“LEX transition looks like a roller coaster ride at the start, but once done, you will have fun and enjoyment at your plate”- Are you up for the game?
Salesforce customers still on the Classic version are missing a plethora of features that are offered by Salesforce Lightning. This article talks about why and how one should smoothly migrate to Salesforce Lightning experience and boost user adoption.
Salesforce Lightning migration doesn’t mean that Classic cannot be accessed; users can easily switch back to it with a simple click.
Why migrate to Salesforce LEX?
Wondering what makes Salesforce LEX better than the Salesforce Classic version? Let’s evaluate the ultimate benefits of Salesforce Lightning experience.
Lightning Transition Benefits:
Lightning platform allows fast and easy app development with its ready-to-install Appexchange ecosystem. In addition, as per a Salesforce survey, the customers who switched to Lightning noticed productivity improvements; however, it varies for every customer:
- Increase in sale’s team productivity by 41%
- Increase in collaboration by 40%
- Increase in win rates by 21%
- Increase in conversion rate by 22%
Salesforce’s roadmap:
As we are aware that Salesforce provides releases 3 times a year and this time, it’s focus and all the innovation is on Lightning features only. However, there may be a time when Salesforce completely turns off the Classic and we don’t want the sudden change for our customers and then transition can become complex. Appexchange products are also updating and focusing on releases which are compatible with Lightning. There are many features which are available out of the box (standard) in Lightning and we might have them customized for Classic. The sooner you migrate to Lightning the better will be the user experience.
Lightning App Builder:
Using the Lightning builder, pages for Lightning experience and the Salesforce Mobile App can be created with clicks instead of code. Developers can drag and drop the Lightning components to build desktop and mobile apps. It also enables the users to sync Gmail and Outlook calendars with Salesforce actions.
Improved Analytics:
Creating reports and dashboards in Lightning is much easier, intuitive and provides a great experience to the top executives and the users of the organization. The report run page is easy to read and filter, Animated and interactive charts bring data to life. Einstein Analytics also comes with many new features like Widget editing right on the dashboard, so if you are still on Classic, you are losing on a lot of features provided by Salesforce.
Salesforce Mobile:
Salesforce mobile app is built on top of the Lightning platform. Any development on the desktop application is rendered on the mobile app.
Salesforce LEX: Key Lightning Features
Here’s an overview of the core Salesforce Lightning features.
Path and Kanban View: Sales Path provides a visual and guides the sales reps working on an opportunity and helps close it while updating the various stages based on the calls and progress. Using Salesforce Lightning, reps can take action on the opportunities more quickly and accurately. Sales representatives can manage the opportunities in Kanban view where they can drag and move between different stages of opportunities depending on the progress with the prospect. As soon as the opportunities are dragged, they move in the pipeline and calculations are done automatically.
Activity Timeline: Open tasks, plan meetings, quickly log calls, create tasks, and send emails efficiently.
Experience Cloud: Customers and Partners can collaborate and offer an awesome experience to their customers. Lightning communities provide a good user experience and branding, themes for the portal can be incorporated per the requirements.
The Assistant: An awesome feature to guide you and provide insights which are the top priority and progressing deals, hence increasing the conversion rate.
Homepage: A new and intelligent homepage and standard components like news widget, recent records, top deals and these components can be moved around based on the requirements.
Search: Find the right records faster and act on search results by enabling AI-powered Einstein Search.
Search results include instant results, top results, and recent records.
Salesforce Flows: Automating the process by point and click and guiding the users through multi-step processes without code, this is the real power of automation by clicks.
Email: Send email through Office 365 or gmail accounts with Salesforce email. Using this, customers can quickly log calls, create tasks and send emails without handling too many systems.
Here is the complete list of Key Lightning Features that makes it so special.
Here is the detailed Comparison of Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic.
How to migrate to Salesforce LEX
For Salesforce Lightning migration, we have to be sure of including the stakeholders i.e. Executive Sponsor, Sales Manager, Admin and Salesforce Champion as it affects everyone and needs to work as one team.
