4 Best Features of the Sales Cloud Winter ’24 Release

Sr. Solution Architect, Leigh-Anne Nugent highlights the latest features and enhancements in the Sales Cloud Winter ’24 release. 

Well, here we are again, Winter. As much as I hate the cold, there is something about snuggling up with a blanket, a coffee, and my laptop tinkering away and playing with the latest released features. So, I invite you to grab your favorite hot beverage and join me as I dig into what’s new from Salesforce as part of the Sales Cloud Winter ‘24 release. 

Retirements in Focus  

Out with the old and in with the new, as they say. I always prefer to start with what is retiring. There are a few announcements in this release that I’ll share so you can get prepared. 

Einstein Insights Retirement  

Einstein Account Insights and Einstein Opportunity Insights were retired in all Salesforce orgs as of November 14, 2023. 

Salesforce for Outlook Retirement  

We’ve known about the Salesforce for Outlook Retirement for a couple of years now. The retirement date is set for June 2024, and it does seem like this is it. You’ll want to take a look at Einstein Activity Capture (EAC) or Inbox, as both are fantastic products.  

• Einstein Activity Capture (EAC) – EAC continues to deliver the top ideas, the latest being the ability to report on the activities captured by Einstein in Standard Reports. This now gives Admins a good incentive to try out the Activity Timeline.  
• Mobile App Retirement – Inbox is retiring the mobile app. I’m really disappointed about this. No words. However, it’s promising to know that Email Experience has improved in Salesforce core. These advancements mean that sending emails from the Salesforce Mobile App is the way forward, but we won’t see this feature until July 19, 2023. 

Highlights of Sales Cloud Winter ’24 Release  

Now on to the fun stuff. Here are my favorite things about the Sales Cloud Winter ’24 release. 

1. Salesforce Maps  

Salesforce Maps for everyone? Yes, please and thank you! Visualizing your prospects and leads will soon become a whole lot easier. My Field Service bias is showing, I know, but how awesome would it be to have the ability to plan a road show to your prospects when you have a scheduled trip planned for an important client?  I mean, you can now pad that trip on the front and back end and make plans to visit clients and generate new business at the same time. Maps Lite is just the tip of the iceberg for all the amazing capabilities of Salesforce Maps, but activating this feature will provide enough value for the effort. It’ll require an admin to toggle the feature on and hold a few training sessions with end users, and then measure how many more meetings your Sales team will have! 

2. Lead and Contact Intelligence   

Hello Lead and Contact Intelligence! Thank you for joining the party! It is amazing the amount of customization and reporting an Admin would have to do to give users the ability to identify “who haven’t I reached out in a while?”, and “what do I have to prioritize today”? Like, Customer Relationship Management 101. Am I right? This is a fantastic improvement to the Lead and Contact List views.    

3. To Do List Enhancements  

To Do Lists have a lot of potential to provide high value for low effort. Admins can simply add the “To Do List” utility to the Utility Bar, so users can quickly track all the Activities they have from anywhere in the Desktop experience.  

4. Sales Add-ons 

These Sales Add-on’s look to be really compelling and worth keeping an eye on. 

• Sales Engagement with Buyer Assistant – Sales Engagement is becoming a more compelling add on with the addition of Buyer Assistant. This feature allows the ability to provide a Bot and Chat sales experience on your site. This would be a great addition if you already have a Bot in place for Service Cloud.   
• Sales Cloud Einstein Insights – Sales Cloud Einstein is releasing features so quickly. It is worthwhile to keep this Sales Cloud Einstein page bookmarked to stay on top of what is possible and to isolate the scope and focus of your data cleanup efforts. Activities, standard Opportunity fields, Product Names and Product Descriptions are all clean and complete, ready to be referenced in a meaningful summary or email to customers. 

Winter ’24 Productivity Boost 

Productivity is the name of the game when you use Salesforce, and the Sales Cloud Winter ’24 release did not disappoint. These new upgrades will help you level up your team’s productivity will low effort. Cheers to that!  

– Leigh-Anne Nugent, Sr. Solution Architect, SSC