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- Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Sprache: Englisch
Learn how to build advanced reports and dashboards in Salesforce Lightning experience
About This Book
- Visualize and create advanced reports and dashboards using Lightning Experience
- Improve overall business efficiency with advanced and effective reports and dashboards
- Understand and create custom reports and dashboards
Who This Book Is For
This book is targeted at Salesforce.com administrators, business analysts, and managers who use Salesforce.com for their daily job and want to learn in depth about Salesforce Reporting and Dashboard in Lightning Experience. Readers should have a basic knowledge of Salesforce, such as: Accounts, Contacts, Leads, Opportunities and custom objects.
What You Will Learn
- Navigate in Salesforce.com within the Lightning Experience user interface
- Secure and share your reports and dashboards with other users
- Create, manage, and maintain reports using Report Builder
- Learn how the report type can affect the report generated
- Explore the report and dashboard folder and the sharing model
- Create reports with multiple formats and custom report types
- Explore various dashboard features in Lightning Experience
- Use Salesforce1, including accessing reports and dashboards
In Detail
Built on the Salesforce App Cloud, the new Lightning Experience combines the new Lightning Design System, Lightning App Builder, and Lightning Components to enable anyone to quickly and easily create modern enterprise apps.
The book will start with a gentle introduction to the basics of Salesforce reports and dashboards. It will also explain how to access reports in depth. Then you will learn how to create and manage reports, to use Schedule Report, and create advanced report configurations. The next section talks about dashboards and will enable you to understand and compare various types of dashboard component and how you can benefit the most from each of them. Then we move on to advanced topics and explain tips and tricks related to reports and dashboards, including reporting snapshots, report parameters, and collaboration.
Finally, we will discuss how to access dashboards and reports from the Salesforce1 mobile app.
Style and approach
This comprehensive guide covers the advanced features of the all new Salesforce Lightning concepts and communicates them through a practical approach to explore the underlying concepts of how, when, and why to use them.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017
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Salesforce Lightning Reporting and Dashboards
Copyright © 2017 Packt Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.
Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.
Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.
First published: August 2017
Production reference: 1020817
ISBN 978-1-78829-738-7
www.packtpub.com
Credits
Author
Johan Yu
Copy Editor
Stuti Srivastava
Reviewers
Chamil Madusanka
Tom Blamire
Project Coordinator
Prajakta Naik
Commissioning Editor
Merint Mathew
Proofreader
Safis Editing
Acquisition Editor
Karan Sadawana
Indexer
Francy Puthiry
Content Development Editor
Siddhi Chavan
Production Coordinator
Nilesh Mohite
Technical Editor
Tiksha Sarang
Foreword
Before you dive into Johan's amazing book about Salesforce technology, I want to invite you to be a part of something special. We are in the midst of a major shift, and we're leaning into it with the full power of Salesforce. Our mission is to empower people to blaze their own trails, as well as to motivate and educate everyone in our community with how we live our values of trust, growth, innovation, and equality.
If you're reading this book, you are a Trailblazer and have more power than ever to make positive changes happen in your companies, communities, and careers. Doing well and doing good is about the power of working together to help companies be better for their customers, and businesses and to be major drivers of change. We want every individual to realize their full potential in their careers and lives. With this shift, we can generate hundreds of billions of dollars in GDP, create millions of new jobs, and help new Trailblazers learn the skills they need to succeed.
I'd like to introduce you to a few of the concepts that are central to this shift and core to our community: Ohana, Trailblazer, and Equality.
Ohana: This is defined broadly as "family" in Hawaiian, but at Salesforce, it means to connect, collaborate, learn, and have fun together. As one Salesforce Ohana, we all need to be Trailblazers, moving forward together on the same trail with the intentional purpose of delivering customer success and a path into the Salesforce economy. This, in turn, will generate hundreds of billions of dollars in GDP, create millions of new jobs, and help new Trailblazers learn the skills they need to succeed.
