Salesforce Roadmap: where to find it and how to influence it?

Any software worthy of the name needs to offer new features on a regular basis. As CRM leader, Salesforce is no exception to the rule.

New features require a roadmap! A roadmap, in IT jargon, is the indicative planning of future functionalities. But do we really need to spell it out for an informed reader like you?

With Salesforce, the roadmap is rich. To say so would be an understatement. In fact, there are several roadmaps, one for each product, each cloud. Some configuration elements even benefit from their own roadmap, like flows or permissions, for example, so extensive is the list of new features.

From big announcements to discreet developments, there’s something for everyone!

So, it’s hardly surprising to find a wealth of sources for these different roadmaps. Let’s take a look at the main ones. Then find out how to influence the roadmap!

First of all, the basiso find a state of play roadmap, go to this address.

That’s for the classic display, shall we say…

But there are plenty of other ways to learn!

In fact, Salesforce employees themselves say they could share more roadmap elements on this site.

But how do you know what the roadmaps are??? That’s where we can help you navigate…

First of all, there’s an obvious roadmap element that’s easy to forget: release notes! Admittedly, this is a short-term roadmap – Release Notes come out a little less than 2 months before the release goes into production – but it’s a clear and simple way of identifying new features to offer your users. To keep track of releases, please consult our articles (the latest is here) and if you’d like to discover the new features for yourself, an article on the subject will be published shortly.

Another way to find out about the Salesforce roadmap is through Salesforce events, such as Dreamforce (a large technical and sales conference) and TrailblazerDX (a smaller, more technical conference), as well as events organized by the Trailblazer community, such as French Touch Dreamin (https://frenchtouchdreamin.com/ )

The most recent example is, of course, TDX23! The following new features were presented:

Read our recent article to learn more: https://cloudity.com/fr/2023/03/22/trailblazerdx-2023-presque-comme-si-vous-y-etiez/

You can be sure that new features will be announced, both at keynotes (often big announcements, coming in several months) or at more confidential meetings, often not available on Salesforce+ unfortunately, but with screenshots sometimes available on LinkedIn or Twitter. Also, don’t hesitate to attend the “True to the core” sessions, always an interesting way to discover concrete, free new features.

You can count on us to include as many new features as possible in our articles! However, you’ll have to wait until after these events to find out more details, including pricing and availability conditions.

Please note: these are often Salesforce blog posts that are shared. Another direct source of roadmaps: https://admin.salesforce.com/blog/2023/permissions-updates-learn-moar-spring-23

Here’s another recent example from one of his colleagues:

Or Adam Olshansky.

Sometimes there are subjects you just have to get to grips with: that’s what Patrick Stokes is doing by sharing the first post in a new series on the Developers which will provide regular updates on an important roadmap topic, theLightning loading speed! Here is directly the link to Patrick’s article: https://developer.salesforce.com/blogs/2023/03/lightning-experience-with-lightning-speed-are-we-there-yet

What if we told you there was a way both to visualize and influence the roadmap? Here’s the ideaexchange!

The ideaexchange website https://ideas.salesforce.com/ is divided into 3 main sections.

Ideas and Post

Community members can vote for the ideas they consider to be the most important, so that they can be brought to the attention of Salesforce’s Product Managers more quickly. And they’re there! Cheryl Feldman is one of them:

Prioritization

Some ideas are selected to be prioritized by the community – a bit like the Champions League finals! But in the end, there will be several winners, which YOU can help to decide:

See the “Improved Permission Set View” line? This is the example given above. The idea was supported by the community, the Product Manager got hold of it, submitted it for prioritization and it’s one of the potential “winners” of the latest prioritization cycle. See you in a few weeks to find out if the idea will be delivered in a future release… and for a new prioritization cycle! There are 3 per year.

Winners

The winners of previous prioritization rounds are shown here. So all bets are off for them, and this is a sort of roadmap of some of the features we can expect to see on the platform in future releases, if all goes well!

Thank you Salesforce for making these resources available to influence the roadmap!

But that’s not all! In certain specific cases, Salesforce offers feedback:

Even better, if you’re lucky, you might even get the chance to ask a question during one of the “True to the core” sessions, on a subject close to your heart.

A final word of warning: a feature announced in the roadmap is not necessarily fully available as soon as it is released. There are 3 levels in the release lifecycle:

• Pilot: first level of release of a feature, for initial full-scale testing with a small number of participants. You often need to contact your Account Executive to gain access to the Pilot;

• Beta: if the feature passes the Pilot stage, it is then offered as a Beta to all customers, at the discretion of the Admin, who can activate it or not, bearing in mind that the feature is not yet maintained by Salesforce, due to its novelty;
• Generally Available: when a feature has passed the Pilot and Beta phases, it is fully “released” and is normally subject to normal maintenance, in the same way as all other available features.

Now you’re well equipped to understand AND influence the roadmap!

Thanks to Jean-Pierre Rizzi, Salesforce Project Manager at Cloudity, for this article!