The Spring ‘23 release seems to have a bit of a running theme around maintenance and technical setup, with no updates for the marketer’s experience on the platform. One of the core values of Salesforce is trust, and this release seems to be ensuring their platform can remain a trusted tool to use. We may see more updates to features and tools in later releases this year instead. Let’s dive into the updates and what you need to know.
Account Engagement Optimizer (Beta)
I first saw a preview of this feature last year in a roadmap session at my local User Group, and I was keen to see when this would hit a release. I regularly recommend customers to review and remove inactive automation such as engagement programs and dynamic lists. Account Engagement gives us a really simple way to identify inactive assets already, and it looks like this optimizer tool will be able to surface this information in a more helpful format. If you haven’t checked this before, you can head to your list view of engagement programs, automation rules or lists, and choose the Inactive [Asset Type] filter. An asset is classed as inactive if it has not matched or processed a prospect in over 30 days.
Default Settings Changing
Since the release of security and tracking features such as forcing HTTPS over HTTP and first-party tracking, these settings have always been optional for new customers and recommended to enable for everyone. Now, new customers will have settings configured, the settings will be:
- First-Party Tracking will be enabled
- Force HTTPS will be enabled
- Honour Do Not Track will be enabled
- Max Tracking Cookie Duration will be 365 days
- Request opt-in from all visitors will be enabled
These can always be changed, so the major consideration here is for new customers, customers considering adding additional business units, and whether you should review these settings in your account to be in line with Salesforce’s recommendation.
Check out our other blogs on these:
DNS Validation Changes
Keeping in theme with the value of trust, you now need to prove ownership of a sending domain to validate Account Engagement to send emails from it. It is still recommended to add a DomainKey entry to your DNS records but it is no longer required to validate your sending domain. As shown in the image above, your sending domain will be Legacy Verified once this release hits your org, and that means that it is still verified as it is for now.
API
Review External Actions Usage
This first one is exciting, you can now review external activities usage and limit on your account usages and limits table. This suggests that external activities no longer impact your daily API limits, and are categorised separately. This effectively means you now have double the limit than before – go wild with those integrations!
Monitor External Actions Errors
We are really pleased about this one. Having piloted external actions for the product team, read more here, one thing we raised was not being able to report on or view any errors. So we aren’t taking credit for this by any means, but we are happy to see this!
Export Support
The release notes currently indicate that 28 – yes 28 – objects will have enhanced export support. The product team has been putting a lot of work and effort into getting v5 of the API to be on par with v3/4. I’m really looking forward to seeing what the object lucky dip will be once the release drops. I’ve seen API updates come outside of the release dates before and things can pop up from time to time, so whether we see all of these changes at once or just over the next 4-6 weeks, I’m keen to see what those changes are.
Connectors – Retirements
This is important for customers using Webex, ReadyTalk or the Beta version of the Slack connectors. The Slack connector is straightforward, simply follow the steps to upgrade or consider setting it up if you didn’t have it previously.
If you’re using one of the webinar connectors that is retiring from natively integrating with Account Engagement, consider using external activities and actions to automate your webinar processes moving forwards.
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