow Builder

Plative Perspective: For Plative clients, this feature streamlines the flow development process, enabling quicker identification and resolution of issues, ultimately improving efficiency and reducing downtime in project implementations.

Risks and Considerations:

  • Users may rely too heavily on the pane and overlook manual troubleshooting methods.  
  • There may be a learning curve for users unfamiliar with the new interface.  
  • Ensure that all team members are trained on how to effectively use the Errors and Warnings pane.

Upcoming Retirements and Deprecations

Overview: With every release, Salesforce implements platform improvements and new technology. As a result, outdated technologies are eventually no longer supported by the platform. We’ve compiled a list of important retirement updates, and any environments using these features (in specific versions) should ensure that they are addressed before the retirement goes into effect.

Feature Details:

Salesforce is deprecating versions 21.0 – 30.0 of the Bulk, SOAP, and REST APIs and versions 23.0 – 36.0 of the Streaming API. Additionally, Salesforce is retiring completely the Salesforce Functions feature and the Standard-Volume Platform Events (though, you can migrate to High-Volume Platform Events).

Resources:

Plative Perspective: As with any changes to the platform’s features, you want to ensure you’re testing any API version updates prior to deprecation to confirm your existing logic will still work. Any features being retired should either be no longer needed or have a replacement in place before the retirement date.

Risks and Considerations:

  • Any code, integrations, or usages that are under the deprecated API versions will stop working. It’s best to update to a newer version now or work with your partners and vendors to get third-party apps and integrations updated.

Salesforce Products

Marketing Cloud Account Engagement

Find and Merge Duplicate Prospect Records

Overview: The new duplicate prospects tool in Account Engagement helps maintain accurate marketing information by automatically identifying and merging prospect records with shared email addresses.

Feature Details: This feature is available in all Account Engagement editions that permit multiple prospects with the same email address, streamlining the process of managing duplicate records.

Resources:

Plative Perspective:

For Plative clients, this tool enhances data integrity and improves marketing efficiency by ensuring that prospect records are clean and up-to-date, ultimately leading to better-targeted campaigns.

Risks and Considerations:

  • Ensure that merging records does not result in the loss of important prospect information.
  • Review merged records carefully to maintain data accuracy.
  • Train team members on how to use the tool effectively to avoid unintentional merges.

Experience Cloud

Prepare Your LWR and Aura Sites for Design System Architecture Updates

Overview: Salesforce is updating the internal implementation of Lightning Design System (SLDS) styles, custom properties, and Lightning components for LWR and Aura sites. These changes are expected to have minimal impact on site customizations in Summer ’24.

Feature Details: The updates aim to support future UI changes and product innovations. Sites that customize Salesforce components by overriding their CSS may experience visual regressions if they don’t adopt supported customization techniques.

Resources:

Plative Perspective: For Plative clients, this tool enhances data integrity and improves marketing efficiency by ensuring that prospect records are clean and up to date, ultimately leading to better-targeted campaigns.

Risks and Considerations:

  • Ensure that merging records does not result in the loss of important prospect information.
  • Review merged records carefully to maintain data accuracy.
  • Train team members on how to use the tool effectively to avoid unintentional merges.

Improve the Performance and Scalability of LWR Sites with Experience Delivery (Pilot)

Overview: Experience Delivery is a new infrastructure designed to enhance the performance and scalability of LWR sites, offering sub-second page load times and improved security.

Feature Details: This feature utilizes server-side rendering (SSR) and a dedicated content delivery network (CDN) to deliver pages faster and more efficiently than traditional client-side rendering (CSR).

After your org is approved for the pilot, you can enable Experience Delivery at the site level in the Settings tab of the site’s Administration workspace.

Enable Experience Delivery in the Administration workspace

Resources:

Plative Perspective:

For Plative clients, adopting Experience Delivery can lead to significantly improved site performance and user experience, which may result in higher conversion rates and lower bounce rates.

Risks and Considerations:

  • Compatibility Issues: Existing LWR sites may face compatibility challenges when integrating with Experience Delivery, requiring additional development effort.
  • Performance Variability: While Experience Delivery aims to improve performance, actual results may vary based on site complexity and user traffic patterns.
  • Security Concerns: Transitioning to a new infrastructure may expose vulnerabilities if not properly managed, requiring thorough testing and validation.

Try a More Flexible Integration Framework for Headless Identity Flows

Overview: Salesforce has enhanced the External Client App framework , which was released in Summer ’24, to support more flexible integration for headless identity flows.

Feature Details: The External Client App framework, which is a new generation of Connected Apps, now supports all variations of the headless Authorization Code and Credentials Flow. This improved framework allows for setting up headless login, password-less login, and guest user identity flows in off-platform apps.

Resources:

Plative Perspective:

This update offers Plative clients greater flexibility in implementing custom authentication flows, especially for those developing off-platform applications that need to interact with Salesforce. It can potentially streamline development processes and enhance user experiences for complex, multi-platform solutions.

Risks and Considerations:

  • Existing integrations might need updates to fully leverage the new framework.
  • Careful consideration should be given to which authentication method is most appropriate for each use case.

Sales Cloud

Organize and Find Records Easily with Personal Labels

Overview: Users can now enhance their record organization in Salesforce by applying personal labels, making it easier to track and find records quickly.

Feature Details: This feature allows users to create and manage their own labels for various records, enabling efficient categorization related to regions, projects, campaigns, and more.

The My Labels component on a contact record.

View the list of labels you’ve created on the Labels home page.

The Labels home page.

