Salesforce Monthly Updates for April 2023 by saasguru

As businesses worldwide continue to navigate the challenges of an ever-changing landscape, staying up-to-date with the latest developments in the Salesforce ecosystem is essential. 

This monthly series will highlight the most important news, updates, and insights from Salesforce, helping you stay informed and ahead of the curve. From new product launches to platform enhancements and industry trends, you will get a comprehensive overview of everything you need to know to maximize your Salesforce investment. 

Before learning everything about the April months updates, ensure you get all the March updates of Salesforce. 

Nature Positive Strategy

As part of Earth Month, Salesforce announced its Nature Positive Strategy on April 5, focusing on a net zero, nature-positive future. This makes Salesforce one of the first global companies to create a strategy centered on people and climate justice. 

The UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15) saw global governments commit to reversing nature loss and safeguarding 30% of the Earth by 2030, emphasizing private sector involvement. 

Salesforce has responded by becoming one of the first global corporations to develop a comprehensive Nature Positive Strategy, building on the Climate Action Plan and 1t.org initiatives. 

The strategy has three pillars:- 

• Reducing the company’s impact on nature by measuring, managing, and implementing an action plan to decrease its impact across its value chain by 2025; 
• Supporting and participating in the Task Force on Nature-related Financial Disclosures’ pilot phase; leading in nature restoration at scale, including conserving and restoring 100 million trees by 2030 and promoting the Mangrove Breakthrough to protect and restore mangroves; 
• Accelerating customer success and the natural positive movement by expanding solutions such as Net Zero Cloud, advocating for policies, supporting ecopreneurs, and empowering local and Indigenous communities through the UN’s Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform. Through these efforts, Salesforce aims to contribute to a sustainable and nature-positive future for all.

New Features for Education Cloud

On April 11, at the Education Summit 2023 in Dallas, Salesforce unveiled new features for Education Cloud. Powered by Customer 360 and using platform innovations like Data Cloud and Einstein AI, these reimagined updates will help institutions create cutting-edge student experiences. 

• The Education Cloud has been revamped to assist institutions in several ways. Firstly, a new data foundation designed for the specific requirements of higher education aids institutions in achieving faster time to value with Customer 360. It provides education-focused insights such as grades, courses, and learner profiles out of the box, making it easier for institutions to get started quickly. 
• Secondly, a new capability model enhances efficiency by allowing critical services such as appointment scheduling, application forms, and case management to be used institution-wide, breaking down silos. 
• Thirdly, the reimagined recruitment and admissions experience offers a modern, personalized experience for prospective students, their families, recruiters, and admissions staff. Smart Prospecting, for instance, enables the automatic grouping of prospective students based on their interests, personalized engagement from the first interaction, and easy application to multiple programs. 
• Fourthly, institutions can drive better student outcomes with features like Care Plans that leverage unified data to understand students’ needs during critical moments and offer step-by-step guidance for onboarding. Salesforce’s upcoming student success innovations will track key milestones in real-time and notify advisors if students need to catch up while supporting non-academic needs such as managing programs for international students and food security. 
• Finally, new CRM Analytics capabilities allow institutions to work smarter with pre-built education-focused dashboards and analytics templates that capture real-time insights and visualize progress toward key metrics.

Salesforce Launched a HIPAA-compliant Commerce Cloud

In conjunction with Data Cloud, Salesforce’s real-time customer data platform, Commerce Cloud facilitates personalized experiences for patients and providers by providing a unified, real-time view of each interaction. It’s essential to note that healthcare providers that do not offer online commerce channels risk losing customers and revenue to competitors as the industry’s digital transformation progresses. 

According to a recent survey, over half of healthcare workers believe their jobs have become more digitized in the last two years. Additionally, healthcare and life sciences organizations anticipate that 42% of their sales will come from digital channels by 2024.

