After Salesforce went out of it's way to announce the new Lightning Experience just a few short weeks prior to Dreamforce, I have been asking myself the same thing a lot of customers have been asking me, "Should I switch to Lightning Experience?'

Before I put in my 2 cents on the matter, for those who haven't heard, Salesforce is getting a major face-lift. Much more than a coat of new paint, Salesforce is about to get a whole lot better. Several years ago Salesforce started down a path to create a superior mobile experience that gives its users all the info they need where ever they need it, on any device. In doing so they built the Lightning framework. 

The result? Salesforce1 has been extremely successful and well received. Though the user experience between the Desktop and Mobile environments have been somewhat fragmented...until now...

Lightning Experience is going to unify the User Experience across all devices, and will bring the the Lightning platform to the desktop world. This is just the start, the start of something beautiful. Soon you will work in a much more seamless UI, along with a redesigned and re-imagined experience for it's user base with efficiency and productivity in mind for every new feature and some of the old one's too.. 

I'm not going to lie, I'm a little biased. I love Salesforce, I work with it every day. I think the platform is great. I've seen what it can do for organizations. These days we get stars in our eyes for the shiniest new gadgets and the glitziest new features. I've begun pouring over the release notes for every juicy morsel of info on Lightning. And even as excited as I am for the new features, I'm sorry to say the bloom is off the rose a little bit. 

Would I switch to the new Lightning Experience? Absolutely! ...Just not right away. 

Please don't misunderstand me, I actually can't wait to switch. I just think there are too many caveats and gotchas to prevent a first adopter stance.

In Salesforce's defense, the well of features is deeper than than the Laurentian Abyss. So its understandable if every little feature isn't ready during the initial release. And if you do want to dive right in to get your feet wet. They are being smart about the release and enabling Organizations to control the roll-out. And yes, Salesforce Classic, as they are now calling it, will still be available in all it's glory for the foreseeable future as they continue to make Lightning Great. But for now, I can see the need constantly switch back and forth between the two experiences, and that could be frustrating.

For a little more insight here are a list items that won't be available right a way, and reasons why you shouldn't switch right now:

  • If you use Person Accounts in your Organization, Lightning Experience currently ins't supported
  • Campaigns, and consequently Pardot currently are not supported in Lightnining yet.
  • Quotes and Forecasting also isn't currently supported.
  • Since the first release is focused on converting Sales Cloud, those using Service Cloud shouldn't consider switching to Lightning right away.
  • If you are looking to have one continuous experience for your Sales and Support groups. I'd hold-off right now.
  • Objects that will be initially supported:
    • Accounts
    • Contacts
    • Leads
    • Opportunities
    • Pricebooks
    • Products
    • Custom object Objects are supported,
    • Basic case support.
  • Dashboards can't be customized in Lightning.
  • Can't schedule report refreshes
  • Can't create Joined Reports
  • Table, funnel, and Scatter Charts aren't supported.
  • Account Teams and Account Heirarchy aren't yet supported.
  • Can't merge duplicate Leads
  • Can't Do Opportunity Splits or Opportunity Teams
  • Can't create advance filter logic on list views

And what about customtizations to your current Organization? Salesforce is also working really hard to ensure that all your customizations are intact in Lightning. Some Visualforce Pages may need to be updated but as I understand it almost everything else within the realm of items that are supported in Lightning will still work. To understand more I recommend reading pages Pgs 48 - 50 in the release notes.

I fully intend to be my own guinea pig, testing out new features. Figuring out what works and what doesn't. How does the new UI impact best practices? We will figure that out. I still have about 300 more pages to go in the release notes and the newest Trailhead for Lightning Experience to work through. Plus just plunging head first when it gets rolled out at month's end. 

Once we've had a bit more time to play in the new Experience I'll be sure to write a post on some of the features we are most excited about.

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