On a label’s record page, view the list of records with the label assigned.

A label record showing the Record Assignments list.

Resources:

– Organize and Find Records Easily with Personal Labels

Plative Perspective: For Plative clients, this feature can significantly improve project management and collaboration by allowing team members to easily categorize and locate relevant records, enhancing overall productivity.

Risks and Considerations:

  • There is a limit of 20 labels per object and 200 total labels, which may require careful management.  
  • Labels are personal and not visible to other users, which could lead to inconsistencies in record organization across teams.

OmniStudio

OmniStudio Standard introduces several enhancements to improve user experience, streamline development processes, and offer greater customization options.

Key Updates:

  • New Designers
    • Feature: Updated layouts for Flexcard, OmniScript, Integration Procedure, and Data Mapper (formerly DataRaptor) designers.
    • Benefit: Improved user interface for building and integrating components within Salesforce.
    • Impact: While functionality remains largely unchanged, the new layouts offer enhanced convenience for OmniStudio users.
  • List View for OmniStudio Components
    • Feature: New list view similar to Salesforce standard list views.
    • Capabilities:
      • Create OmniStudio components
      • Search, filter, and save preferred list views
      • View last modified version of a component
      • Access all versions of a component on a new page
      • Activate, deactivate, or delete components
    • Benefit: Streamlined management and organization of OmniStudio components.
  • Modify Styling on OmniStudio Components
    • Feature: Ability to update HTML and CSS of element’s LWC.
    • Benefit: Greater control over branding and visual customization of OmniStudio components.
    • Use Case: Align OmniStudio components with specific client branding requirements.
  • DataRaptor Renamed to Data Mapper
    • Change: OmniStudio DataRaptor is now called Data Mapper.
    • Action Required: Update any documentation or training materials to reflect this name change.
  • Address Field Completion
    • Feature: Enhanced functionality for completing address fields.
    • Benefit: Improved accuracy and efficiency in address data entry.
  • Data Mapper Restrictions for Customer Portal Users
    • Update: Removal of Organization and Profile Standard Objects from Data Mappers used by Customer Portal Users.
    • Impact: May affect existing Data Mappers used in customer-facing scenarios.
    • Action Required: Review and update affected Data Mappers to ensure continued functionality.

Implementation Considerations:

  • Familiarize your team with the new designer layouts to maintain development efficiency.
  • Review existing OmniStudio components to identify opportunities for improved styling and branding.
  • Assess the impact of Data Mapper restrictions on any customer portal implementations.

Resources:

Plative Perspective:

These updates to OmniStudio offer significant opportunities for improving development workflows and enhancing user experiences. The new styling capabilities, in particular, allow for better alignment with client branding requirements. However, be mindful of potential learning curves associated with the new interfaces.

Risks and Considerations:

  • Potential learning curve for users adapting to the new layouts and features.
  • Need to ensure compatibility with existing components when modifying styles or updating to new versions.

Housekeeping Items

Update References to Your Previous Salesforce Domains

Overview: Salesforce will end the temporary redirection of legacy domains in Winter ’25, requiring users to update outdated links and bookmarks to maintain access to their Salesforce instances.

Feature Details: This feature involves displaying a message during redirection that provides users with the updated URL, ensuring they can transition smoothly to the new links.

Resources:

Plative Perspective:

For Plative clients, this change emphasizes the importance of proactively updating any references to legacy URLs in their systems and communications to avoid disruptions in service.

Risks and Considerations:

  • Users may experience confusion or disruption if they do not update their bookmarks in time.  
  • Potential impact on integrations or custom applications that rely on outdated URLs.  
  • Clients should assess their current documentation and resources to ensure they reflect the updated URLs before the redirection ends.

Identify Redirections for Your Instanced My Domain Hostnames

Overview: Salesforce is introducing a new feature to help identify hard-coded instanced My Domain URLs that need updating before redirections end in Winter ’25.

Feature Details: A new field on the Hostname Redirects event type will track these URLs, allowing users to manage their redirections effectively.

Link: Identify Redirections for Your Instanced My Domain Hostnames

Plative Perspective: This feature is particularly beneficial for Plative clients who rely on My Domain for custom branding and user experience, ensuring a smooth transition and continued functionality.

Risks and Considerations:

  • Failure to update hard-coded URLs before the deadline may result in broken links and disrupted access.  
  • Clients should ensure they have the necessary API access to utilize the Hostname Redirects event effectively.  
  • Consider the 24-hour data retention period when planning updates.

Enable ICU Locale Formats (Release Update)

Overview: Salesforce is adopting International Components for Unicode (ICU) locale formats to replace Oracle’s Java Development Kit (JDK) locale formats. 

Feature Details: ICU locale formats control the formats for dates, times, currencies, addresses, names, and numeric values. To use, this feature will have to be enabled first.

Link: Enable ICU Locale Formats (Release Update)

Plative Perspective: This change will be significant for Plative clients operating internationally or dealing with global data. It will ensure more consistent and standardized data formatting across their Salesforce instances, as well as improving integrations with ICU-compliant applications globally.

Risks and Considerations:

  • Salesforce orgs created in Winter ’20 or later already have ICU locale formats enabled by default. You can defer the enforcement until Spring ’25 through the UI.
  • This change applies to all Salesforce editions and interfaces, except Database.com.
  • Clients should test Salesforce implementations thoroughly to ensure compatibility with the new ICU formats, as some custom code, formulas, and integrations may need to be updated. 
  • The English (Canada) locale (en_CA) requires separate activation.

Share

Continue reading

All Insights