This article explains how Lumary prepares for a Salesforce release. It includes advice about what you can do to help minimise the impact of a new release on your business processes.
Salesforce releases updates three times a year. You'll usually get an email notification about an upcoming release, but there are other ways to stay on top of the Salesforce release cycle.
This article explains:
- the Salesforce release cycle
- how Lumary prepares for a Salesforce release
- what you can do to get ready for an upcoming Salesforce release, and
- where to find out more about Salesforce releases.
The Salesforce release cycle
Salesforce releases new features and functionality three times a year. Each release aligns to a northern hemisphere season; Spring, Summer and Winter. Keep in mind, these are northern hemisphere seasons, so for customers in the southern hemisphere, they'll occur in Autumn, Winter and Summer.
Upgrades to the new releases happen automatically on specific dates. However, customers can get early access to start testing features in their sandbox environment.
Upgrade dates are published up to a year in advance on the Salesforce Trust website. To find upcoming dates:
- Go to the Salesforce Trust Status page.
- Click in the Search Instance, Domain, POD, or MID search field.
- Type the name of the instance that hosts your environment. Find out how to find the Salesforce instance name for an environment.
- Click on the Maintenance tab.
How Lumary prepares
At Lumary, we monitor Salesforce release announcements throughout the year. We also monitor the Release Updates console in the Setup section of our testing environments. As release material becomes available, we look for any changes or updates likely to affect Lumary products and/or our customers.
When an update becomes available, we opt-in and begin testing relevant new features in our testing environments. Our aim is to:
- complete our testing before Salesforce automatically applies the update to all production environments, and
- ensure that consuming the update will not destabilise the Lumary product.
In the unusual event that specific functionality could conflict with the Lumary system, we send a notification to any customers that may be affected.
How to make sure you're ready
While we do our best to identify any potential issues with a new release, we encourage customers to test relevant features in their sandbox environments. We recommend activating and testing features to make sure that changes don't affect your usual business practices.
You can find new features in the Release Updates console of your sandbox or production environment.
The Release Updates console replaces the previous Critical Updates console and security alerts.
To find the Release Updates console:
- Click on the setup cog icon.
- Select Setup.
- Click in the Quick Find search field.
- Type release.
- Click on the Release Updates text link.
Once you open the Release Updates console, you can review updates by clicking on the tabs that show which items need action, are due soon or are overdue. You can also see any items that have been archived.
We recommend applying the same testing tips you use when you test a new Lumary release.
Find out more about Salesforce releases
Salesforce has a lot of helpful guidance about Salesforce releases. To find out more, check out the following resources:
- Get to Know the Salesforce Release Process, which explains how to find the release dates for sandbox and production releases. It also explains how you can stay on top of releases by joining the Release Readiness Trailblazers Community.
- Get Early Access with the Sandbox Preview, and
- Refresh Your Sandbox.