It was a dark, cold, and stormy night. What better time to read through the 323 pages of the Spring ’14 Release Notes? Why do we read this? So you don’t have to.

Here are some things that we have spotted that are coming up that look useful.

Forecasts – Collaborative Forecasts are gone, and now its Customizable Forecasting. The ways that forecasting can be done are expanded to:

• Opportunities based on revenue, quantity, or both
• Opportunity splits based on revenue
• Product families based on revenue, quantity, or both

Report Filters – “My Direct Reports” added

• Using the “My Direct Reports” filter, your sales managers can easily filter forecast reports to display only data from their direct reports.

Salesforce for Outlook

• You can now create Cases in the Side Panel. Big deal here!
• Admins will now be able to track the version of Salesforce for Outlook that users have installed

File Storage Increased

• File Storage Per Paid User License Increased from 612 MB to 2 GB for Enterprise

Skills – being Piloted

• The Skills feature makes it easier to identify experts in different areas. Users can add or delete skills on their Chatter profile page or on platform detail pages, and other users can endorse those skills. Use the global search bar to search for experts with specific skills.

Salesforce1

• All kinds of goodies, including compact layouts, embedded charts, and using VisualForce pages in the mobile App

So that’s just a quick overview. Find yourself 3 hours and some solitude, and have a look at the Release Notes. The plot has some interesting twists.