Have you been struck by Lightning? No, not Ben Franklin’s kite flying lightning, but the new Salesforce Lightning Experience. And, unless you have been living in a cave, by now it should be clear that Lightning is the future of Salesforce. When Lightning was introduced in 2015, the UI was cool and flashy but definitely not ready for prime time. However, since then the disparity in functionality between “Classic” and Lightning has greatly diminished and the future is here. Need an incentive to move to Lightning, no new development by Salesforce is slated for Classic, all new functionality and enhancements will be in Lightning.
It is amazing to me how many people will ask me one or more of the following: “Will my data change?”, “Will my workflow or validation rules change?”, “How about my Process Builders?”, “How does Lightning change security, sharing?” And the answer to all these questions is NO! Data, Automations, Security all remain untouched, however as I discuss below, transitioning to lightning is the perfect time to review not only the things that will change but also the things that will not change.
So what is involved in moving to Lightning, and what should you be asking yourself as you prepare and implement this move.
Become familiar with Lightning! Take the trail “Make the Move to Lightning Experience” in Trailhead and earn badges along the way.
Assess your Org - now is the time to really take a good look at your current org and based on the following assessments, make decisions to optimize, enhance, streamline, and provide a productive user experience.
Run the Readiness Assessment - access is via setup, Lightning Experience Migration Assistant. Running this assessment provides two separate reports: (1) Visualforce readiness, (2) Everything else! There is a ton of information in these reports and they will help you in assessing your orgs readiness to make the move.
Visualforce Readiness - Questions to ask: Is my Visualforce Page now handled by standard Lightning functionality? Do I need a component? or the all-encompassing question Do we still need this functionality?
Lightning Readiness Assessment - this report will provide a high-level assessment of the Features and Customizations of your org. Keep in mind that it does not provide an assessment of everything and does not assess your data. But it is a starting point to help you plan for the changes coming. Use this assessment as the impetus to begin the process of evaluating the current state of your org: Are our current processes still valid? Do we still need this functionality? Can this be done more efficiently in Lightning and what does that look like?
Determine the capability of installed packages, and ask these questions: Are they Lightning ready? Do we still need this functionality? or Does Lightning provide this functionality?
Plan, Develop, and Test - not to be taken lightly and don’t underestimate the time involved but, YOU NEED A PLAN, more than likely some development/configuration effort, and a team to test!
But first: if you don’t already have it Obtain Executive buy-in! This is always key when rolling out something with a scope and magnitude as big as this.
Build a core team that is a cross-section of users involved in evaluating the impacts uncovered in your assessments. Not to beat a dead horse, but this is the time to evaluate your business processes, use of Salesforce, and even the data you use. Use this team to not only test functionality but also to help guide the development efforts and business changes.
Build a roadmap and roll-out plan. Remember a roadmap is fluid and as new functionality is provided in Salesforce trice yearly releases and business needs change, adjust your roadmap. And, I can guarantee that once your users start seeing the advantages of Lightning they will be begging for access and you just may be updating your roll-out plan!
Identify Pilot Group/Power Users - Unless you are a very small org, consider piloting the rollout for a small group of users.
These users can be a department or a group of functional users.
Piloting will help not only to provide feedback and guidance on system design but will get your users excited about the “New” Salesforce. They become your champions and can help to get the rest of the team excited about the coming changes!
Using the feedback provided, make changes, update your roadmap, and prepare for the next roll-out
Ready for Prime-time - As you roll-out to your larger audience, continue to obtain feedback, make critical updates, and build a pipeline of new functionality and features. Take a deep breath and welcome to the world of Lightning Experience!
When you're ready to make the move to Salesforce Lightning you don't have to do it alone. Our team of lightning experts can give you the support and guidance you need to make it a successful transition. Head over to our 'Contact Us' page to learn more about how CRM Science can transform your org with Salesforce Lightning.
