Lane Four

Author: Lyza-Jane DeVera

  • Salesforce Flow Gets a Long-Overdue Upgrade: Send Emails with Attachments—No Workarounds Required

    Salesforce Flow Gets a Long-Overdue Upgrade: Send Emails with Attachments—No Workarounds Required

    There’s no doubt that the latest Salesforce Spring ‘25 Release came with many callouts when it comes to Flows. But let’s be real—some updates feel like small tweaks, while others immediately change how we work. That being said, there’s definitely one that we’re excited to finally see.

    For years, sending an email with an attachment through Flow meant jumping through hoops—custom Apex code, external integrations, or clunky workarounds that felt more like duct tape than a real solution. Now, those days are behind us. With Send Email with Attachments, admins and consultants can finally automate file delivery without relying on developers. How’s that for impact? This isn’t just a convenience upgrade; it’s a shift in how we approach automation.

    What’s New? A Quick Look

    So what’s actually changed? In Spring ‘25, Salesforce introduces a new Send Email with Attachments action inside Flow Builder. Here’s what it does:

    • Allows users to attach files directly to outbound emails from Flow—no Apex or third-party tools required
    • Supports dynamic file selection, meaning attachments can be pulled directly from record data or predefined sources
    • Works with existing email Flow actions, so it fits into automation strategies without forcing a complete redesign
    Use Case 1:
    Automating Sales & Lead Management Process

    GTM teams can now automatically send proposals, quotes, contracts, or product brochures, reducing follow-up delays.

    Use Case 2:
    Enhancing Customer Support & Case Management

    When a case is resolved, Flow can automatically send the right troubleshooting guide, speeding up ticket resolution and reducing manual follow-ups.

    Use Case 3:
    Simplifying Compliance & Documentation Workflows

    Many industries require timely document delivery for audits, onboarding, approvals, and compliance reporting. Now, Flow can automate this delivery without custom solutions.

    Source: Salesforce

    For our clients, this update isn’t just about convenience—it’s about designing smarter, more scalable processes that simplify document delivery, enhance customer experiences, and eliminate operational friction. Salesforce has been steadily moving toward a low-code, admin-friendly automation model, and this update is a clear step in that direction. More native functionality means fewer barriers to automating processes that, until now, felt unnecessarily complicated.

    If you’re handling automation in Salesforce, start testing this feature now. Look at your existing Flows—where are you still relying on manual email attachments or custom-built solutions? This update might be the missing piece.

    And if you need help optimizing your Salesforce automation strategy, let’s chat!

    Let’s chat!

  • Accelerating Manufacturing Sales with Salesforce CPQ

    Accelerating Manufacturing Sales with Salesforce CPQ

    Scaling a manufacturing business comes with challenges, but sometimes, the biggest roadblock isn’t what you’re making—it’s how you’re selling it. Such was the case for a leading manufacturer that partnered with Lane Four. 

    For years, the manufacturing company relied on a sophisticated, Excel-based pricing and configuration strategy. It served them well—until it could no longer keep pace with their growth. As their product catalogue expanded and sales volume surged, their homegrown system struggled to keep up. Generating quotes became slower as it continued to be a manual process, creating numerous bottlenecks, which eventually led to lost opportunities. 

    They needed a system that could keep pace with their growth, and that’s where Lane Four stepped in—leveraging their expertise to untangle complex workflows and transform operational challenges into opportunities for success.

    Manufacturing Isn’t SaaS—And That Matters Here:
    A Custom CPQ Implementation

    This company’s old approach had its merits and it got the job done. Sales reps could enter specifications and generate pricing as needed. But speed wasn’t the only factor, as scalability was the real problem. Lane Four identified the biggest challenges for this organization to be complex product configurations, a tedious manual submittal process, and the absence of real-time data. The reliance on manual workflows didn’t just slow things down—it pulled valuable time away from closing deals.

    To address these challenges, Lane Four implemented a manufacturing-specific Salesforce CPQ solution designed to handle the intricate demands of the business, ensuring greater efficiency. Some key factors in the project included:

    1. Highly Configurable Products → The client’s products offered extensive customization, with numerous interdependent options and constraints. For example, selecting one component or size dictated compatibility with others, and pricing involved intricate multipliers based on dimensions. This required a flexible and detailed CPQ setup to accommodate thousands of potential configurations.
    2. Manufacturing-Specific Use Case → Unlike typical SaaS clients, the client’s focus was entirely on selling physical products, with no need for processes like renewals or amendments. This shifted the project’s emphasis from automating recurring revenue workflows to tackling the inherent complexity of manufacturing product configuration and pricing. 
    3. Custom API Integration → A critical feature was the integration with the client’s API to generate submittals—detailed engineering drawings customized for each product configuration. This process, while partially pre-existing in a separate interface, required significant development effort to enable seamless integration within Salesforce.
    4. Scalability and Transition Challenges → Shifting from an Excel-based tool to a fully integrated CPQ solution within their CRM introduced both technical and strategic hurdles. Ensuring accurate data migration and structuring Salesforce to support physical product sales required careful planning. Again, unlike software, manufacturing operations depend heavily on logistics, delivery tracking, different invoice processes, and proofs of delivery—all of which needed to function seamlessly within Salesforce.

