Salesforce Spring ‘15 Release: Work.com Enhancements

Published by Glen Wilson at January 5, 2015

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Already being categorized as the largest release to date for Salesforce, the Spring ‘15 release includes some great work.com enhancements. Thanks and Skills will now be free features, no longer requiring a work.com license. In addition, salesforce.com has made changes to the Coaching tab.

Thanks Badges

In the Winter ‘14 release, Salesforce users were able to take advantage of Thanks without a work.com license but were limited to twelve predefined badges. In Spring ‘15, Salesforce users will have the ability create, share, and give Thanks badges without a work.com license. (Limitation: Thanks badges cannot be tied to rewards without a work.com license.)

Recognition is a critical component in building and maintaining a strong corporate culture as well as retaining your top talent. Being generally available in Spring ‘15, Thanks can make it easier for your organization to roll out a recognition program. (Great read: Why employee recognition is so important)

Skills Tracking

The ability to track the skills of your staff is essential. We’ve all forgotten, at some point, about the skills our employees gained in training or during a prior project and regretfully opted to “no bid” an opportunity because we perceived a lack of in-house capability. With skills tracking, you can better compete for new business, while also enabling your employees to view each others skills and identify mentors.

Coaching

In salesforce.com’s continued push to make work.com look and feel 100% native, you will be able to customize the Coaching tab in Spring ‘15 – creating custom page layouts, list views, and fields. There are two important limitations to keep in mind: 1) the new, enhanced Note taking tool will not support private notes, and; 2) committed goals will no longer be displayed, out of the box, on the coaching detail page.