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Salesforce Lightning Transition

Lightning Experience

Salesforce released the Lightning Experience to thundering applause at DreamForce in 2015. Looking past the fanfare, you noticed some existing Salesforce features were missing. As they say, that was then and this is now. Since then, the missing pieces have returned. And, let’s not forget the amazing lightning user experience (LEX). The Classic user interface served the company well for decades, but LEX is the ultimate modern makeover for the user experience.

Why Lightning, Why Now?

Good Experience = Productivity

Check out this article on the importance of investing in employee experience. LEX brings a more natural way of working to your users. For example, it is much more customizable, so you can create pages/layouts to better reflect your workflow. The experience is more action-oriented resulting in fewer clicks and fewer inputs.  That translates to a happy and productive user.

Rich New Features

It would be very easy to think about LEX only as an updated elegant user interface.  But LEX is a reimagined architecture with many enhancements not available in Classic.  Here are just a few simple examples.

Two new LEX features, Kanban and Path, really can change the way we think about records in Salesforce.  Take a spin around Salesforce and chances are you will find status/stage picklists everywhere. There is a reason:  These stages provide a way to track a process. Both KanBan and Path can leverage these picklists to visually represent the records.  Each of these features can be used on objects other than Opportunity as well.

Kanban

Salesforce Kanban

Kanban is a view of multiple records configured in swim lanes representing the stage values. Users can drag and drop records through stages.  It really shines when dealing with many records that need updating.

Path

Salesforce PathPath provides a way to guide users through the record’s stages. You can configure specific business rules for each stage. It reduces training, standardizes the process and improves data quality.

 

 

Classic’s Days Are Numbered

Classic still works, but it is going away. If you don’t believe me, notice the ever-growing list of Lightning-only features with each new release. One of the great benefits of cloud-powered apps is that subscribers receive regular enhancements through new releases. Classic is being left behind.

Transitioning to Lightning

Salesforce has a lot of documentation that makes the transition to Lightning sound easy. If you want to read about some of those basic steps check it out here. Keep this in mind for your transition journey: Classic may be customized in ways that are incompatible with Lightning. Enabling Lightning without configuring any of its new features would be tragic.

Face the Challenges

The two largest challenges when transitioning to lightning are Learning Curve and Adoption. User navigation skills in classic don’t fully translate to Lightning. Again, LEX is not an upgrade – it’s a completely reimagined experience. For those who bend the app to fit how the user wants to work, LEX is a game changer. That involves skilling up, understanding workflow, and liaising with users to manage the change effectively.

Inventory Features

Not every customization that works in Classic works in Lightning. Establish a budget for work efforts to review all of the custom buttons, triggers, apex, bolt-on apps, and integrations. These customizations will need some revision to fit within LEX. Also, this is a great time to deprecate things that are no longer compatible with your workflow. Quality takes time and deep subject matter expertise. Do not underestimate the need for this effort. Serious missteps here could result in a LEX launch with a fast rollback to Classic.

Optimize Workflow

It may be tempting to approach this transition with the goal to simply cutover to Lightning without losing any core functionality. That is a missed opportunity. Look at all of these features.  Approach this transition as an opportunity to add net new features to the user base.

Increment Change

We do not recommend converting a large enterprise to lightning all at once, as it is not necessary. Instead, evaluate the user base and how they work and segment them based on their workflow. As you isolate each segment’s workflow, overlay it on the footprint of Salesforce. Do you have a user base that primarily uses force.com outside of typical Sales and Service Cloud? That could be an easy user segment to handle all at once. Keep in mind that the user experience can be very finely defined based on record types, profiles, etc. The customization to fit the need is endless.

To get started with your Transition to Lightning contact us.