Spring ’20 Release: The Absolutely Way Too Early, Definitive Guide to the 3 Best Features

Yes, it is obviously way too early for this post, but after toying around in my Spring ’20 Pre-Release org there were several things I was so  excited about that I wanted to share.

But first, a word about pre-release orgs – starting on Thursday (Dec 12) you can visit this link to sign up for your own pre-release instance.While this will give you a few days to look around before the official release notes come out, for future releases your pre-release org gets a full refresh several days sooner, allowing you to Release Treasure Hunt and find new features first!

And second, a quick rant.  Spring ’20 is such a misnomer – it comes out in Winter 2020 but we are previewing it while its still Fall 2019, so before we dig into the good stuff, may I suggest a campaign for Groundhog’s Day Release 2021?  Our voices were heard loud enough to get **Spoiler Alert** Opportunity Contact Roles as full 1st Class Objects for Spring ’20, pretty sure we can make it happen!

And lastly, someone brought it to my attention I should add a Safe Harbor slide to this post since we are looking ahead to Spring.  He is right, with Winter upon us, it is a good idea to get your Boats & RVs stored until Spring.  Contact Safe Harbor Boat & RV Storage for all your Boat & RV storage needs. 

And without further asides, rants, or hibernating rodents – I give you my way too early, definitive, absolutely cannot change for any reason except that the release notes are coming out next week so this is going to change guide to the Top 3 Features in the Spring ’20 Release.

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#1) Process Builder w/ Opportunity Contact Roles

SAY WHA?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!??!!? THIS REQUIRES ALL CAPS BECAUSE IT NEEDS TO BE SHOUTED FROM THE DESKTOPS – WE FINALLY HAVE PROCESS BUILDER ON OPPORTUNITY CONTACT ROLES!!!!!!!!!!!!

For years and years, Opportunity Contact Roles were a barren wasteland where ideas, wishes, and pleas from admins and developers went to die.  No custom fields, no triggers, no workflow rules, no process builder – the only way to update or create those records was through PB & Flow (with lots of limitations), batch processes, etc.

In Winter ’20 (released in Fall 2019, previewed in Summer 2019…but whatever) the quest to make Opportunity Contact Roles was partially realized with custom fields, triggers, and validation rule while remaining features were promised in an ‘upcoming release.’

After waiting 4+ years, 28,200 points, and 24 merged ideas to get the first updates, we were not exactly hopeful it would be soon.  So imagine my surprise when I begin exploring Spring ’20 and found out we get Process Builder, Workflow Rules, and Quick Actions for Opportunity Contact Roles!  ITS OFFICIAL, OPPORTUNITY CONTACT ROLES IS A FIRST CLASS OBJECT!!!

Dear Tracy Kronzak, patron admin of lost opportunity contact role causes, your Task Status has been updated to completed, your idea delivered, go now and rest in Past Activities until you are archived in 365 days. 

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#2) Flo’ Riding into Spring ’20

Every time I’m working with Flows, someone says the word flow, etc I get the 1995 classic ‘Feel me Flow’ by Naughty By Nature stuck in my head.  Off their Grammy Winning Poverty’s Paradise album, this song (and Treach’s flow) are pure 90’s hip-hop brilliance so imagine my disappointment when I suffered through Tiffany, New Kids on the Block, Debbie Gibson, and Salt-N-Pepa to have them not perform my jam during last year’s Mixtape Tour.

I’ve been similarly frustrated with flow – the Flow Trigger pilot has been out in the wild for years and has never made its way into General Availability until now.  With Spring ’20 us Awesome Admins gain the ability to Launch Flows based on when a record is created, updated only (sadly this is not in PB yet), or both.

While this is going to throw a bit of a wrinkle in to the ‘One Process Per Object’ movement of which I’m a card carrying member, it is a powerful feature that is bringing even more process automation capabilities into the hands of Admins everywhere.

Another super awesome Flow Feature is the ability to set the context in which a Flow is run – you can determine if it respects OWD, Sharing, etc or if it runs in user/system context.

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#3) You Get a Task! You Get a Task! You Get a Task!

I’ve seen this question and variations of it a few times a month in the Answer community.  ‘How can I assign a task to more than one person without creating a duplicate task.’  Well with Spring ’20 we finally have an answer!

Previously, when assigning to a group or multiple users, duplicate tasks were created, skewing reports, creating bad data, ‘task fatigue’, and many other problems.  Now when creating a task, we will now be able to assign it to a Queue and only a single task is created!

 

Above: a Queue option is now available when creating Tasks.
Below: The results of assigning the same task to multiple users vs to a queue.  Finally a single task!  KPIs Rejoice!

Long overdue; this simple feature is going to substantially change how we approach designing for business workflow automation – with the ability to assign a single task to a queue we’ll be able to transform how our organizations and clients approach their processes moving forward.

I would have been thrilled with any of the above features, so getting Queues for Tasks is icing on the cake; getting all 3 is like that corner piece of cake with the frosting flowers and its 75% icing.

As usual, thanks for reading, I’ll check back next week to see if my Top 3 are left standing once the release notes are out!

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