My top 3 highlights from the Salesforce Spring ’13 release

by Dave Averill, Customer Success Manager, Salesforce.org

While you might be slipping on your winter boots, the Salesforce Spring ’13 release is just around the corner.  In fact, the Spring ’13 release will start being deployed in mid-January. To learn exactly when the new release will be coming to your org, go to http://trust.salesforce.com (to determine your “instance,” look at your url when you login – the first 4 digits after “http:” is your instance).

To learn about ALL the new features in Spring ’13, check out the new release training or register for the Foundation’s “Highlights of Spring ’13” webinar on February 6th.

While there are lots of great new features in the new release, here are three things I am particularly excited about for our Foundation customers:

1. Chatter Enhancements
Real-time collaboration within your organization begins with Chatter. Some great new enhancements to Chatter are going to make it even easier to work smarter and faster including:

• Search in Groups – Makes it easier to find the information you need within a specific Chatter group.
• New Preview Links – Preview even more rich media links in your Chatter feed
• Public Group Post – Now you no longer need to join a public Chatter group to be able to comment in it. Jump in, post your comment and your done.
• Chatter Tasks – Tasks are a key collaboration point, so it makes sense to create tasks where collaboration happens—right in the feed.

2. Salesforce Touch: Now Generally Available!

Salesforce Touch — a version of Salesforce that’s designed specifically for touchscreen mobile devices — is now generally available! Using Salesforce Touch, you have real-time access to the same information that you see in the office, but organized for working while on the go. In this release, Salesforce Touch is available for iPad devices only. Salesforce Touch provides these benefits over using the full Salesforce site on your iPad:

• An intuitive interface that is optimized for easy navigation and data interaction on a touchscreen, so you can scroll, tap, and swipe through records to quickly find the information you need
• Automatic updates and enhancements, so you’re always using the most current version
• Support for many of your organization’s Salesforce customizations

3. User-Focused Help
New in this release, salesforce.com broke up the huge 4000+ page “How to be Successful with Salesforce” user guide into 14 new downloadable guides, divided by role, Salesforce product area, and experience level. Now you can download only the guides that are relevant to you. The new guides include “Salesforce Basics” for new users, “Set Up and Maintain Your Salesforce Organization” for administrators, “Collaborate with Everyone” for Chatter users, “Enhance Salesforce with Code” for developers, and more!

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That’s the top 3 features that I’m excited about in Spring ’13. Check out the release overview on Facebook. What are you most excited about in Spring ’13?