The upcoming Salesforce Winter '25 release will introduce many important improvements to their products. Specifically, we are focusing on Sales Cloud, Financial Services Cloud, and Service Cloud as many of our clients use these products and are excited about the new improvements that are going to enhance efficiency, personalization, and automation in their business processes. If you're wondering what to expect in this winter update, we've gathered key insights on the most valuable updates before the release.

SALES CLOUD

1. Einstein for Sales

Upgrade Your Service Account Connections to Org-Level OAuth 2.0 Authentication: Microsoft will retire the ApplicationImpersonation role in Exchange Online in February 2025. As a result, Salesforce will retire service account OAuth 2.0 access to Microsoft Office 365 from Einstein Activity Capture. To ensure that Einstein Activity Capture continues to work, you should upgrade to org-level OAuth 2.0 authentication.

The updated mentioned above applies to Lightning Experience in Essentials, Professional, Enterprise, Performance, and Unlimited editions.

2. Einstein Conversation Insights (ECI)
New Conversation Hub: The redesigned landing page and enhanced user interface make it easier for sales managers and teams to access key metrics and relevant conversations. This update improves decision-making and allows teams to respond more effectively to sales signals.
Access all of your conversation data with Conversation Hub: Use Conversation Hub to gain a comprehensive view of your sales teams' conversation data in a redesigned user interface. The personalized landing page displays relevant metrics, recent conversations, and top signals if you're using Einstein for Sales. You can also filter for relevant conversations from a new Conversations tab.

These enhancements are specifically tailored for users of Einstein Conversation Insights in Lightning Experience, available across Enterprise, Performance, and Unlimited editions, and as an add-on in Enterprise Edition for teams with over 10 users.

The Conversation Hub provides sales managers and their teams with metrics on My Opportunities, My Team’s Opportunities, My Accounts, and Without Related Records. If Sales Signals is enabled, the top signals are displayed, and recent conversations can be accessed.

3. Sales Engagement

Find Your Next Customer with Prospecting Center, a new Data Cloud App: Looking to supercharge your revenue pipeline? Let the Prospecting Center do the heavy lifting by leveraging reliable data and cutting-edge AI to pinpoint your next big customer. It will help you identify the most promising accounts and provide you with valuable buyer signals to drive engagement. The Data Cloud powers Fit, Engagement, and Intent scores, giving your sales reps the edge they need. With a unified view in the Prospecting Center, your team can focus on nurturing prospects instead of navigating through data.

This change applies to Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic in Performance and Unlimited editions. Who: This feature is available to Sales Cloud users who have Prospecting Center enabled.

Cadence Builder Retirement: Cadence Builder 1.0 is being retired, urging users to adopt newer tools.

4. Seller Home Now Accessible Across All Applications

Before this update,, it was only accessible in a limited number of standard apps, but now it can be utilized as the default template for all apps. Its purpose is to support the success of your sales team by providing them with a comprehensive overview of their business.

Sales users can easily access a wealth of handy information at a single glance, such as:

   Opportunity Overview
   Account Overview
   Lead Overview
   Contact Overview
   Weekly or Monthly Goals
   Today’s Events
   To-Do Items
   Recent Records
   Contact recommendations generated by Einstein based on a user's email      interactions and calendar events.

FINANCIAL SERVICES CLOUD

1. Business Relationship Plan
Obtain Key Information About Your Clients: Relationship teams can use the prebuilt Account Plan Overview template on the Account Plan Lightning page to quickly view linked Case, Financial Deal, and Opportunity records. Customize or create multiple templates to meet unique data needs, providing flexibility and support for various requirements.

Get Client Relationship Insights Quickly with Prebuilt, AI-Powered Summary Templates: Equip relationship managers with AI-powered Einstein Summary templates for quick summaries of client interactions and key insights, aiding informed decision-making in business plans.

2. Wealth Management

Analyze Client Wealth and Create Financial Plans with AI-Generated Summaries: Generative AI provides financial advisors with client insights and creates financial plans using the Record Summary Prompt Template flow. Advisors can view client portfolio performance, financial plans, goals progress, holdings, accounts, and cases on the account record page.

To view financial plans, drag and configure the Einstein Summary component on the account's record page.

3. Data Cloud for Financial Services Cloud

Integrate Data Cloud and Financial Services Cloud for Financial Insights: Provide a detailed financial overview to advisors and managers using Data Cloud and Financial Services Cloud data for actionable insights. Enhance productivity with financial insights, identify customer needs, and issue alerts to address priorities. Improve customer satisfaction by offering real-time guidance.

Stream More Financial Services Cloud Objects: Assign additional Financial Services Cloud objects and permissions for seamless streaming into Data Cloud, integrating relevant data connections for enhanced insights.

SERVICE CLOUD

1. Einstein for Service:

Empower Agents to Resolve Customer Issues Faster with Einstein: Enhance customer satisfaction and decrease handle time with Einstein Article Recommendations for Conversations in Lightning Experience. Available in Voice, Messaging, Facebook Messenger, and WhatsApp channels.

Einstein Work Summaries:  Customize how Einstein creates Work Summaries in Copilot to tailor summaries that align with your team's requirements. Add your preferred formatting guidelines or limitations to the prompt template guiding Einstein's responses for a more personalized approach.

2. Service Intelligence:

Get Faster Insights with Einstein Case Management (Beta): Improve customer service by using near real-time data to help agents identify and prioritize cases based on urgency, status, customer effort score, and service level agreement (SLA) targets. The Einstein Case Management dashboards display latency metrics in minutes, enabling your team to provide more personalized and informed service. Additionally, the new Flag to Supervisor feature allows agents to promptly notify supervisors about case updates.

Access Einstein Case Management in Analytics Studio from Service Intelligence dashboards to enable the Flag to Supervisor flow for instant case updates notification to supervisors.

3. Channels:

The release introduces enhanced messaging options, including LINE Messaging, Bring Your Own Channel for CCaaS, and Unified Messaging for SMS. The Messaging for In-App and Web API is now generally available, allowing programmatic management of conversations. There are also improvements in agent-initiated outbound messaging for sales processes.

Draft Personalized Service Emails with Einstein: The Service Email Assistant uses case data to draft personalized emails to customers with the help of Einstein. Agents can use preset email prompt instructions or enjoy custom email instructions created by their Salesforce admins. All agents have to do is choose a template, and Einstein will craft a response for them.

To use the feature, agents open the composer, enter a recipient, and click "Draft with Einstein." Agents can choose from preset prompt instructions or create custom ones set by admins.

Voice: Empower agents to resolve customer issues faster with Einstein Article Recommendations for voice. Assist agents and optimize business processes based on the sentiment and intent of real-time conversations. Integrate voice and messaging in your contact center with Bring Your Own Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS).

Conclusion

The Salesforce Winter '25 release is set to significantly enhance various cloud platforms, including Sales Cloud, Financial Services Cloud, and Service Cloud. These updates focus on improving efficiency, personalization, and automation across different business processes, with a particular emphasis on the financial services sector. From AI-driven insights in Sales Cloud to advanced customer service tools in Service Cloud, this release promises to equip businesses with the tools they need to stay competitive and deliver exceptional customer experiences. We will keep an eye out for the final release to provide you with more information about these updates.

Salesforce Winter '25 Release Dates:
October, 5, 2024
October, 12, 2024