Salesforce Lightning migration is a 3-phased approach:
- Discover Phase
- Learn about Salesforce Lightning- What’s better in Lightning, how does the experience looks like
- Evaluate Lightning Experience (LEX) benefits and Readiness- check Lightning readiness and consult with experts
- Plan your rollout- Create a rollout and change management strategy
- Align with executives and stakeholders- get approvals
- Rollout Phase
- Prepare users for Lightning Experience- kick off change management activities
- Implement Lightning Experience features- setup path, Kanban view and exclusive Lightning features
- Adjust existing customizations- Learn about the transition tools like experience configurator, convert attachments, documents and notes, move classic knowledge base to Lightning Knowledge
- Launch Lightning Experience- make it default interface
- Optimize Phase
- Measure success metrics- track Lightning experience adoption via app
- Motivate users to work with Lightning Experience- learn why users will want to switch to Classic, provide users the contextual guidance
- Iterate on the rollout plan- run Salesforce Optimizer to check on the improvements that can be done
- Turn Off Salesforce classic in the org
Below are the reports and approach that needs to be accessed for LEX transition:
Lightning Readiness Report:
From the Salesforce instance (production org) , one can generate the Readiness report specific to it that provides the direction, what considerations need to be taken while migrating to Lightning.
Please note that the report will give recommendations and a high level view of what needs to be fixed when migrating to Lightning i.e. it sets you a path and gives an indication of what needs to be done. A complete picture will be attained by doing the analysis of the org by an Implementation partner or the Salesforce experts.
Lightning Experience Configuration Converter:
This is an awesome tool provided by Salesforce and wants all their partners and customers to get the maximum benefit from Lightning experience. This tool helps to make the transition as smooth and as declarative as possible.
Below is the snapshot of the tool which you get once you enter Salesforce credentials and this will give you the list of different components that can be scanned and the conversions which can be done declaratively by click of a button while some of the changes needs to be done manually.
Visualforce Pages Assessment Report:
This is one of the most important aspects of Lightning Transition and most of the efforts are taken here to analyze whether the page can be made Lightning compatible or has to be redeveloped as Lightning Component.
To run this report, use Lightning Experience Configurator and click scan on Visualforce pages tab, this will generate the report and will be sent via email to the user in a CSV format.
This report needs to be analyzed and based on the type and number of errors, it will be mutually decided whether this page is of much importance and shall be made compatible or redeveloped.
The efforts provided in the Lightning Readiness report is just an indication of the complexity of Transition, below are the efforts which are not considered but are of high importance
- Visualforce page conversion to Lightning compatible or redevelop as Lightning component by manually scanning the pages and analyzing the errors
- Configuration of exclusive Lightning features like Sales Path, Kanban View, Lightning Knowledge, Highlight Panel
- Data migration efforts that will account for migration of attachments and documents to Files and notes to Enhanced notes, migrating Knowledge articles to Lightning Knowledge
- Guiding the users on Appexchange products whether to switch to Classic if Lightning version is not available or installing the Lightning compatible Appexchange product or can the functionality be achieved by the available Lightning features
- Project Governance efforts
Salesforce Lightning migration rollout strategies
A migration can only be considered successful when the users adopt it and use it in their daily lives.
It is very important to choose a rollout strategy suitable for your organization- big bang approach or phased approach.
Big Bang Approach: The entire org will be migrated to Lightning at once and all users will be moved to the Lightning experience.
Phased Approach: Few groups are migrated to Lightning and consecutively other groups migrate to Lightning in a phased manner. This requires more planning and discussion with executives whether it’s done first for pilot users, sales users, service reps or by geography.
Here are some of the high-level pointers to consider which can evaluate for which strategy to consider:
- Complexity of the org i.e. different products being used and customizations done in the org
- How many and big are the user groups
- Which Appexchange products are being leveraged
Focus areas for a successful Salesforce Lightning migration
End user training and communication is critical for a successful migration and user adoption.
Lightning Transition should not be considered just a lift and shift but it shall be taken as an opportunity to interact with the users that are facing any challenges in using the application and which processes need to be optimized or automated. Removing manual processes wherever possible and removing the Technical debt in the org which might have been created like unassigned profiles, unassigned page layout, or VF pages which are not in use, customizations being done, usage of Appexchange products. Now with Lightning, this can be achieved via OOB ( standard) functionalities offered by Salesforce and the Appexchange Lightning products for the configurable solutions.
We believe each and every Salesforce customer should be on Lightning experience to take maximum benefits of functionalities provided by Salesforce, automating the processes and be as declarative as possible and increase the user adoption. If you are on Classic yet, it’s time to revisit the strategy and switch to Lightning experience as soon as possible and set your path towards success.
Varun Agrawal
Lead Solution Architect, Salesforce
Varun Agrawal has over 9 years of experience and is currently playing the role of a Lead Solution Architect in Ranosys for Salesforce competency. He is known for his innovative approach, understanding business needs, and strategic thinking that helps to achieve business goals with the most feasible solution for the customers. Reach him out for any queries regarding Salesforce Order Management on LinkedIn.
