The past three months into my new role as EMEA Product Marketing lead for Sales Cloud have been pretty exhilarating. Apart from a whirlwind of travel visiting the local Salesforce offices to meet the teams, and meticulously comparing the nuances of snacks provided in the kitchens (Maltesers anyone?), the most exciting thing by far has been getting to grips with the Spring ’16 release and the new Lightning experience. And with a name like ‘Lightning’ how could it not be?  

So it seems quite fitting that my first ever blog post should be to tell you about my favourite new Sales Cloud features:

1. All of your business data available anytime, anywhere.

Offline for Mobile lets reps be more productive on the go. No matter where they are, when they’re working, or who they’re talking to, offline capabilities means that they’ll have the information they need about their customers and prospects at their fingertips. Now sales reps can easily access all of their business data, anywhere.

2. Easily interact with your Lightning dashboards and reports on the go.

The Salesforce1 mobile app can now display the same beautiful charts that you love in the Lightning Experience and in Wave Analytics. Plus, these enhanced charts are more interactive with dynamic filters. So, with the extended flexibility to drill down into the details that matter, you can now understand your data better, anytime and anywhere. 

3. Prioritise your records, focus on what’s top-of-mind, sell the way you want.

It’s the Lightning Experience, tailored to you. Now admins can enable each group to focus in on exactly the records they need, in order of importance. Each user sees their priorities laid out in the custom left hand navigation column. That way, everyone can see what they need, and sell how they want.

4. Easily create new call logs, tasks, and events no matter what page you’re on.

Now no matter where you are in the Lightning Experience, you can maximise your productivity with the Composer. Create when you need to, all in the context of the business record. So sales reps can focus on selling and closing more deals.

5. The Campaigns and Person Accounts you love, now in Lightning. 

The modern new Lightning UI is now available for Campaigns and Person Accounts. Make it easier for your company's processes and set-up to be translated to the Lightning Experience. And you can put the most important customer and prospect information in front of the sales reps, so they can sell faster and smarter than ever before.

So those are my Spring ’16 release highlights! To dive a little deeper you can also watch the below Sales Cloud Spring ’16 Release video and check out the release notes for the full list of new features.

For all the Salesforce Admins and enthusiasts out there don’t forget to explore Trailhead for all the Lightning trails, modules and projects. Try and see how many points you can earn, I’m starting now... Ready. Set. Go!