The best of Salesforce Spring ‘23 release features, analytics edition

Reports and dashboards

Organizing reports and dashboards just got so much easier! The Spring ’23 release comes with the introduction of Collections, which is about to level up your reports and dashboards usage.What is it?Collections might sound like a fancy name for folders, but it’s definitely more than that! A folder is the one and only place your reports and dashboards are saved to – it’s their home. But a Collection is a place where reports and dashboards from multiple and various folders can be referenced, based on your unique use case.How does it work?A Regional Sales Manager might have folders for reports related to each of the regions they oversee. The folder for each region has a report on agent sales, opportunities in the pipeline, and forecasted revenue. The Sales Manager might want to look at opps in the pipeline more frequently (let’s say daily!) compared to the other two reports. That’s where Collections comes in! They can make a Collection—call it Opportunity Pipeline—and see the opportunity pipeline from each region’s folder, in that Collection. Found in the Analytics Studio, it can be pinned for easy accessibility and shared with others as well.Why do we love it?We love a good organization tool! Not every report needs to be seen every day. And not all reports belong in the same folder. BUT sometimes reports from different folders relate to each other and need to be easily accessible in one place.Reports and dashboards – Honorable MentionsMore subscriptions! Unlimited Edition org users can now subscribe to 15 reports and 15 dashboards – more than double the previous seven limit for each! This is great for your report crazy colleague. But if you really think they’re going crazy, their reports and dashboard subscriptions can be monitored using the custom Subscriptions Report – which can tell you the source, owner, running user, and schedule of subscriptions. 

CRM analytics

Input WidgetsInput Widgets, first introduced with the Winter ’23 release, —just got better! Input Widget data can now be incorporated into formulas as a column or in SAQL. This means a lot more options for manipulating the input data and gaining additional insights as it relates to the existing data and widgets on your dashboard.AccessibilityYou might have noticed a little paint palette button at the top of your CRM Analytics Dashboard page. That’s not just any old color formatting option, but a high contrast button that transforms the view of the dashboard. Accessibility is important and color choice can especially make a difference on the impact and readability of values on a dashboard! Better viewing options means better interpretation of data, and we are here for it.Stories are now ModelsA welcome change is that Salesforce is now referring to all Einstein Stories as Models.This is both a change to the wording and methodology. In the past there was the option to create an “Insights Only” option for stories, the main shortfall of this option was that it did not give the customer access to the metrics surrounding the model that was being created behind the scenes. These metrics are important for understanding the quality of the model as well as its areas of strengths and weaknesses. The new layout puts model performance front and center.Decision optimizerSalesforce has a new decision optimizer tool that is in pilot right now, but it is an important tool to keep an eye on. This optimizer will allow you to incorporate business rules and restrictions to make the output of Einstein recommendations more relevant to the business use case. This helps the user to focus the recommendations on actionable responses. An example where I would have used this tool in the past is with a client who’s recommendation for improving margin was to simply sell more of their most expensive product. While focusing on the high end of the product category is a legitimate strategy, it would be useful to exclude some high end products from the recommendation without excluding them from the model.Einstein Conversation MiningAnother new tool that is being released in beta this update is Einstein Conversation Mining. This tool attempts to use natural language processing to identify the most common customer requests. It requires 2,500 customer requests to create an initial report. The report can then be discussed by product and support teams in order to identify areas of improvement for the customer experience. This is currently an opt-in beta program and can be found within the setup by quick searching for “Einstein Conversation Mining.”Truth be told, we could go on forever about each of the CRM Analytics features we’re gushing over. If you’d like to connect with our team of analytics experts and data scientists to learn how you can better leverage these enhancements, we’re happy to chat! Contact us