5 Best Salesforce Features for Developers To Look in 2022

With the start of the year 2022, Salesforce's Spring '22 release is just around the corner. Now, it is a wonderful moment to talk about what Salesforce developers may expect in the coming year.

The Spring '22 release, like all Salesforce updates – which happen three times a year – has several things for developers to be excited about. We'll take a look at a number of these, as well as other features that aren't exclusive to this version but should be available later this year.

1. Foyer

Since we can already begin designing apps to connect Slack and Salesforce, you'll need to write your own middleware layer to connect the two. Foyer is a feature that will be available later this year (safe harbor). The foyer should allow us to focus our development time solely on the Slack and Salesforce platforms, drastically reducing the time it takes to construct solutions.
Instead of having to code the middleware from scratch, Foyer effortlessly integrates it into the system, allowing it to be set up quickly.

Foyer was first revealed at Dreamforce in September 2021 and is now in closed beta. It will initially be offered to ISV partners for inclusion in their AppExchange packages, but now is the time to start talking to your administrators about how all these Slack apps may help expedite corporate operations.

Foyer is a set of developer tools that enable organizations to build Slack apps utilizing their existing Salesforce abilities. It includes an SDK for building complex experiences that extend Salesforce into Slack, as well as a service proxy that handles all of the plumbing for you – no coding required!

The proxy manages user mapping and Slack event routing, resulting in a single endpoint for all permission and Slack app endpoint requirements. This is a game-changer because it allows developers to construct new types of engagement layers in Slack that use the Salesforce Platform's full capability and Customer 360 data.

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2. UI Test Automation Model

This will be available in the spring and will allow for a more powerful method for developing automated UI Tests. These types of tests have traditionally been difficult to write and manage, necessitating the use of third-party tooling and solutions.

By embracing the common Page Object model design pattern (which you may have seen if you've used Selenium for testing before), UTAM claims to make this much better. The Page Objects in UTAM are written in JSON, and the goal is to move away from XPath locators and instead utilize CSS to target DOM nodes.

The plan is for UTAM to become open source as well, with the possibility of it playing a larger role outside of Salesforce development. UTAM is based on the widely used Page Object Model design paradigm in user interface testing.

UTAM page objects are written in JSON and defined using a simple UTAM syntax. The UTAM compiler generates well-formed Java or JavaScript page objects that are suitable to use in UI tests. When an app is updated, the DOM is updated as well. UTAM simplifies the modification process and allows you to build more long-lasting user interface tests.

3. Lightning Web Security

Salesforce's Locker Service has added a layer of security to the web components delivered by our orgs, whether they're custom LWC or Aura components, we built or ones offered by suppliers. However, this crucial security has come at a technological cost, whether in the form of restricted cross-component support or a smaller number of popular third-party JavaScript libraries that are compatible with Locker Service. But have no fear, since Lightning Web Security is coming to improve our lives.

Lightning Locker is a sophisticated security framework for Lightning components. Lightning Locker improves security by separating Lightning components belonging to one namespace from those belonging to another. Lightning Locker also encourages best practices that increase the maintainability of your code by preventing access to only supported APIs and removing access to non-public framework internals.

This new feature, which will be released in stages following the Spring '22 release, improves on all of the security capabilities that were previously available in Locker Service, but with a few important differences.

4. Flow Trigger Order

Flow is fast evolving, and there are still significant parity gaps between flow and code from a developer's perspective. It should be increasingly treated seriously and not overlooked for Apex without due consideration.

Check out an amazing Salesforce infographic here: 7 Must Know Features of the Salesforce AppExchange

5. Functions

Since the Winter '22 release, Salesforce Functions have been generally available. Slow uptake appears to be due to the relatively high cost, as well as other considerations. Functions, in my opinion, are the key to making many solutions simpler, and I'm crossing my fingers that a price decrease or remodeling will occur this year.

To get started with Salesforce Functions, you don't need a license; you can use the Salesforce Developer Tools to design and test functions right now. All you'll need is a Developer Edition Org to get started.

You won't be able to deploy to a Compute Environment, trigger a function from Apex, or deploy any Apex class that uses the namespace of the function. However, you will be able to develop and launch a function in your local environment and access data from your org using the Salesforce SDK.

Conclusion

I hope you agree with me that there are some very interesting things in store for Salesforce developers in 2022, and I encourage you to keep an eye on the release notes to stay on top of everything that's coming up.

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