4 Exciting Experience Cloud Winter ‘24 Enhancements

Director of Architects – SSC, Jill Penfield digs into the Salesforce Experience Cloud Winter ‘24 Release upgrades and improvements. 

The fall has always brought me all my favorite things… pumpkin carving, haunted houses, scary movies, apple crumble, trick-or-treating, costumes, sweater weather, Thanksgiving, MY BIRTHDAY, and, of course, the Salesforce Winter Release! Autumn and a Salesforce release have much in common, but mostly, change. Fall is a change of seasons, a change of colors, a change of wardrobe, and, for me, a shift in age (aging like a fine wine, or a banana, you decide). The Winter release is a change of… well… you know where I am going. Let’s dive into some of my favorite Experience Cloud changes in the Salesforce Winter ‘24 Release!      

4 Winter ‘24 Experience Cloud Enhancements 

1. LWR Template Upgrades 

Salesforce continues to dedicate its time slowly but surely to upgrading the LWR templates out-of-the-box, drag-and-drop, (running-out-of-hyphens) components and functionality. I’ve mentioned this in past blogs, but the LWR templates (which with this release, are now only available in the Enhanced version) are faster, more flexible, and have increased scalability. However, they are still very much behind their declarative nature. So, I suspect every release will have a few “new components” dropped in to play catch up.  

• Actions Bar – In the Summer ‘23 we saw the Beta Release of the Actions Bar (sounds like a wonderful place to order a spiked Pumpkin Spice Latte, or an SPSL as the kids call it these days). This is where users were given a component in LWR sites to add a custom set of actions on an object detail page. This is now Generally Available in Winter ’24, with improvements! With this release, you will see some label enhancements to improve usability, and you will notice the component now appears in the component’s palette by default on more object detail pages.  
• Knowledge Search Results – First, we saw the release of Knowledge search results and detail pages. Now, we see enhancements in the way of more fields. Before this, search results would only render the Titles and Summaries of the articles. Now, you can include additional fields in the search results using Search Layouts in the Object Manager.  

• Record Detail Component – We finally see a Record Detail component generally available for many standard and all custom object pages. With this release, everyone can take advantage of a drag-and-drop way to view and edit your Salesforce records.   

2. Increased Visibility Rule Control

When visibility rules were released for individual components, it was a game changer. Controlling visibility at the component level cuts down on the need for multiple variations of pages shared with different audiences for a more dynamic user experience. This release has come with an enhancement to those rules by allowing for the usage of two operators within one rule! Previously, a single rule could only contain conditions that were added using the AND or OR operators. By allowing both operators in a single rule, your audiences can be even more segmented in their user experience and interface.    

For example, you can now build a visibility rule to expose a Free Leaf Cleanup Service offering component:  

IF(User.DOB = 11/09 AND (Current.Month = October OR Current.Month = November)   

(Note: please send birthday gifts to RafterOne ATTN: Jill Penfield)  

3. New Component Variations Feature

We are seeing another Beta feature being released in Winter 24, Component Variations. With this feature, administrators can create different versions of the same component and add visibility rules to determine which part is visible to which user. For example, you can show another banner image to customers depending on their account attributes (Type, Location, etc.). This feature is already available in Aura sites, but there must be a gap within LWR sites. This will be a big one once Generally Available!  

4. Additional CSS Class Property 

We are seeing a new CSS class property in component settings with this release. The new CSS class property is available in all LWCs and gives the user even more control of the look and feel of the style of each component. You can define the CSS classes in your site’s header markup and then easily apply them to any number of components, including custom components. This gives builders even more control over the User Interface than ever before!  

But Wait, There’s More! 

Just like I have a few other smaller favorites in fall (no more sunburns, an endless supply of candy, being able to wear boots and jeans but not in that order), this release also brings a few smaller favorites that are worth mentioning:  

• You can now reach a more global audience in your LWR communities as Salesforce is releasing 15 more languages for translation (an increase from 10).    
• Salesforce has released pipeline inspection functionality for your partner community users. Pipeline inspection has been a feature for Salesforce internal users for some time. Still, now your Partners can see a consolidated view of their pipeline metrics, opportunities, week-to-week changes, close-date predictions, and activity information. If you are heavily co-selling with your partners and are utilizing a Salesforce Partner Experience Site to do so, this feature must be taken advantage of to give your partners a more well-rounded view of their business!  
• This is a minor update to AURA sites, and frankly, I was surprised this didn’t already exist, but now, with this release, you can add quick actions in your related lists (single component and view all). With these immediate actions, your users can create a record from the corresponding list or even perform mass updates to related list records (up to 100 at a time). Of course, giving mass update functionality to your community users should be done with hesitancy, ensuring that this doesn’t disrupt data quality in your Salesforce org.  

Til Next Season 

There you have it, all my favorite things (well, for the next three months). I am happy to see the dedication to getting LWR on track, and I look forward to seeing what the February release has to offer! In the meantime, you can let us know if you have any questions about Salesforce!  

– Jill Penfield, Director, Architects