Ever since we were part of Meet the New Salesforce LIVE from SFO meetup, I have been waiting to get my hands on this beautiful upgrade.
My favourite Salesforce learning tool/place, Trailhead, has all the necessary (and as always, more) trails/modules for understanding various aspects of LEX. There are 4 trails:
- Admin Trail - Migrating to Lightning Experience (4 modules)
- Admin Trail - Starting with Lightning Experience (3 modules)
- Developer Trail - Lightning Experience (5 modules)
- Sales Rep Trail - Using Lightning Experience (2 modules)
For me the first one, Migrating to Lightning Experience looks most relevant and good place to start for all the Salesforce users/developers/admins/everyone. Mainly because we are all so used to the old Salesforce interface very much, that this will make it way easier to understand and decide to go ahead with LEX. Note that now onwards the existing tabbed interface will be called as Salesforce Classic, not the very old iOS/Android/Blackberry app - thats all ancient now, not old :-P. Before I go deep into the module, I must say that the Trailhead team is one of the best thing happened to Salesforce after Salesforce. Writers make it so much easy to read and understand the concepts. I have thanked many times in multiple tweets and blogs, and I will continue to do so because they continue to make it so much fun to learn. Hats-off folks.
Now, the trail; it has 4 modules, starting from basics to features to rollout strategy. As usual, screenshots are provided for easier and understanding, and also for better memory (they say visual memory is strongest).
Lightning Experience Basics: This explains about the LEX and Salesforce Classic and their differences. The module also provides the high level description of key features of LEX. There are great comparison charts/tables that will help you to determine if LEX is right for you. This clearly goes through each of the key features of LEX and provides info about the supported interfaces (SF Classic or LEX). In the end it provides info about enabling LEX; the more detailed explanation is given in the last module.
Lightning Experience Features: This is the module which details out various features of LEX. The navigation of LEX and Setup is detailed out with step by step explanation in this module. More detailed explanation of Opportunity & Lead Workspace is given, along with the super cool Opportunity Board (like Trello/JIRA Sprint boards) feature. Along with this enhancements on the Home Page, List Views, various record pages (detail pages), Events/Calendar, and Reports and Dashboards are beautifully written. I am so much excited after seeing these by myself in my preview org.
App Customization Lite: The impact of updating Page Layouts and Compact Layout is explained in this module. You can understand how changing Page Layout changes the content of record page in LEX. As in other modules, various unsupported items are clearly mentioned. The next chapter talks about the Actions - where are they displayed and what determines their order. After the great explanation, there is an example which washes away any stains of doubts.
Lightning Experience Rollout: After learning various aspects of LEX, this unit is for you, the company's trusted advisor of Salesforce for rolling out LEX in the org. Awesome module which covers the tiniest details with great coverage of each preparation area. For example, it explains the best practices of a demo!! - Make sure what you demo has data, Test everything beforehand, Record your demo. Not just that it revisits the Gap Analysis just to ensure that you have buy-in from your Stakeholders. There is a great enablement pack provided by the folks which again is so detailed and well written. There are some more best practices for rollout, like, enabling Super User. It is so awesome that I think it is one of the best advice to enable LEX in the client orgs.
I am very happy and excited after going through the modules. I have already tried out many stuff in my preview org and can't wait to explore more!
Finally I would like to highlight some of the major limitations/things to consider before rolling out LEX (for more and exact list please go through the modules):
- Orgs with Person Accounts cannot enable LEX
- Custom URL and JavaScript buttons aren't supported
- Many Sales and Service features like Forecasting, Territory Management, Consoles..
- Force.com Quick Access menu won't appear
- Many things won't appear in Home tab, notably Recycle Bin
- Custom Help don't appear in new Help menu
- There is no setting for no. of items to show in List View
- Inline editing (Detail page as well as List View) not supported
- Search in Reports isn't there
- Joined Reports aren't supported.
This is the beginning and for that the above mentioned are not roadblocks. Many of these will be covered in coming releases (or before) and I just can't wait!