    Overall, this project required advanced expertise in both Salesforce Revenue Cloud and manufacturing-specific processes beyond out-of-the-box solutions, making it a robust demonstration of Lane Four’s ability to handle complex, industry-specific implementations.

    Continuing to Remain Agile

    No project of this scale is without some surprises, but we did remain ready for them. Even with careful planning, a few unexpected needs surfaced along the way:

    • Product Configuration Adjustments → The client initially planned to manage product creation internally, and while they were fully capable, the complexity and volume of configurations made collaboration with Lane Four a more efficient path forward. Our support helped accelerate timelines and ensure a smoother implementation. Since then, the client has been able to take ownership and manage most updates independently.
    • Evolving Scope → Delivery tracking and making uploading invoices possible weren’t part of the initial scope, but as the system went live, it quickly became clear that these features were essential to daily operations.
    • Ongoing Discovery → Midway through implementation, new product variations and pricing models surfaced, requiring real-time adjustments while keeping the project as timely as possible.

    This project wasn’t just about launching a system—it was about creating a foundation that could grow with the business. Lane Four stayed flexible, adapted to new challenges, and continuously provided recommendations to ensure the best possible outcome for the client.

    Beyond Go-Live: Ongoing Support That Makes a Difference

    Many firms simply walk away after go-live—Lane Four isn’t one of them. To ensure the client remained confident in their new system and that the process architecture continued to meet evolving business needs, we stayed engaged through a flexible support agreement. This allowed us to tackle a backlog of enhancements while refining and expanding system capabilities as new requirements emerged. Our post-launch support also included developing a comprehensive knowledge base, including videos and documentation for end users and system admins, empowering the client’s internal team to manage the system effectively.

    Salesforce CPQ implementations aren’t all created equal. Some are straightforward, while others—like this one—demand deep expertise in industry-specific workflows, pricing logic, and engineering integrations. Lane Four’s approach wasn’t just about replacing spreadsheets with software; it was about enabling smarter, faster, and more scalable sales operations. For manufacturing companies still wrestling with outdated quoting and configuration processes, the takeaway is clear: The right technology matters—but the right partner makes all the difference. Let’s chat!

    Let’s chat!

  • Firing Up The Revenue Engine: How to Set Goals, Scale Smart, and Align Teams

    Firing Up The Revenue Engine: How to Set Goals, Scale Smart, and Align Teams

    TL;DR | The Highlights

    • Set revenue goals strategically: Combine historical performance (bottoms-up) with growth aspirations (top-down) to create achievable targets.
    • Factor in ramp time: New hires take time to contribute, so plan accordingly to avoid unrealistic expectations.
    • Use data to drive decisions: Track key capacity metrics like conversion rates, sales cycles, and rep productivity to optimize scaling.
    • Invest in the right tech: Prioritize tools that solve actual business problems instead of creating unnecessary complexity.
    • Break down silos: Revenue Operations (RevOps) ensures alignment across sales, marketing, CX, and finance to drive sustainable growth.

    Growing revenue isn’t just about selling more—it’s about setting the right goals, building the right capacity, and equipping teams with the right tools to execute effectively. Yet, many businesses fall into the trap of setting arbitrary revenue targets, scaling too aggressively, or investing in tech without a clear purpose. So, how do you fire up a revenue engine that runs efficiently and sustainably?

    We interviewed Michael Strong, VP of Revenue Operations Consulting at Lane Four, who says it all comes down to data, realistic planning, and cross-functional alignment. In this article, we break down the essential strategies.

    Setting Realistic Revenue Goals

    Setting revenue targets can feel like throwing darts at a moving target. Aim too high, and you risk overextending your team. Aim too low, and you leave money on the table. So, how do you set goals that are both ambitious and achievable? It starts with understanding the numbers—what’s realistic based on past performance, and what’s possible with the right strategy.

    It All Starts with Data (But Only If It’s Clean Data)

    “You have to pay attention to the available data. To me, this is the obvious place where you start,” says Michael Strong.

    He’s right—revenue planning without solid data is like trying to navigate with a broken compass. You need accurate, meaningful data points to guide your decisions. But here’s the catch: not all data is useful.

    The first step is ensuring that the data fields you’re creating (especially custom ones) and collecting actually matter to your business. If the numbers don’t align with real revenue drivers, they won’t help you make smart decisions.

    The Balancing Act: Bottoms-Up vs. Top-Down Planning

    Strong outlines two key approaches to revenue planning and emphasizes why leaders must leverage both to make more informed, future-proofed decisions:

    Bottoms-Up: This method looks at last year’s performance to set a realistic baseline. How many deals did each rep close? What was the average deal size? What were the conversion rates at each stage? Understanding these granular details helps set targets that reflect actual performance. There’s no point setting new goals for the new time period if you haven’t understood last period’s performance.