Customer 360 for Health

On April 13, they unveiled Customer 360 for Health, allowing healthcare firms to create personalized patient experiences using real-time data from Data Cloud, Einstein AI, and automation with Flow. The new updates aim to improve overall patient care.

It is significant because, in today’s healthcare industry, cutting-edge technologies such as real-time data, AI, and automation are essential for healthcare providers to offer patients the seamless and personalized experiences they require. However, many healthcare organizations must meet their customers’ expectations. 

According to a recent healthcare consumer survey, almost 80% of participants cited difficulty navigating the care journey online and with customer support as the primary reason for switching providers. Although healthcare organizations know these issues, they prioritize driving efficiencies and lowering operational costs (79%) over the next two years.

New Features and Certifications for Customer 360 for the Public Sector

These updates will aid government organizations in upgrading their services using ready-made, government-focused tools that fulfill strict compliance standards on a single, smart platform. 

The public sector can leverage purpose-built automation, analytics, and intelligence capabilities, which include the following:

• Benefits Management for Public Sector: This solution offers AI-powered and automated digital-first case management, streamlined search, and enrollment processes, allowing public assistance programs to provide a better citizen experience while reducing costs.
• Crisis Center Support for Public Sector: This solution provides crisis center counselors access to automated and pre-configured workflows, intake forms, assessments, provider search, and patient history from a single console to identify self-harm risks and automatically compile crisis center reporting.
• Analytics for Public Sector: The analytics solution includes a range of ready-to-use dashboards that help agencies to jumpstart their data culture, including use cases like constituent service, grants management, licensing and permitting, and emergency response. The dashboards can be customized with Tableau Accelerators, allowing agencies to get data-driven insights faster.
• Field Service for Public Sector: Designed to help government workers in the field support public infrastructure, assets, and individuals, this solution leverages real-time data, automation, and AI to improve efficiency and effectiveness for cities, emergency dispatch teams, and public works organizations.
• Data Cloud for Public Sector: This solution enables governments to connect, harmonize, and activate constituent data, helping agency leaders to provide a better experience to citizens.

In Other News :- 

1. In other news, Salesforce aims to increase military representation in tech by offering fellowship opportunities for service members, veterans, and spouses. They partnered with Hiring Our Heroes to launch the 2023 Skillbridge Fellowship Program and a new Military Spouse Career Accelerator Pilot Program on April 18. These programs offer free hands-on experience to help participants transition into Salesforce careers.
2. Last month, Salesforce launched Einstein GPT, a generative AI CRM technology. According to a company report, they now plan to integrate it with Data Cloud and Flow, their workflow automation tool. This integration will allow users to create and modify automated workflows using conversational commands.
3. After launching a new API on April 25, Salesforce is now rolling out Slack Canvas to all users. Previewed last September, Canvas is like Google Docs, allowing users to create, organize, and share important business resources with their organization’s members and channels. The company said canvas will be available for the first users today and for all Slack users in the upcoming months.
4. Bringing more flexibility to learning, Salesforce launched Trailcast, a new audio learning feature on Trailhead. As per a company report, the new built-in function will enable Trailblazers to listen to content modules, adjust playback speeds, and use it on their desk or the Trailhead GO app. This is great news for the Trailblazer community, many of whom prefer listening, and those with visual impairment issues.
5. Salesforce is celebrating another year at the top of the CRM space. According to the Salesforce website, the company has been named the #1 CRM Provider by the International Data Corporation (IDC) in their recent Worldwide Semiannual Software Tracker report. 

New data from the IDC report shows that Salesforce is leading the space with a 23% market share, almost four times larger than its closest competitors like Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP, each holding about 5%. 

This is the tenth consecutive year that Salesforce has topped the list.

Summing Up

As we end this Salesforce Monthly Wrap-up for April, we can see that Salesforce is continuously innovating and introducing new products to enhance the customer experience. The Education Cloud, Commerce Cloud, and Public Sector solutions are just a few examples of how Salesforce expands its reach across different industries.

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