Three (and a half) things we learned this week

As I was planning what to write about in this week’s blog, it struck me that there were a number of updates floating around the Salesforce world (well, my small part of it) that could be classified as ‘pretty interesting’, but that maybe didn’t warrant a whole post on their own. So instead, let’s throw another new format into the mix – here are…

1) Read the Winter ’19 release notes

Was our early look at the new release not enough for you? (Kidding. Of course it wasn’t.) Well you can now get your hands on the preview release notes for Winter ’19.

So go here (or here if you absolutely hate trees …or just love PDFs) and dive in to see what you can find.

Oh and if you didn’t have an existing pre-release org that got the early upgrade to Winter, then you can now sign up for one, all official like.

2) Kill the critters… if you want

I hadn’t seen this feature in the release notes, but this tweet caught my eye:

#Winter19 for all those who've ever had to explain to users why they see a snorkeling bear while the app is loading, we have something for you… (setup > themes and branding) pic.twitter.com/70DqNKFlpm

— Shane McLaughlin (@MShaneMc) August 20, 2018

We discussed back in our last Winter ’19 post that Salesforce isn’t actually a software company; they’re a producer of cute critters. Well, if you’re one of those people (you know, adults) who doesn’t totally love these little dudes, then you’ll be pleased to know that you can dial the cutesiness down in Winter by replacing the loading animations with your own brand image.

3) Get hands-off with Trailhead

Last month, we discussed the Summer ’18 maintenance exam for the Platform App Builder, and the fact that because it’s on Trailhead, it included a cool, hands-on challenge to prove you can actually use (one of) the new features you’ve learned about.

Well, the vengeful Salesforce gods obviously heard about our delight with that, because it has been cruelly taken away from us. Yes, the hands-on challenge in the maintenance module has been replaced by an incredibly taxing one-question quiz.

While we don’t know why this happened – or even whether it’s a permanent measure – to us it’s a bit of a shame. For the reasons we outlined in that last blog on the subject, we really liked the idea of getting hands-on in maintenance exams. Yes, this challenge tripped a lot of people up and was perhaps a little overly vague on the element naming that formed part of the challenge validation, but at least it actually got people thinking – and using Flow.

Ah well, I guess we’ll just have to learn that we don’t alway get what we want.

3.5) The ‘and a half’ thing

This final one is only a ‘half-thing’, as I realise that it won’t apply to everyone. In fact it’ll only apply if you’re a parent of three, spending your summer working overseas in a hot country while trying to entertain the kids, keep the day job plates spinning, and also finding the time to write a weekly blog. Yeah, I know, that’s a pretty niche sub-section of the audience right there. But then this blog has never exactly been mass-market, has it?

I say all that because one other thing I learned this week, is that it’s pretty hard to do all the above stuff, and that sometimes you just have to phone it in, for example by pulling a ‘Three (and a half) things we learned this week’ style of blog, and get back to the pool.

Yeah, admittedly, this week’s blog was a little bit of a rushed affair, but we’re always keen to experiment with new formats, and I’d love to know if the ‘bite-sized’ approach worked for you. Do let us know.