Trailblazer: Thisis a pioneer; an innovator; a lifelong learner; a mover and shaker; a leader who leaves a path for others to follow; and, most importantly, someone who inspires and drives change, and is committed to making the world a better place. This is all about being your best through a constant commitment to learning and giving back--and that's what this community is all about.
Equality: At Salesforce, works together with our whole Ohana--our employees, customers, partners, community organizations, and the whole tech industry--to build a path forward to equality for all. We are taking action across four key pillars: equal pay, equal opportunity, equal education, equal rights.
Let me leave you with this--ask yourself what will you learn this year? What will you teach? Will you be a mentor or a mentee? What's the Salesforce path you want to follow? I encourage you to BE BOLD in your life, career, and community--be a part of this amazing shift!
Erica KuhlVice President, Community - Salesforce
About the Author
Johan Yu has more than 19 years of experience working in the IT sector across MNCs and at a leading Salesforce consulting company in the Asia-Pacific region. He has spent more than 12 years working with Salesforce technology, starting his career as a developer, team leader, and technical manager, among many other challenging roles.
Based in Singapore, Johan holds 12X active Salesforce certifications, ranging from Administrator to Architect/Designer certifications. In his spare time, he enjoys writing blogs and answering questions in the Salesforce Success Community.
In May 2014, Johan became the first Salesforce MVP, not only from Singapore, but also from Southeast Asia. He is also the leader of the Salesforce Singapore User Group and is keen to help members solve issues related to configuration, implementation, and adoption, until more technical issues arrive.
About the Reviewers
Chamil Madusanka is a Salesforce.com certified Force.com developer. He has been working with Salesforce.com related technologies since 2011. He works as a developer on many custom applications built on Force.com and has also trained end users and new Salesforce developers at his current company, Dazeworks Technologies Pvt Ltd., and former companies, Sabre Technologies (Pvt) Ltd and attune Lanka Pvt. Ltd. He has authored Visualforce Developer's guide and Learning Force.com Application Development with Packt.
He is an active member of the Force.com community and contributes through various channels. He is passionate about Force.com and shares his knowledge of Force.com technologies through his blog. He is a super-contributor on the Force.com discussion board and shares his knowledge and experience on the topic by providing effective answers to developer questions. He is the initiator and organizer of the Sri Lanka Salesforce Platform Developer User Group. His contribution to the Sri Lanka Salesforce community has led to an increase in Salesforce competency in Sri Lanka.
Chamil completed his BSc in Computer Science from the University of Colombo School of Computing (UCSC), Sri Lanka and MBA in Management of Technology from the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka. His areas of interest include cloud computing, Innovation & R&D, Semantic Web technologies, and ontology-based systems. Hailing from Polonnaruwa, an ancient city in Sri Lanka, he currently resides in Gampaha in the Western province of Sri Lanka. His interests include reading books and blog posts related to technology and playing cricket. He can be reached via Twitter at @chamilmadusanka, Skype at chamilmadusanka, and email at [email protected].
Tom Blamire is a dedicated Salesforce administrator and evangelist who accidentally fell into Salesforce in 2014. He has come from an office administration background, working in various industries, and tries to apply that knowledge and skillset to every organization he has worked in.
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Table of Contents
Preface
What this book covers
What you need for this book
Who this book is for
Conventions
Reader feedback
Customer support
Downloading the color images of this book
Errata
Piracy
Questions
Fundamentals of Salesforce Reports and Dashboards
An overview and the benefits of Salesforce
Salesforce Lightning Experience
Let's get the right term
What was before the Lightning Experience?
