Salesforce Spring '23 Release Notes Highlights

As we enter into 2023 and start a new year there are many things we have to look forward to, one of them being Salesforce's upcoming Spring '23 Release. There are a ton of great resources out there to help folks stay on top of the most exciting release features, but I thought I would add to the mix.

Here are the newest features being released in Spring '23 that I am most excited about:

1. Scheduling Video Appointments with Amazon Chime - I am a huge fan of Service Cloud Voice and I'm excited to see Salesforce continuing to partner with AWS and adding video appointments into the fold. This feature is something that I think will make a huge impact within the Healthcare and Life Sciences space, where telehealth continues to grow in popularity.
2. Hello Predictive Models, Farewell Stories - Although a subtle change, for all of my Data Scientist friends, this will be a wildly popular enhancement. Transiting from "Stories" to "Models" adds much needed clarity to this functionality and will make explaining what a model is to end-users more intuitive.
3. Account No Longer Mandatory for Forecasts - For folks unfamiliar with Manufacturing Cloud - Advanced Forecasts, powered by data processing engines, are incredibly powerful. The Salesforce team has done an incredible job innovating and enhancing Manufacturing Cloud since its debut and being able to now generate forecasts based on location (ex., ship-top-location or region) is a massive update. I expect we will see many Manufactures who are currently on Sales Cloud transition to Manufacturing Cloud now that they can produce forecasts at this level.
4. OmniStudio - I remember building my first "visual workflow" in 2013 and it has been incredibly fun seeing the evolution of flow over the years and seeing Salesforce Administrators feel empowered to create innovative experiences that were previously limited to developers. For many of us that have been in the ecosystem for a number of years, we've watched Flow transition from an intimidating feature for many admins to now being a necessary and critical skill for every admin and architect. It is a common tool in the toolbox that is being leveraged constantly. I expect OmniStudio to follow a similar trajectory. With the inclusion of "Flow for Industries" in products such as Health Cloud and Manufacturing Cloud, OmniStudio will be a tool that all admins and architects will need to have in their toolbox in the coming years. If you aren't already exploring this toolset and familiarizing yourself with it, I highly recommend it.
5. Build Your Voice Call Journeys with Modularized Flows in Amazon Connect - As mentioned above, I'm very bullish on Service Cloud Voice. I'm excited for Salesforce admins, architects, and consultants to have a standard and consistent telephony solution that we can offer to our end-users. It makes enablement and skilling up within the service space incredibly more efficient. Giving resources the access to pre-built call flow components and improving the modularity of those flows allows Salesforce resources to more efficiently build the innovative service experiences our end-users desire.