With the 51st Salesforce release right around the corner, over 300 new and improved features will become available – over 30 of them coming from the IdeaExchange.
Salesforce Winter ’17 Release
A new cloud is coming, the commerce cloud. Salesforce is getting smart, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is being integrated into some of the existing clouds. Here’s my preview of my two favorites from Sales Cloud, as well as a quick intro to the top five new features of Salesforce Einstein in the Sales Cloud.
Einstein
With the Winter ’17 Release, Salesforce Einstein – Artificial Intelligence (AI), will be integrated into sales, service, and marketing.
What does Einstein do? It can give recommendations and predictions on what you are trying to do, suggest next steps and even automate tasks for you. We use predicative AI every day. Amazon suggest products I might like to buy; Spotify gives me a lists of music I’d like to listen to. Now we can leverage this in Salesforce. I have a deal I’m working on in Salesforce. I have exchanged some emails with my prospect, and I just went to a meeting with them. Einstein is going to proactively recommend an action I should take to move this deal forward like the best email response to send to my prospect.
How does Einstein do it? With the tools all AI works from: machine learning, deep learning, predictive analytics, and natural language processing. In a nut shell, data and grammar analysis of patterns to predict future patterns.
That sounds great, but how much time do I have to invest to get all this data in there and Einstein setup? You don’t have any setup to do, or data to modify. Einstein will be integrated into the core clouds for you, and Einstein learns from the data you already have; and not just your CRM data, but email, calendar, social, ERP, and IoT data as well.
Top Salesforce Winter ’17 Release Einstein Features
Top features for Sales Cloud Einstein in the Winter ’17 Release are:
- SF Engage – real time alerts on prospect activit
- Predictive lead scoring – see and engage with your highest value leads
- Quote, contract and campaign influence – which customers are most likely to engag
- Kanban – drag and drop on more objects
- Wave B2B – advanced analytics to combine marking and sales data
For more information, visit the following links:
- Release Resources: Release Notes & New Features (salesforce.com)
- 5 Top Features for Salesforce Sales Cloud Winter ’17 Release (salesforce.com)
The Kanban Board – Expanded
The opportunity Kanban has been around in Lightning Experience since the Spring ’16 Release to help reps keep track of their deals.
It’s easy to use; you can drag and drop cards to update things like stages and statuses, and you can edit directly from the board. Edits you make from the board immediately update any charts that they relate to.
Now it will available on leads, contracts, and campaigns with the Salesforce Winter ’17 Release. Those are three ideal objects for the Kanban because they all contain records that are a part of a process. Records you’d want to see as a whole and see what stage/status each belongs to. Records you’d want to be able to easily update, and see how that update effects calculations.
- Missing Info — Are users required to fill in additional fields when a stage changes? With the Kanban, there is no need to click edit on the record first. A popup will prompt reps to fill in the missing required fields when they are dragging the record to the new stage/status.
- Charts — Advance a stage and see totals rollup automatically.
- Simple Edits — Just need to make an edit without changing the stage/status? Each “card” has a drop down on the Kanban view allowing it to be edited (or deleted with proper OWD).
Lightning Voice
Lightning Voice has been out for a little bit (since July ’16) and it keeps getting better and better. It’s an add on license, so why would someone want to use Lightning Voice? Just like with CTI, incoming calls can be answered and outgoing calls can be placed – but voice is plug and play.
- Notes and Call Details — Out of the box you will see account info AND a place to take notes right on the screen in front of the user. Salesforce also logs the call details – who called, the length of the call, and the number called so the rep only needs to record the call notes. Next time that number calls in, Salefoce presents these notes to the rep.
- Call Logs — Coming with the Winter ’17 Release users can receive missed call notifications. Of course, a call history shows both incoming and outgoing calls as well as missed calls.
- Looking to the Future — At the Sales Cloud Lighting road map at Dreamforce they spent some time on some of the AI-Einstein features that will be coming to Lightning Voice. Some of the planned enhancements are Einstein smart call lists – where leads who are most likely to be converted are placed at the top of the call list. They also talked about a feature where if the rep gets a VM they can simply hang up and place the next call and voice will leave the message.