Let's turn the Lightning Experience on
Switch to Lightning Experience
The Salesforce object model
Standard objects
Custom objects
Object relationships
Field types
Navigating to the Setup menu
Navigating to reports and dashboards
Reports / Dashboards tab and menu
Adding to favorites
Summary
Concepts and Permissions in Reports and Dashboards
Data for reports and dashboards
Generating reports and dashboards
The report and dashboard folder
A private folder
Unfiled public folder
Public folder
Standard reports and report folders
Creating report and dashboard folders
Hands-on exercise to create a report folder
Report and dashboard folders sharing
Hands-on exercise for sharing report folders
Report permissions
Run reports
Create and customize reports
Export reports
Subscribe to reports
Dashboard permissions
Run reports permission
Creating and customizing dashboards permission
Manage dynamic dashboards permission
The View My Team's Dashboards permission
Schedule dashboards
Summary
Implementing Security in Reports and Dashboards
Securing private reports and dashboards
Using Unfiled Public Reports
Using public reports and dashboards
Sharing and securing public reports and dashboards
Report folder permissions
The Create Report Folders permission
The View Reports in Public Folders permission
The Edit My Reports permission
The Manage Reports in Public Folders permission
The Manage All Private Reports and Dashboards permission
Dashboard folder permissions
The Create Dashboard Folders permission
The Edit My Dashboards permission
The View Dashboards in Public Folders permission
The Manage Dashboards in Public Folders permission
Applying permission
Hands-on exercise for adding permission in a Profile
Hands-on exercise utilizing permission with Permission Sets
Summary
Creating and Managing Reports
Selecting the report format
Types of report format
The Tabular report format
Hands-on exercise for creating a Tabular report
The Summary report format
Hands-on exercise for creating a Summary report
The Matrix report format
Hands-on exercise for creating a Matrix report
Hands-on exercise for adding a Summary field to Matrix reports
The Joined report format
Hands-on exercise for creating a Joined report
Working with report filters
Field filter
The Filter Logic
Hands-on exercise for using the Filter Logic
The Cross Filter
Hands-on exercise for using the Cross Filter
Hands-on exercise for creating more scenarios using the Cross Filter (1)
Hands-on exercise for creating more scenarios using the Cross Filter (2)
Creating the Summary field
The Row Limit filter
Hands-on exercise for adding Row Limit and the Dashboard Settings button
Filtering by Role Hierarchy
Filtering by Relative Date
Filtering by clicking on a chart
The Lock Filter
Summary
Understanding Report Types
Report Type introduction
Report type categories
Hands-on exercise for hiding a report type
Standard Report Type
The Lookup relationship
The Master-Detail Relationship
The Custom Report type
Hands-on exercise for creating a Custom Report type
Hands-on exercise for extending Custom Report types
Hands-on exercise for using a Custom Report type
Limitations and benefits of Custom Report types
Tips on Custom Report types
Summary
Advanced Report Configuration
Categorizing data in reports
Bucket fields
Hands-on exercise for adding a bucket field to a report
Creating a bucket field depending on the source field type
The picklist field
The Currency, Number, and Percent fields
The Text and Lookup fields
Editing a bucket field
The Custom Summary Formula
The Custom Summary Formula in Summary and Matrix reports
Hands-on exercise for adding a simple summary formula
Hands-on exercise for working with a summary formula
Using the IF() function
Using the MAX() function
Function formulas
The PARENTGROUPVAL() function
Using the PARENTGROUPVAL() function in Summary report
Using the PARENTGROUPVAL() function in the Matrix report
The PREVGROUPVAL() function
Using the PREVGROUPVAL() function in Summary report
Using the PREVGROUPVAL() function in Matrix report
Summary
Adding Charts in Reports and Pages
Adding a chart to a report
Types of charts in reports
The Horizontal Bar chart
The Vertical Bar chart
The Stacked Horizontal Bar chart
The Stacked Vertical Bar chart
The Line chart
The Donut chart
The Funnel chart
The Scatter chart
Hands-on exercise for adding a chart to a report
Embedding a report chart in an object page
Hands-on exercise for adding a chart to a page layout
Summary
Working with Reports
Opening a report
The Reports tab
The Reports menu
The Folders menu
The favorites icon
Hands-on exercise for adding an item to favorites
The search textbox
Navigating to a report
Summarizing fields
Filters
The Collaborate field
Report settings
The action button
Subscribing reports
Hands-on exercise for subscribing to a report in Lightning Experience
Summary
Building Dashboards in Lightning Experience
Introducing dashboards in Salesforce
Built-on components
Dashboard accessibility
Running user
Dynamic dashboards
The new experience
Opening a dashboard
The Dashboards tab
The DASHBOARDS menu
The FOLDERS menu
The favorites icon
The search textbox
Navigating to a dashboard
Dragging and dropping in the Dashboard Builder
Refreshing dashboards
Scheduling a dashboard refresh
Creating your first dashboard
Hands-on exercise for creating a dashboard
Hands-on exercise for editing and maintaining a dashboard
The dashboard components
Defining the dashboard components
Tables
Funnel charts
Gauge charts
Stacked Bar charts
Scatter charts
Cumulative Line charts
Combination charts
Reports as a data source
Summary
Learning Advanced Dashboard Configuration
Implementing the dashboard filters
Getting to know the dashboard filters
Hands-on exercise for adding a filter to a dashboard
Viewing a dashboard
Using a dynamic dashboard
A normal dashboard
What is a dynamic dashboard?
