Summer is almost here. How do we know? The chirping of birds, the warming weather, and the salesforce.com release of Summer 2013. We’ve been looking over the Release Notes, and this release is jam-packed with goodies. Not so good for us that have to take release exams, but great news for users!

Here are some highlights of what’s on the way.

• No searching for “Setup” under your name on the Home Page. It gets its own label!
• Opportunity Splits – We will now be able to split Opportunities – Revenue can be split, or overlay splitting allows a sales team to credit people who helped on the Opportunity but don’t split Revenue amounts. Awesome!
• Customizable Price Books- Aaiieee. We’ve been waiting for this one. If you use Products and Quotes, this is big. Price Books now get their own custom fields, validation rules, record types, and Tab, just like other objects!
• Permission Sets now include Record Types – this will really help in cutting down on the need for many Profiles
• My personal favorite – the “Owner” field will now be available on cross-object formulas. Oh, happy day! This really gives some flexibility in creating useful formulas.

One of the many reasons to use salesforce.com is the continual improvement of the software, due in part to the many users that are constantly pushing salesforce.com’s functionality, and suggesting ways to improve it. This would not be a factor, however, unless salesforce.com listened to customers. And they do. Several of the new features in Summer ’13 came from the User Community.

Summer ’13 will be here soon, and it’s looking to be a great release!!