    Top-Down: This approach involves looking at the company’s big-picture growth goals—where you want to go. From there, you reverse-engineer what needs to happen to bridge the gap(s) between current performance and future aspirations.

    The magic happens when these two approaches meet. “That gap is where you apply a strategy,” Strong explains. In other words, if your top-down growth goals don’t align with your bottom-up reality, it’s time to refine your approach. Are your reps clear on what they’re selling? Do you need more reps? Better marketing? Higher conversion rates? Understanding where the gap lies is what makes revenue planning actionable.

    The Role of Capacity Planning: Scaling Smart
    Without Breaking the Machine

    Planning for Growth? Don’t Ignore Ramp Time

    Growth is exciting—who doesn’t want to see their revenue charts moving up and to the right? But here’s the thing: scaling isn’t just about setting aggressive targets. It’s about ensuring your team can actually meet those targets. And that’s where effective capacity planning comes in.

    One of the biggest mistakes fast-growing companies make, according to Mike, is underestimating ramp time—the time it takes for new hires to become productive.

    “If one of the fundamental movers of your revenue is bringing on new people, you have to be realistic about their ramp-up period,” Strong explains. “Not everyone you hire is going to succeed, and not everyone will ramp at the speed you want.”

    And yet, businesses often assume that a new sales rep will be hitting full productivity from day one. That’s simply not how it works. Aligning with a market standard, if you’re hiring someone today, you should typically expect them to start generating revenue in a minimum of three—more realistically, three to six months. Of course, go back to what the business goals are and decide if these expectations need to be adjusted.

    Failing to factor this into your revenue model creates an illusion of rapid growth that won’t materialize. Worse, it can lead to over-hiring, unrealistic sales quotas, and a never-ending cycle of turnover when employees fall short of impossible expectations.

    Using Data to Build Smarter Capacity Plans

    So how do you make sure you’re scaling intelligently? By letting data do the heavy lifting. You bet we’re going back to the data.

    Technology allows businesses to quantify the contributions of both individual reps and entire teams. You can break sales teams into performance quartiles, track conversion rates at different funnel stages, and model realistic productivity expectations based on historical data.

    Your systems should be generating the data that feeds into your capacity planning model. If you know your leads convert at 10%, and you know each rep can close X number of deals per month, you can actually build a model that makes sense instead of just guessing.

    At a minimum, here are some of the key capacity planning metrics revenue leaders should be tracking:

    • Productivity per rep: How much revenue does each salesperson generate?
    • Lead conversion rates: What percentage of leads actually turn into closed deals?
    • Sales cycle length: How long does it take to move a deal from lead to close?
    • Ramp time: How quickly do new hires reach full productivity?

    By tracking these metrics, businesses can make informed hiring and resource allocation decisions—rather than just crossing their fingers and hoping for the best.

    The Dangers of Unrealistic Planning

    Strong warns against one of the most common pitfalls in capacity planning: over-reliance on top-down targets without considering the operational realities on the ground.

    Too often, leadership starts with a big revenue number, works backward, and assumes they can just divide it among their team. But if that number isn’t based on historical trends or actual capacity, it’s completely unrealistic—and can be corrosive to the business.

    Why? Because unrealistic quotas lead to:

    • Burnout and attrition: Sales teams working toward impossible targets quickly lose morale, and billing consultants or service providers stretched beyond their capacity risk exhaustion, leading to decreased quality of service.
    • High turnover: When reps don’t hit their numbers, they leave—or get pushed out—resulting in constant rehiring. 
    • Revenue instability: A team in perpetual flux struggles to deliver consistent results, whether it’s a sales team missing targets or a consulting group unable to maintain steady client delivery due to overworked or underutilized staff.
    •  

    You can set stretch goals, but they need to be achievable stretch goals. If everyone has historically brought in $100,000 a year, you can’t suddenly make the quota $200,000 and expect to hit your targets. You just have a model that looks nice.

    Scaling the Right Way: Strategy Over Wishful Thinking

    Stretch Goals? Sure. Fantasy Goals? No. Effective capacity planning isn’t just about setting targets. Your team needs to understand the actual levers that move the business, like we mentioned earlier. If you do have very big (but realistic) goals, then that probably means you need to be hiring more. But remember, it’s not just about expecting more from your team—it’s about introducing different processes, optimizing operations, and making smart investments when needed.

    Leaders who fail to recognize this end up in what we call a “failing exercise”—setting arbitrary growth targets without a clear strategy to achieve them.

    “Being in these meetings, I’ve done these things. This is hard and can leave real scars,” claims Strong.

    So, what’s the takeaway? Scale responsibly. Use data. Plan for ramp time. And most importantly—don’t just increase your revenue target and expect magic to happen.

    Tech Investments: Solve Problems, Don’t Create Them

    Helpful Tip…Don’t Buy Tech for the Sake of It

    With the explosion of RevOps tools on the market, it’s easy to fall into the trap of “buy first, figure out the problem later.” We caution against this approach. You need to think about the problem first and then find a tool that solves it—not just go out shopping and get excited about what you find.