Limitations of the dynamic dashboard
Hands-on exercise for creating a dynamic dashboard
Dashboards and reports drill down
Preserving filters
Getting more from AppExchange
Hands-on exercise for installing a dashboard from AppExchange
Sales Year to Date dashboard
Creating reports as a data source
Creating a sales YTD dashboard
Adding dashboard filters
Adding a dynamic dashboard
Summary
Advanced Tips and Tricks for Reports and Dashboards
Reports and dashboards collaboration with Chatter
Enabling collaboration in a report
Tracking report feed
Dashboard collaboration and feed tracking
Following dashboards
Posting a dashboard component snapshot
Filtering reports via URL parameters
Hands-on exercise for implementing a report filter via URL parameters
Setting and using field history tracking
History tracking on standard objects
History tracking on custom objects
History objects
Reading the history tracking value
The history related list
History reports
Limitations of using field history tracking
Reporting on historical data with Reporting Snapshots
Configuring a Reporting Snapshot
Hands-on exercise for creating a Reporting Snapshot
Creating a Summary report
Creating a custom object
Creating custom fields
Creating Reporting Snapshots
Mapping fields from Source Report to target object
Scheduling a Reporting Snapshot
Summary and schedule
History and monitoring a Reporting Snapshot
Reporting on historical data
Summary
Dashboards and Reports in the Salesforce1 Mobile App
Introduction to the Salesforce1 mobile app
Working with dashboards in the Salesforce1 app
Refreshing a dashboard
The dynamic dashboard
The dashboard filters
Sharing a dashboard snapshot to Chatter feed
Changing the component chart types
Chart details and reports
Working with reports in the Salesforce1 app
Report menu items
Drilling down from dashboards
Drilling down to records
Accessing offline
Limitations of the Salesforce1 app
Summary
Preface
This book is for Salesforce administrators, business users, and managers who use Salesforce Lightning Experience in their daily work or to analyze data in Salesforce. It covers all items related to reporting and dashboards in Salesforce Lightning Experience. This book will benefit business users, who will gain knowledge ranging from creating basic reports to advanced report and dashboard configuration. Administrators will learn the entire concept of reporting and dashboards, object models, permissions related to reports and dashboards, report storage, and reporting on historical data.
Reports and dashboards are among the most powerful and easy to use features in the Salesforce platform, including Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, and Force.com, where business users are able to create and customize reports and dashboards as needed in minutes.
Business users should have basic knowledge, or should be using Salesforce in their daily work, such as logging in to the system, navigating through the Salesforce Lightning environment, creating and editing data, and running reports in Salesforce. Admin users should have basic knowledge of customizing Salesforce, such as the Setup menu, tabs, user profiles, permission sets, and standard and custom objects.
What this book covers
Chapter 1, Fundamentals of Salesforce Reports and Dashboards, provides a basic overview of the Salesforce Lightning Experience, object model, Setup menu navigation, and navigating reports and dashboards.
Chapter 2, Concepts and Permissions in Reports and Dashboards, talks about the relationship between data visibility and result in a report generated, continues about report and dashboard storages, and permissions for reports and dashboards.
