Summer ’24 Treasure Hunt: Preview Orgs Are Live!

Summer ‘24 preview orgs are live, so it’s time for a preview party! The exciting period of time when changes are available in preview orgs is about to kick off – we will then be able to explore the new Salesforce release features before they’re pushed to production. It’s the ideal time to learn how we can harness these new powers when they are released officially (full details here).

You will be able to access these features prior to April 18 if you have signed up for a preview org in the past – but if not, you’ll need to wait until then to sign up. This is an excellent reminder to save your preview org credentials so that you can access future features sooner!

As usual, there should be a unique Trailhead Treasure Hunter badge up for grabs – earn this by posting about the treasures you discover (as a comment on this post in the Trailblazer Community with the hashtag #Summer24Treasure).

1. Permission Set Group View Summary Now Generally Available

Permission set groups gained a View Summary functionality in the last release in beta form, and it has been enhanced and released as GA in Summer ‘24!

Now the standardized page has been updated to make it easier to use, including a tab-based navigation section instead of the previous long, scrollable page. It also includes additional sections such as Included Permission Sets and Custom Permissions right there on the page, whereas previous versions did not display these in the same section.

2. New View Summary on User Record

Similar to permission set groups, you can now click the View Summary button on a user record, making it easier to manage user records in the system.

The page looks very similar to the one that is available on the permission set groups summary above, and similar to others listed later in this post.

3. Tab Visibility Settings in Lightning Pages

Tabs get the same respect and love as other Lightning page components in Spring ‘24! Finally, after many groans from the Salesforce Admin community, we’re seeing the ability to set visibility criteria on individual tabs.

This means that if certain users should only have access to certain tabs, then this can be applied using the Set Component Visibility settings just like any other component.

4. Brand New Automation Lightning App

The brand new place for all things Flow and Process Automation! Now users who have access can see flows, errors, and other community-based links from within the main application – this is the first time we’ve seen something like this outside of the Setup menu.

I find it quite interesting that Salesforce is exposing Flow within the main application in addition to Setup. Previously, we’ve only seen automations owned by admins. I wonder if this points to a future where users will be able to configure their own personal or team-based flows.

5. New Flow Creation Wizard

Creating a Flow looks different than it ever has before. The first step you’re presented with simply offers you the ability to create your own Flow from scratch or select from a series of templates (the templates are grouped similarly to previous releases).

Interestingly, this new method involved more clicks and pages than before, which slows down the experience for admins.

6. Expanded Flow Types

There are now more Flow types than ever before in Summer ‘24. We see the standard screen flows, autolaunched flows, and triggered flows as we previously have, but this release drops new Flow types – we will explore these in far greater detail in the upcoming Summer ‘24 Flow Features article. Stay tuned!

Flow is becoming more and more powerful with each release, and Summer ‘24 begins to show that it is leading more into the title of a jack-of-all-trades. Flow does what it always does, but now we’re seeing Salesforce turn it into a specialist tool for specific functions. Neat!

7. Action Buttons in Flow

We were all pleasantly surprised to see Adam White’s announcement of the new action buttons in Flow recently, and the LinkedIn Live demonstration shortly after. Now in Summer ‘24, we’re all able to get our hands on and try it out for ourselves!

Action buttons are going to empower so many people to make it easier to use screen flows for their businesses. If you’d like to see action buttons in… well, action… then click here!

8. User Access Policies Now Generally Available

User access policies are now generally available in Summer ‘24! Salesforce is working on enhancing the entire Setup and admin experience in the product, and user access policies help to do that by defining aggregated access for users in a single operation.

Think of user access policies as being similar to a record-triggered flow in that when something is true (user criteria), then a series of actions occur.

9. Public Group Summaries

Salesforce has also enabled public group summaries in Summer ‘24. Now, you’re able to see all the different places that any public group is being used to give users access to certain functionality.

There are so many different applications that we’ve seen from the View Summary functionality, all of which are designed to make the admin’s job easier. It limits the searching and digging around to find how permissions are applied and what those permissions are.

10. Flow Repeater Component Now Generally Available

The Flow Repeater component has been around since the last release but has been made generally available in Summer ‘24!

Additionally, it now supports conditional visibility just like tabs in Dynamic Forms! There’s a lot more to see in Flow in this release, but you’ll have to read more about that in the upcoming Flow Features article!

Summary

And there you have it! These are my favorite features (uncovered so far!), including a few that I’ve read about but have not yet been lucky enough to get my hands on. As usual, there are a handful of more significant upgrades and a plethora of smaller ones that are going to make for an even more polished experience for admins, developers (both declarative and programmatic), and end users alike.

This release is hopefully continuing the trend we’ve seen lately, where Salesforce has been cleaning up the Setup menu and bringing it visually in line with the rest of the product. This is the last area of Salesforce that needs that Lightning lick of paint, and it’s fab to see it being applied!

It’ll be exciting to see some of the more hidden features come to light when the Salesforce Release Notes are available on April 24. And don’t forget to sign up for a pre-release org to see what you can find.