    Too often, businesses invest in technology because it seems like it will improve efficiency, only to find that it doesn’t integrate well or isn’t actually solving a core business challenge. Worse, unnecessary tools create tech debt—a tangled mess of underutilized software, inefficient processes, and disconnected data.

    One of the most dangerous pitfalls in automation is an unsupervised process running unchecked. It quietly operates in the background—until one day, you discover it has generated millions of unnecessary records. The real problem? Those bad records feed into your analytics, distorting key insights and leading to flawed strategic decisions. Before you know it, you’re setting future goals based on inaccurate data, steering the business in the wrong direction.

    So how do you invest wisely? Ask these questions before committing to a new tool:

    • What specific challenge are we solving?
    • Does this tool integrate seamlessly with our existing tech stack?
    • Who will be responsible for managing and maintaining it?
    • Will this tool make our teams more effective—or just add complexity?


    If a tool doesn’t have clear, measurable value, it’s probably not worth the investment.

    Breaking Down Silos: The Role of Cross-Functional Teams like RevOps

    One of the biggest challenges in revenue planning is that sales, marketing, and customer experience (CX) often operate in silos. Each function has its own priorities, goals, and tools—but without alignment, those efforts don’t always add up to actual growth.

    That’s where Revenue Operations (RevOps) comes in. RevOps has a unique view of the entire revenue funnel and it’s architecture. They understand the technology needs of each function and how they intersect. Sales, Marketing, CX, and Finance don’t always think about how their work affects the teams before or after them, but having someone or a team dedicated to overseeing the revenue strategy does.

    RevOps ensures that decisions made in one department don’t unintentionally create bottlenecks elsewhere. For example, a sales team might push for aggressive lead generation, but without RevOps in the room, they might not realize that the customer success team doesn’t have the resources to support a massive influx of new clients.

    What Happens Without a Revenue Leader?

    In companies without a dedicated revenue leader—which is actually not uncommon in smaller companies—siloed decision-making is more likely. If there isn’t a revenue leader, responsibility usually falls on whoever’s in the C-suite or the SalesOps point person. But since marketing, sales, CX, and finance often report to different leaders, there’s no single person ensuring alignment. That may lead to disconnected results.

    The takeaway here? Whether it’s a dedicated RevOps leader or another executive taking ownership, someone needs to be responsible for keeping revenue functions aligned and communicating the needs to the right people. Otherwise, businesses risk disjointed efforts that don’t translate into sustainable growth.

    The Revenue Engine: People, Process, and Tech Working Together

    Sustainable growth requires alignment across three key areas:

    1. People – Hiring and ramping new employees realistically, based on past performance and industry benchmarks
    2. Process – Defining clear workflows so that sales, marketing, and CX function as a cohesive unit
    3. Technology – Investing in the right tools to enhance productivity, not complicate it


    When these three components are in sync across the revenue functions, companies can scale without burning out their teams or constantly recalibrating unrealistic targets.

    Revenue Growth Isn’t Magic—It’s Strategy

    Scaling a business isn’t about setting lofty goals and hoping for the best. It’s about aligning data, people, processes, and technology to create a revenue engine that runs smoothly.

    The key actionable takeaways:

    1. Set revenue goals based on both historical performance and growth aspirations
    2. Plan for ramp time: New hires won’t contribute immediately, so factor that into your models
    3. Use data to optimize capacity planning: Track productivity per team members, lead conversion rates, and sales cycle length
    4. Invest in tech that solves real problems: Don’t buy software just because it looks cool
    5. Ensure sales, marketing, and CX are aligned: RevOps plays a crucial role in breaking down silos and driving efficiency

    Ultimately, companies that treat revenue growth as a strategic, data-driven process—rather than a numbers game—are the ones that scale successfully. So, is your revenue engine built to last? If not, then our Foursight services can help fine-tune the gears. Let’s chat!

    Are you ready to
    unleash your future?

    Let’s chat!

  • Gaining More Confidence in AI: Introducing the Agentforce Testing Center

    Gaining More Confidence in AI: Introducing the Agentforce Testing Center

    As businesses grow increasingly curious about integrating AI-powered agents into their operations, ensuring these agents are reliable, accurate, and efficient has never been more critical. The latest Agentforce Testing Center release from Salesforce allows organizations to test and improve their AI agents in a secure setting before they are deployed into live environments. Lane Four has been able to experience firsthand how effective this testing tool is prior to launching our initial client Agentforce implementations.

    With features such as synthetic data testing, secure sandbox environments, and analytics, the Agentforce Testing Center is intended to provide a framework for organizations to build AI-driven automation with confidence that their agents will be more helpful than harmful to their operations.

    The Challenge of AI Reliability

    One of the biggest hurdles to widespread AI adoption is the unpredictability of AI agents. From generating misleading or incorrect outputs (often called “hallucinations”) to causing operational disruptions—such as misclassifying data or failing to retrieve the right knowledge articles—many organizations hesitate to fully embrace AI due to concerns about trust and consistency.