Chapter 3, Implementing Security in Reports and Dashboards, discusses how to secure and limit accessibility to the reports and dashboards stored in Salesforce.
Chapter 4, Creating and Managing Reports, covers the basic skills in required to create a new report, ranging from selecting a report format, adding filters to the report, and hands-on creation of simple report.
Chapter 5, Understanding Report Types, explains the report type as the foundation of the report which will also determine the availability of objects and fields, including data in the generated report. This chapter share about the standard report types, including creating custom report types.
Chapter 6, Advanced Report Configuration, discusses categorizing data in reporting using bucket fields and custom summary formulas.
Chapter 7, Adding Charts in Reports and Pages, talks about the types of charts available in the report for Lighting Experience, adding a chart to the report, and also using the same chart on the record page.
Chapter 8, Working with Reports, covers working with reports and items available under the Reports tab, the report folder, and things that can be configured after running a report.
Chapter 9, Building Dashboards in Lightning Experience, covers opening and searching for dashboards, and navigating, building, and refreshing dashboards and the components in them.
Chapter 10, Learning Advanced Dashboard Configuration, explains the advanced functionalities in dashboards, including dashboard filters, dynamic dashboards, drilling down, and getting additional dashboards from AppExchange.
Chapter 11, Advanced Tips and Tricks for Reports and Dashboards, covers collaboration in reports and dashboards, filtering reports using URL parameters, Field History Tracking, and setting up Reporting Snapshot.
Chapter 12, Dashboards and Reports in the Salesforce1 Mobile App, shows you how to access reports and dashboards on the go, using the Salesforce1 mobile app, including offline access without the internet.
What you need for this book
The best approach to get the most of this book is to get hands-on experience of all the exercises. You will need the following:
A Salesforce account. You are advised to use the Enterprise edition or above. However, for the purposes of testing and learning, a Sandbox instance and Developer edition are good enough.
A web browser.
An internet connection.
A computer.
A mobile phone--iOS or Android.
Who this book is for
This book is written for business analysts, reporting analysts, sales representatives, sales operations, and Salesforce administrators. This book is also for users who want to learn about Salesforce reporting and dashboards in depth using Lightning Experience. You will gain knowledge of items related to reports and dashboards in Salesforce, starting from creating basic reports and customizing them, and moving up to the most advanced reports and dashboards in Salesforce Lightning Experience.
Reader feedback
Feedback from our readers is always welcome. Let us know what you think about this book-what you liked or disliked. Reader feedback is important for us as it helps us develop titles that you will really get the most out of. To send us general feedback, simply e-mail [email protected], and mention the book's title in the subject of your message. If there is a topic that you have expertise in and you are interested in either writing or contributing to a book, see our author guide at www.packtpub.com/authors.
Customer support
Now that you are the proud owner of a Packt book, we have a number of things to help you to get the most from your purchase.
Downloading the color images of this book
We also provide you with a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots/diagrams used in this book. The color images will help you better understand the changes in the output. You can download this file from https://www.packtpub.com/sites/default/files/downloads/SalesforceLightningReportingandDashboards_ColorImages.pdf.
Errata
Although we have taken every care to ensure the accuracy of our content, mistakes do happen. If you find a mistake in one of our books-maybe a mistake in the text or the code-we would be grateful if you could report this to us. By doing so, you can save other readers from frustration and help us improve subsequent versions of this book. If you find any errata, please report them by visiting http://www.packtpub.com/submit-errata, selecting your book, clicking on the Errata Submission Form link, and entering the details of your errata. Once your errata are verified, your submission will be accepted and the errata will be uploaded to our website or added to any list of existing errata under the Errata section of that title. To view the previously submitted errata, go to https://www.packtpub.com/books/content/support and enter the name of the book in the search field. The required information will appear under the Errata section.
Piracy
Piracy of copyrighted material on the Internet is an ongoing problem across all media. At Packt, we take the protection of our copyright and licenses very seriously. If you come across any illegal copies of our works in any form on the Internet, please provide us with the location address or website name immediately so that we can pursue a remedy. Please contact us at [email protected] with a link to the suspected pirated material. We appreciate your help in protecting our authors and our ability to bring you valuable content.
