The peak of excitement in the Salesforce ecosystem is right around the corner! Dreamforce and the Winter ’24 release coincide in the same 30-day period, and with this comes a lot of exciting news.
There are many agenda items you need to prepare for with each release, but at this stage, there are only a couple of things you need to know: 1. how to prepare your sandbox 2. when your instance will get upgraded.
The first thing you should be aware of is when your production instance will be upgraded to the Salesforce Winter ’24 release. It’s important that you test all the main use cases in your org before this date to ensure that everything continues to work. Although Salesforce releases rarely have any major bugs, these checks should still be carried out.
The release date for Winter ’24 will depend on your instance of Salesforce, but the main release weekends are on:
Sep. 02, 2023
Oct. 07, 2023
Oct. 14, 2023
If you already know the instance your production org is located on, you can head over to Salesforce Trust, click on your instance name, and hit “Maintenance”. This will show you the date of the Salesforce Winter ’24 release hitting your org.
If you don’t know your instance, the quickest way to find out is to head to “company information” within “Setup” in your Salesforce. If you want to know more about Salesforce instances, check out our comprehensive post about how to find yours.
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The second thing you should be aware of is how (and when) your sandbox is going to be upgraded. This is extremely important as this is the first opportunity you will get to test your system on the new release. You can sign up for a pre-release org, but these, of course, will not have any of your configurations.
Salesforce has two release windows for sandboxes, which depends on whether your sandbox is a “Preview” instance or a “Non-Preview” instance. Stay tuned for more information on Sandbox previews, but it looks like most sandboxes will be upgraded on Aug 26th 2023.
As mentioned above, pre-release orgs are a great way to get familiar with the new release before it hits your sandboxes. For those with existing preview orgs, these are now upgraded with the Winter ’24 release, and you can login to get access to the latest features.
Although the dates mentioned above are some of the most important of the Salesforce release cycle, the most anticipated date is for the official “Salesforce Release Notes”. This is the first glimpse of the features and upgrades that are being applied across the Salesforce suite of products. Salesforce have yet to announce a date for the release notes, but they should be here in early August.
Salesforce introduced a new element called Custom Error. Using this new element, you can display custom error messages in record-triggered flows. It is possible to use this element to build complex validation rules, display error messages in fault paths, and even block deleting records.
To help you easily view all of your record-triggered flows by the object, Salesforce introduced Flow Trigger Explorer in the Spring '22 release. It is a great tool that displays record-triggered flows in a single place.
If you have a lot of flows (active or inactive), it can be hard to see them in a single place. In the Winter '24 release, Salesforce added an option to filter flows in Flow Trigger Explorer. Using this feature, you can filter flows by their status, package state, or process type.
HTTP Callout is an amazing feature that Salesforce introduced in the Spring '23 release. In the previous release, they added a POST method as well. Starting with the Winter '24 release, HTTP Callout supports other methods as well (PUT, PATCH, DELETE).
Salesforce introduced a new element called Transform (Beta). This element transforms source data to target data. For source and target data, you can select resources like outputs from actions, record variables, and Apex-defined variables. Then, map the data using the circled bullet icons.
In the screenshot below, this element transforms a lead record to a contact record.
Output of this element is a variable (single or collection). For example, here the output is a Contact record variable and then it is used to create a Contact record.
Here is another example that transforms Contact records to Opportunity Contact Role records. It transforms a record collection to another type of record collection. Before this release, you had to use Loop and Assignment elements in order to achieve this.
Salesforce introduced reactive screen components in the Spring '23 release. With reactive screen components, your screen components can react to a user’s actions on the same screen. However, some of the standard screen components were not reactive. In the Winter '24 release, more components start to support reactivity. For instance, selection components are now reactive. On the other hand, display text component starts to be reactive too. However, it is a beta program and you have to opt in from Process Automation Settings in Salesforce setup.
As you can see from the screenshot below, reactive screen components is not a beta program anymore. If you are using API version 59, you don't need to enable reactive screen components.
Salesforce introduced 3 new Wait elements to replace the Pause element.
The Wait for Conditions element replaces the Pause element, there is nothing different here.
Wait for the Amount of Time element lets you wait for a specified amount of time. Valid values are Minutes, Hours, Days, and Months. Moreover, you can resume at a specific time of day.
Wait Until Date element lets you wait until a specific date and time.
There is a new screen component called Product Selector. This input component lets you select products with quantities. In order to configure this component, you have to provide the available products and price book entries.
This element stores the output in an Apex-defined collection variable.
To improve security, this update prevents flow interviews from resolving the $Api.Session_ID variable at run time. Previously, when a flow screen included the $Api.Session_ID variable, the browser session ID of the user that ran the flow appeared on the screen. A user was able to employ the session ID to bypass security controls. This update was first made available in Winter ’23 and was scheduled to be enforced in Summer ’23, but we postponed the enforcement date to Winter ’24.
Where: This change applies to Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic in Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, and Developer editions.
When: Salesforce enforces this update in Winter ’24. To get the major release upgrade date for your instance, go to Trust Status, search for your instance, and click the maintenance tab.
How: Before you apply this update, remove all dependencies on the $Api.Session_ID variable from your flows. Then, from Setup, in the Quick Find box, enter Release Updates, and then select Release Updates. To get the Disable Access to Browser Session IDs in Flows release update, follow the testing and activation steps.
Currently, you can define different Dynamic Actions for mobile (versus desktop) for custom objects. This idea is advocating for this flexibility to be extended forstandard objects.
This element stores the output in an Apex-defined collection variable.
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20 Apr, 2025