    We’re also still riding the Agentforce wave and learning as we go, but one thing is clear—traditional testing methods simply can’t keep up with these challenges. To ensure AI agents perform reliably in production, they need to be validated in sandbox environments that accurately simulate live interactions. At the same time, businesses need clear visibility into performance, compliance, and security risks.

    Designed to eliminate uncertainty, the Agentforce Testing Center provides a structured, closed-loop testing framework within the Salesforce ecosystem, allowing businesses to refine their AI agents and gain more confidence before deploying them into production. What’s so special about the Agentforce Testing Center?

    Salesforce’s Agentforce Testing Center introduces a new standard for AI lifecycle management by incorporating:

    • Data & Interaction Testing: Simulated test cases allow organizations to rigorously evaluate AI agents and real-life customer interactions without impacting live operations
    • Secure Sandbox Environments: Salesforce offers Data Cloud Sandboxes as well, allowing AI models to be refined and tested in isolated environments, reducing risk before full-scale deployment
    • Advanced Analytics & Audit Trails: Detailed reporting and monitoring tools like Agentforce Analytics and Utterance Analysis ensure transparency, allowing teams to make data-driven optimizations based on granular metrics
    • The Einstein Trust Layer: A built-in safeguard that enhances AI reliability by providing robust feedback mechanisms and compliance tracking

    How It Works: Setting Up AI Testing in Agentforce Testing Center

    Getting started with the Agentforce Testing Center is actually quite straightforward. Within the Agent Studio setup, users can create and execute test scenarios using structured templates. The process involves:

    1. Create a New Test: Access the Testing Center through the Agent studio. Define a test name and assign it to a specific AI agent. There may be multiple agents listed here, of course, depending on how many were created.

    Source: Lane Four

    2. Upload a Testing Template CSV: This structured spreadsheet file can be downloaded from the “New Test” pop-up (though we recommend having this downloaded and shared with your team as well), and it outlines test parameters across four key categories:

      • Utterance: The input prompt to be tested
      • Expected Topic: The intended workflow path 
        • Be sure to use the API name, not the topic name
      • Expected Actions: The AI functions the agent should trigger
        • While it may seem intuitive that an AI agent triggering the right topic would also take the correct actions, the Testing Center requires explicitly defined expected actions for validation. This can mean something like “Use Knowledge,” “Create Case,” or “Escalate Issue”
      • Expected Response: A descriptive summary of the anticipated output

    Source: Lane Four

    3. Execute Tests & Analyze Results: Once the test runs, outcomes are evaluated based on pass/fail criteria, with response accuracy verified by an AI-driven assessment rather than strict text matching. More below on this.

    4. Iterative Refinement: Organizations can fine-tune AI models by analyzing failure cases and adjusting prompts, workflows, or agent logic accordingly.

    Tests run quickly and at scale, giving organizations an efficient way to refine AI reliability before deployment. While speed may vary based on test volume, AI testing remains significantly faster than traditional methods—measured in seconds rather than minutes or hours!

    Interpreting Test Results: What Pass/Fail Really Means

    AI models inherently introduce a degree of variability—particularly for conversational AI. Unlike deterministic software tests, where a 100% pass rate is often expected, AI testing must account for nuanced response variability while ensuring functional integrity.

    • Canned Responses (Static Outputs): These should achieve near-100% accuracy since they follow predefined templates
    • Conversational AI Responses: Some degree of variation is expected, and a 95-98% pass rate may still be acceptable even though it would be reflected as a fail!
    • Knowledge-Based Queries: Responses should be contextually accurate, even if phrasing varies slightly


    Since pass or fail results are highly contextual, each organization needs to define what they truly mean and how to use test results. While red and green indicators can feel definitive, they don’t tell the whole story—thankfully, this isn’t Squid Game. Instead of expecting absolute consistency, businesses should have these important internal conversations and establish meaningful pass/fail thresholds that align with their needs, rather than assuming anything below 100% means the AI agent is unreliable or can’t be used. From there, expect to make the necessary iterations to your agents as needed.

    Source: Lane Four

    Strengths, Limitations, and Our Candid Take So Far

    From our initial experience, the Agentforce Testing Center is highly effective at what it’s designed to do—ensuring AI agents deliver accurate, reliable initial responses. Accuracy isn’t a major concern at this stage, and for validating how an AI agent handles its first interaction, the tool has proven invaluable based on our early discoveries. After all, this is where AI is most likely to go off track.

    However, one key limitation is that the Testing Center currently doesn’t support multi-step interactions. While it excels at verifying initial responses, it doesn’t yet assess how an AI agent navigates a complex conversation with multiple backs and forths. This will be an important area for future enhancements, especially as businesses look to deploy AI in more advanced, real-world scenarios.

    Another factor to consider is that solidifying data categories on Knowledge Base items are essentially a prerequisite for using the Testing Center effectively. This could pose an extra setup challenge for some teams, but at Lane Four, we’ve developed an approach—using AI—to streamline this process. It’s just one of the ways we’re helping businesses optimize their Agentforce implementation for long-term success.