Questions
If you have a problem with any aspect of this book, you can contact us at [email protected], and we will do our best to address the problem.
Fundamentals of Salesforce Reports and Dashboards
This chapter will give you a general overview of the Salesforce cloud technology including the benefits of the Cloud Platform, the introduction of Salesforce Lightning Experience, extending Salesforce beyond Customer relationship management (CRM), and navigating Salesforce reports and dashboards. We will also touch on the Salesforce architecture, Setup menu, and Lightning Experience user interface.
This chapter contains information that applies to both business users and Salesforce system administrators. Some topics in this chapter discuss features specific for the system administrator, but the business user might find it interesting to have a better understanding of the Salesforce architecture.
Throughout the book, we will provide notes and tips to help you to understand Salesforce technology easily. In the next few chapters, we will look at various skills to build advanced reports and dashboards, which suit your business requirements in Lightning Experience. Hands-on activities will be part of most chapters, while creating reports and dashboards will be covered in Chapter 4, Creating and Managing Reports and onward.
The following topics will be covered in this chapter:
An overview and the benefits of Salesforce
Salesforce Lightning Experience
The Salesforce object model
Navigating to the Setup menu
Navigating to reports and dashboards
An overview and the benefits of Salesforce
Salesforce is an enterprise, web-based platform which can be accessed from anywhere, anytime, and on any device as long as your device is connected to the Internet. It is a cloud application, so you do not need to purchase any server/hardware, operating system, or database to use it. If you haven't already used the Salesforce platform, it is a web-based application like Gmail or Yahoo, but more than that, it allows you to configure and customize the application to suit your own business needs.
When you sign up for Salesforce, either the free developer edition or the paid version, you will be provided with an organization--a software environment. The hardware, operating system, and database are shared among all Salesforce customers within the same instance. All customers within the same instance will be in the same release. Salesforce has three feature releases every year.
You can imagine it as an apartment building block shared by many residences. In this multi-tenant environment, each organization's data, configuration, and users are completely isolated, and are not accessible by any other organization. So, when you configure your Salesforce organization, the metadata changes are only for your organization. The same is true for data; it is accessible only by your registered users.
If you've heard about cloud computing, Salesforce is a SaaS (Software as a service) model, which means that you only need to configure Salesforce to start using it. Salesforce provides everything you need to run your business--the object model, business rules, workflow and automation, page layout, report and dashboard, and so on. You just need to configure them as per your business needs. Salesforce also has its own Java-like programming language called Apex, and HTML-like visual markup language called Visualforce page for custom user interface design.
Since Salesforce's team takes care of the infrastructure, maintenance, software upgrades, backup, and performance, this benefits companies, as it brings down the IT and resources costs. As a Salesforce subscriber, you just need to support your users, and implement your business processes in the platform.
When Marc Benioff started Salesforce.com from his apartment in San Francisco back in 1999, Salesforce.com was intended to be a CRM application only, but as the platform grew and became more robust, it was extended as Force.com Platform, where you can build any kind of application beyond CRM, or get an app from AppExchange, the app marketplace for the Salesforce platform. AppExchange is similar to the App Store for iOS devices, or Google Play Store for Android devices. AppExchange is the app store (free and paid) for the Salesforce platform.
The following are a few cloud products offered by Salesforce right now:
Sales Cloud
: Sales Cloud automates your sales process
Service Cloud
: Service Cloud delivers an evolutionary customer service process
Marketing Cloud
: Marketing Cloud gains from digital marketing automation
Community Cloud
: Community Cloud connects with your customer and partner
Wave Analytic
: Wave Analytic delivers analytics for business users and analysts
App Cloud
: App Cloud allows you to build an app for your business needs
IoT Cloud
: IoT Cloud is to store and process
Internet of Things
(
IoT
) data for connected devices
Commerce Cloud
: The Commerce Cloud enables you to build a unified shopping experience
As Salesforce keeps acquiring and building new products, the preceding list may change anytime.
