The Salesforce Summer ’14 release is about to hit your pod. For more information on when and where see here: http://trust.salesforce.com/trust/maintenance/
Here are my top five features I’m looking forward to in Summer ’14:
1) No more dependency on the Standard Pricebook in Unit Tests.
As of Summer ’14, you will be able to create your own PriceBook records in unit tests, and remove any related dependencies on existing, standard pricebook and @SeeAllData annotations. What this means for developers is that they no longer have to depend on existing data when unit testing products and pricebooks.
2) Enhancements to package installation for ISVs
There are several enhancements coming down the pipe for ISVs and package installation. Package installation will be simplified with a single page for installation. Additionally, any post installation instructions for additional setup may be provided after the installation is complete.
The package installation enhancements should benefit Salesforce administrators by drastically improving upon the current package installation process, and providing the administrators with a more intuitive, step by step process for installing packages into their Salesforce organizations.
Credit: Salesforce.com Summer ’14 Release Notes
3. QueryPlan in Developer Console
Need to investigate why your query is running so slow? In Summer ’14, you can open up the dev console, and run your query through the QueryPlan tool. The tool will provide some insight as to why your queries are non-performant, including whether they are performing full table scans, for instance, and providing clues on whether or not you should index fields.
4. Home Page Improvements
Currently, when creating custom home page components, an administrator has three choices: Links, Image/Logo, and HTML area. In Summer ’14, Salesforce is introducing a new Visualforce Home Page Component. This benefits both advanced administrators and developers by providing a mechanism to use Visualforce and Apex on the homepage or sidebar.
In Summer ’14, we will also see a rich text area / WYSIWYG-like interface for writing HTML Area components, meaning administrators will no longer have to copy and paste HTML and will hopefully have control over the HTML formatting as well.
In the release notes, Salesforce also notes that in Summer ’15, they will start removing unsupported code including JavaScript and iFrames from HTML Area components. This notice from Salesforce is a double-edged sword. It means that packages and other applications depending on custom homepage component functionality will need to adjust their code. At the same time, it benefits the overall user experience of Salesforce and prevents error-prone work arounds, such as customizing page layouts with JavaScript hacks.
5. Various enhancements to Flow
Flow is a powerful ally in Salesforce’s newest generation of tools, and Salesforce keeps improving upon it. Although I’m still holding out for the headless flow, which will hopefully GA soon, Summer ’14 provides us with a few enhancements including looping through collections, modifying multiple fields or multiple records simultaneously, and cross-object field references. This benefits administrators and developers with greater, declarative flexibility and reduces need for Apex customizations.
Those are my five favorite features to look forward to in Summer 14. Look through the release notes and let us know what yours are!
The post Five Favorite Summer ’14 Features appeared first on EDL Consulting.