    Some Final Thoughts

    So, why does this new way of testing matter to businesses again? The launch of the Agentforce Testing Center signals Salesforce’s commitment to making AI adoption scalable, reliable, and cost-effective. For organizations leveraging Agentforce for customer interactions, support automation, or knowledge management, this tool offers a structured way to validate AI before it reaches customers exactly as the name suggests.

    By adopting a rigorous testing framework, businesses can:

    • Reduce AI-related risks before deployment
    • Optimize AI agent performance through iterative refinement
    • Ensure compliance & governance using structured audit trails


    While the Agentforce Testing Center marks a significant advancement in AI Lifecycle Management, we believe ongoing iterations will be key to enhancing multi-cloud compatibility, expanding testing capabilities, and integrating deeper AI trust mechanisms. As AI adoption accelerates, businesses     must remain agile in their approach to AI validation and refinement.

    But for now, we’re not going to let that stop us at Lane Four and will continue actively testing and implementing Agentforce capabilities to help our clients maximize the possibilities of how AI can help them work smarter. Interested in exploring how AI agents can elevate your business or want to learn more about how we’ve made the AI testing process even smoother for our clients? Let’s chat!

    Let’s chat!

  • Ahead of the Curve: How Lane Four Sets The Stage for Agentforce Implementation in Canada

    Ahead of the Curve: How Lane Four Sets The Stage for Agentforce Implementation in Canada

    If you’ve been anywhere near the Salesforce ecosystem these last 6 months, we doubt you’ve gotten far without seeing Agentforce everywhere—billboards, social media, public transportation, and being the centre of Salesforce’s World Tour events. AI Agents are taking over! When Marc Benioff himself calls it Salesforce’s biggest focus in years, you know it’s about to change the game.

    Businesses have been eager to learn more about the power of AI, and with those already leveraging Salesforce as a CRM, questions about how they can utilize agentic solutions to move even faster started to increase at warp speed since Dreamforce ‘24 last September. But implementing cutting-edge tech isn’t always straightforward—especially when documentation is limited and best practices are still taking shape. So, what did we do as Salesforce implementation partners and Trailblazers in the ecosystem? We did what Lane Four does best—stamped “LET’S GO” in bold and took on these challenges head-on. That relentless drive eventually led us to become the first Salesforce implementation partner to deploy a working Agentforce agent in production in Canada. Not to shabby!

    Before Salesforce released all of their documentation or even provided sandbox support for Agentforce, Lane Four was already talking about how this can help our clients and solve a few issues that were already brought to us. Tasked with deploying multiple agentic use cases under tight deadlines for various clients, we embraced the unknown as an opportunity to lead. With agility, creativity, and deep expertise in Salesforce ecosystems, we didn’t just follow best practices in Agentforce projects—we’ve helped define them to our team and partners.

    Laying the Foundation for AI Success

    AI implementation isn’t just about activating intelligent automation; it’s about ensuring the right data, processes, and structure are in place to support it. Before deploying Agentforce solutions, we helped our clients with foundational work such as:

    Data Consolidation & Cleanup to ensure clean, structured data was available for AI-driven processes. For some, this meant attaching Agentforce projects to Data Cloud ones as well.

    Knowledge Base Optimization, which involved refining internal knowledge repositories and their categories so that AI agents could provide accurate, context-driven responses.

    System Consolidation, which brought together disparate system environments for more seamless automation.

    By addressing these crucial areas first, we were able to give our clients more confidence that they were set up for long-term success with AI.

    Adapting on the Fly: Testing the Testing Tool

    Agentforce was evolving as we were implementing it. When Salesforce introduced the Agentforce Testing Center in recent weeks, we pivoted immediately, learning, experimenting, and leveraging the tool to refine our approach. Yes, we tested the testing tool! Testing for AI is more complex compared to traditional testing, especially when we’re going off half-baked precedents. But our ability to move quickly and apply new insights meant that our clients benefited from a constantly improving AI implementation strategy.

    Success Across Five Major Implementations

    Having successfully implemented Agentforce for five businesses internationally, we’ve observed a variety of adoption patterns post go-live:

    • Some clients discovered that AI-driven solutions didn’t fully align with their current business goals
    • Others are actively experimenting and fine-tuning their live AI-powered workflows
    • And others have fully embraced Agentforce, expanding AI automation across multiple facets of their go-to-market strategies

    Regardless of the level of adoption, our clients have been overwhelmingly positive about their experience working with Lane Four. As an implementation partner that thrives in uncharted territory and can move quickly, but in a smart and strategic way, we’ve proven our ability to deliver cutting-edge solutions with the focus always being on what’s best for our clients. 

    Working with a new, largely undocumented tool is no easy feat, but it solidified Lane Four’s position at the forefront of Canadian tech consulting in the Salesforce space. Our early involvement with Agentforce, combined with our deep expertise in Salesforce implementations across multiple clouds, uniquely positions us to help businesses navigate the evolving go-to-market landscape. Now, we can confidently say the same for those seeking AI-powered solutions too!

    For Salesforce customers and partners looking to explore Agentforce, our journey serves as proof that with the right expertise, AI can be a game-changer for your organization if aligned with your tools and overarching business goals. Whether you’re considering your first agentic solution or scaling AI across your organization, Lane Four is ready to guide you through the process. Intrigued? Let’s chat!

