It may be cold outside, but we’re looking forward to the Spring ’15 release; and as an early Christmas present, today is the day you get access to the Spring ‘15 pre-release environment. It has all the new features so that you can test them and figure out which ones are right for you.  

Our three releases a year are one of the biggest ways that you get value from Salesforce, and we want to help you plan ahead to make sure you know what’s coming and when. Let’s look at the rest of the key dates for Spring ’15 so you can mark your calendars.

Join the Success – Release Readiness group on our Success Community site to get more information on these and other release-related topics.

December 18th: Sign up for a Pre-Release enviroment

Why do I need a pre-release org? Well, this is a test environment that already has the new release features enabled, giving you plenty of time to test and play to figure out which ones are right for you.   Remember that if you already had a pre-release org for Winter ’15, you can log back into that one. You can also sign up for different editions (Professional, Enterprise, Developer) and get multiple sign-ups with the same email address.

December 19th – Your ideas “Coming in Spring ’15”

Spring ’15 is our biggest Ideas release ever, so make sure to check out which of your ideas are in there from this Friday and look out for a post from our Idea Exchange team with all the details on this bumper release.

December 22nd - Release notes available and release website updated

Visit our release website to get the very handy release preview, or watch the short videos to see the key new features. If you want to go deep, we’ll also have our release notes available for an in-depth review. Don’t forget that the Salesforce Release Notes now also come in HTML format so that you can read them on any mobile device and quickly find the sections you’re most interested in.

January 9th and 10th: Sandboxes upgraded

You’ve probably already seen our blog post about the Spring ’15 Sandbox preview, and if you’ve decided to take advantage of it, your chosen Sandboxes will get upgraded this weekend. Like the pre-release program, the Sandbox preview gives you a chance to test new features without impacting your live environment. However, the added benefit you get with the Sandbox preview is that you can test those features using a configuration that matches your production environment.

January 16th - NA1 upgraded

The first release weekend is when we at Salesforce and any customers on NA1 get upgraded. At this stage, you probably already have your key features earmarked — join us on Success – Release Readiness where we'll have some great tools you can use to get your own users up to speed on the new features you’re planning to roll out.

January 20th and 21st - Release Readiness Live webcast

Our product management team are back live in studio discussing and demoing the new features — see how those features work in real time and get a sneak peek into their roadmap for 2015. We'll also record the whole broadcast and make available to you in bite-sized chunks so you can focus on the features that mean the most to you.

February 6th: The second release weekend

This is when another set of instances gets upgraded. Our Trust page has the latest info on the timing of the upgrade, but because it takes only five minutes, you should expect it to be pretty seamless.

February 13th and 14th: The final release weekend

All remaining Salesforce systems will be upgraded over this weekend in February. This is also the upgrade weekend for any Sandboxes you’ve opted not to include in the Sandbox preview.

You can get more information on pre-release sign up and other release-related topics by joining the Success – Release Readiness group on our Success Community site. Expect another post in January with a look at the top features coming in Spring ’15.

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