In short, these are the advantages of using Salesforce as compared to other on-premise applications:
Faster implementation schedule
Lower maintenance cost, since you don't have to buy or support in-house servers, and maintain resources for it
Scalability and robustness
Secure and high performance
Easy to expand the functionality using prebuilt solutions from AppExchange
Accessible from desktops, laptops, tablet, and mobile apps
Enterprise-level grade application for small and medium business
Salesforce Lightning Experience
Lightning Experience is a modern, fast, and beautiful user interface designed to help your sales users to be more productive and efficient. It is built with a sales-centric mindset, focusing on helping sales representatives work more naturally on a daily basis. With Lightning Experience, your users will get an intuitive and intelligent user interface.
Lightning Experience is built with proven Salesforce1 Mobile App technology. Your sales representatives already use mobiles to enter prospective customers, log tasks and notes after client meetings, run reports and dashboards, and more. All this cool stuff from the mobile experience is being brought into the computer web browser by Lightning Experience.
Let's get the right term
On many occasions, Lightning Experience is simply referred to as Lightning, although there are many items in the Salesforce platform which start with the word "Lightning", such as Lightning Login, Lightning App Builder, Lightning for Outlook, Lightning Components, Lightning Sync, and so on. Some of them are applicable in Lightning Experience only, but some others will work in both Lightning Experience and older Classic user interfaces, for example, Lightning Sync is used to sync your user contacts and events between your email server with Salesforce.
Just to make it clear, when you meet someone from the Salesforce community, and he asks if you are on lightning, most probably, he is referring to Lightning Experience. To get the term right, it is Lightning, not Lightening or Lighting.
What was before the Lightning Experience?
If you noticed, we mentioned the term classic user interface in the Let's get the right term section. Yes, that is the one--Salesforce Classic had been serving well for many years before Lightning Experience was introduced. Salesforce Classic still exists, and is widely used by many customers, but mostly, the new features introduced by Salesforce in recent releases are only applicable for Lightning Experience.
If you are still with Classic, Salesforce urges you to migrate to Lightning. Why do I use the term migrate? Because the user interface is totally different, and some of your existing customizations may not work, such as the JavaScript button built by your Salesforce partner or your IT team. You should consult with your Salesforce Success Manager, partners, or IT before making the decision.
Because the user interface is totally different from Classic, your user manual, training video and material, and so on, need to be updated, so plan this journey with proper project management to roll out Lightning Experience.
Let's turn the Lightning Experience on
This section is intended for system administrators who still operate in Salesforce Classic--only system administrators will have the permission to enable Lightning Experience. If you are on Lightning Experience already, you can skip this section.
Let's have a quick hands-on exercise on how to enable Lightning Experience:
Click on
Setup
to navigate to the setup menu, and then click on
Lightning Experience
in the top-left menu:
Scroll down to the bottom of the page, look for
Lightning Experience
, then switch to enable it:
Click on
Finish Enabling Lightning Experience
to confirm:
Once Lightning Experienced is enabled, notice that the switch turns to green with the label changed to
Enabled
:
Click on your name in the top-right corner; you will notice that a new menu,
Switch to Lightning Experience
, is added, as shown in the following screenshot:
Done! Now click on
Switch to Lightning Experience
from the menu to start exploring the modern Lightning Experience.
This hands-on exercise will allow you, as a system administrator (including other system administrators), to try and explore Lightning Experience for your organization. Your normal users will not see the new menu,
Switch to Lightning Experience
, until you configure it for them.
To enable Lightning Experience for your business users, as a system admin, you have the option to enable it by Profile (for all the users in that Profile) or by Permission Set (to assign on the user by user basis).
To enable by Profile, click on
Edit
on the Profile, scroll down to the
Administrative Permissions
section, and look for
Lightning Experience User
permission; enable it, then save the Profile.
To enable by Permission Set, the same permission
Lightning Experience User
is assigned to specific users who need to switch to Lightning Experience.