    Let’s chat!

  • Driving Digital Transformation: How Lane Four Is Helping a Security Leader Optimize Their Operational Strategy

    Driving Digital Transformation: How Lane Four Is Helping a Security Leader Optimize Their Operational Strategy

    When a U.S.-based communications security company decided to [finally] take a step forward in transforming its revenue operations strategy, they faced a daunting challenge: transitioning from fragmented, paper-based processes to a fully integrated Salesforce platform. Coming into more funding and growing rapidly through acquisitions, they needed a solution to centralize their operations and were ready to start preparing for scalable growth. That’s where we came in.

    They had invested in multiple Salesforce clouds—Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, CPQ & Billing, and Mulesoft—but found themselves overwhelmed by the scope and complexity of implementing everything at once. Our team at Lane Four stepped in to untangle the chaos and guide them through in a structured way.

    This translated into what we call at Lane Four a digital transformation or a series of transformational exercises to adapt their current tech or system landscape into one that is more aligned with modern go-to-market (GTM) motions. This holistic approach would help connect siloed tools and processes in a cohesive manner that could keep pace with accelerated growth. Ultimately, the goal was to create a tech stack that enabled their teams to sell faster, enhance collaboration, and have clear and automated processes in place to eventually, increase revenue potential.

    So let’s get into what the plan was, the expectations, and proven as well as projected future outcomes for this customer.

    Tackling Complexity with a Phased Approach

    Building anything meaningful requires a clear series of steps. Attempting to tackle multiple initiatives simultaneously—without a clear order—is a recipe for frustration and can very quickly turn bouts of motivation into overwhelm, all too quickly. That’s what this client was up against. So, we hit pause and took a step back to assess the areas of their revenue engine that needed to be prioritized. By identifying and prioritizing key areas, we recommended a phased rollout approach to bring clarity, focus, and momentum to their efforts.

    We started by focusing on marketing operations. To the customer and to us, because this was the beginning of their customer journey, it made sense to start here. Migrating from HubSpot to Salesforce Marketing Cloud was a critical first step. We enabled audience segmentation, automated campaigns, and AI-powered insights to lay the groundwork for smarter, more personalized customer engagement.

    Next, we turned our attention to the company’s sales team, 60-70% of whom work in the field. The goal here? To equip them with mobile-friendly solutions for creating leads, generating quotes, and scheduling appointments—all in real time while out in the field. By leveraging Sales Cloud and CPQ, we made it possible for their reps to respond quickly and efficiently on-site.

    To improve customer service, Lane Four initiated an implementation of Service Cloud, introducing service entitlements, SLAs, and visual SLA timelines. Now, whether a customer submits a case online or via email, the system will route it instantly, tracking response times and escalating unresolved issues to ensure nothing falls through the cracks.

    On the back end, Mulesoft now connects Salesforce with legacy systems like Micro Key, creating a seamless flow of data and reducing manual errors. Meanwhile, tools like DocuSign will further increase operational efficiency by automating document workflows, saving their team countless hours of manual work.

    Building Toward Long-Term Success

    Despite initial setbacks, including shifting leadership and partial implementations—because what’s a large project plan without key learning moments—Lane Four’s expertise in digital transformation has put the security company back on track. As the project progresses toward completion in 2025, the Salesforce suite is set to deliver unified visibility and efficiency across marketing, sales, and service teams.

    Marketing teams will run data-driven campaigns with AI-powered insights, field representatives will have mobile tools for faster decision-making and selling, and service teams will be able to deliver exceptional customer experiences. These improvements position the company for sustainable growth, operational excellence, and maximum ROI on their tech investments. Now, that’s bringing some serious horsepower to the revenue engine if you ask us. 

    At Lane Four, we thrive on tackling challenges like these. Empowering clients to unlock their potential and achieve sustainable growth is at the core of what we do. Our tailored approach is not only transforming this security industry leader’s revenue operations in such a way that is realistic and carefully planned in such a way to avoid disruptions to the business but also driving success for many other businesses as well, equipping them to excel in today’s competitive market.

    So, what’s something you can actually take away from this customer story? Maybe it’s this…

    For organizations with little to no Salesforce knowledge or experience, here’s what we’d recommend:
    • Start with a Clear Discovery Phase: Begin by truly understanding the company’s business processes, goals, and challenges. Use this phase to map out how Salesforce can align with and enhance the existing operations and what needs to be put in place to achieve future goals. Then, make the connections and find a way to leverage each Salesforce tool, addressing specific use cases and to avoid feeling overwhelmed, especially if working with multiple tools.

       

    • Plan for a Phased Implementation Approach: Introduce Salesforce incrementally rather than all at once. Start with high-priority tools for high-priority processes. If phases need to overlap, understand the what and the why before moving on. This allows the team to gain confidence and competence as they see tangible results from their efforts.

       

    • Prioritize Training and Enablement: Provide comprehensive, role-specific training for all users to increase understanding and adoption. Tailor sessions to their daily workflows and use real-life scenarios to illustrate the value of Salesforce. Reinforce learning with ongoing support, documentation, and access to quick-reference materials.

       

    • Leverage Out-of-the-Box Features First: Avoid over-customizing the platform initially. Understand how to use Salesforce’s out-of-the-box features to meet the needs of the business and get the most out of the initial purchase. Once the team becomes familiar with the basics, introduce customizations or advanced features to address gaps or specific requirements.

       

    • Set Metrics for Success: Establish clear goals and KPIs from the outset, such as improving lead conversion rates or reducing case resolution times. Regularly review these metrics to demonstrate progress, keep the team motivated, and adjust strategies if needed.

       

    By focusing on these best practices, you can guide businesses with no Salesforce experience toward a successful implementation and ensure long-term adoption and ROI.

    So, feeling ready to look at your systems or need some help on where to start so that you can reap maximum return on your Salesforce investments? Let’s chat!

  • Dynamic Revenue Orchestration: Tackling Complex Orders in Revenue Cloud+

    Dynamic Revenue Orchestration: Tackling Complex Orders in Revenue Cloud+

    With the introduction of Revenue Cloud + (previously known as Revenue Lifecycle Management or RLM), we are seeing tons of new features coming to the Salesforce ecosystem. One of the new features we think will make a huge impact is the Dynamic Revenue Orchestrator.

    Salesforce’s Dynamic Revenue Orchestrator (or DRO for short) is panning out to be the new answer to complex order fulfillment processes. It helps streamline the order fulfillment process from the planning phase up to execution, all done natively through Salesforce. It allows you to break down complex orders into more manageable parts using Product Decompositions. With the new Fulfillment Plans you can track and action on the Order Fulfillment process throughout its entire life cycle and through different systems. 

    A similar solution, such as Salesforce CPQ, would require a ton of complex customization to achieve some of this—trust us, as CPQ specialists, we’re all too familiar with the complexities involved. That’s what makes DRO a standout. With its straightforward, user-friendly interface, you can seamlessly design and manage these processes entirely within Salesforce, saving both time and effort.

    Key Features

    Product Decomposition

    When it comes to order fulfillment involving multiple systems, it’s pretty common for your ERP system to view products differently than how your sales reps sell them. That’s where Product Decomposition comes in—it bridges the gap by breaking down the products your reps sell into actionable components your ERP can easily process.

    Let’s break it down (literally): imagine your sales rep sells Product A. In reality, Product A is a bundle—a box containing Products B, C, and D. With Product Decomposition, you can seamlessly split Product A into Products B, C, and D at the order level. These decomposed items will appear as Fulfillment Line Items while keeping the original Order Line Items intact. It’s a smart way to keep your sales data clean and your ERP humming along.

    When Decomposing products, you also have a couple of extra features:

    • Ability to map over product attributes from the original product to the fulfillment line item.
      • This comes with a list mapping feature to allow you to transform mappings 
    • Decomposition Scope, which allows you to choose how the products map into fulfillment line items.
      • There are 4 options here, which are:

    Order Line Item (Default): This is a one-to-one mapping, meaning a fulfillment line item will be made for each of the order line items that decompose into it

    Order: This means that only one fulfillment line item will be made for all the order products that decompose into it on that order.

    Bundle: A new instance of the downstream product is created per bundle within an order.

    Account: A single instance of the downstream product is created across orders from the same account.

    Fulfillment Plans

    Fulfilment Plans help you track everything that happens after the product is sold in Salesforce. Whether it’s happening in Salesforce or other systems, Fulfillment Plans give you the capability to create a tailored and efficient plan that can be tracked in Salesforce. 

    Salesforce DRO also enables businesses to create flexible and personalized fulfillment plans that align with their unique needs. Here’s how customization works:

    1. Custom Rules and Priorities → Businesses can set specific rules, like prioritizing urgent orders or serving key customers first. DRO uses these rules to automatically design fulfillment plans that match strategic goals.
    2. Meeting Deadlines with SLAs → Plans can be customized to meet specific delivery commitments, ensuring timely fulfillment for priority customers or products with strict deadlines.
    3. Seamless Integration → DRO integrates with other systems, like inventory or shipping platforms, to include additional data for smarter and more precise planning.
    4. Handling Complex Orders → For businesses offering intricate products or services, DRO allows detailed order breakdowns to ensure all components are accounted for in the fulfillment process.
    5. Real-Time Adjustments → DRO makes it easy to update fulfillment plans on the fly, helping businesses adapt quickly to changes in demand, supply chain issues, or customer requests.

    By offering these flexible options, DRO ensures business operations are working at peak efficiency while delivering a reliable and efficient customer experience.

    Now, let’s take a closer look at the features of Fulfillment Plans. Fulfillment Plans include a variety of actions, referred to as fulfillment steps, which you can use to tailor the process to your needs. These steps include:

    • Callout Fulfillment Step: When fulfilling orders, DRO often communicates with external systems. A callout handles that communication.
      • Also have the ability to create an fallout queue to assign the step to if the call out fails (error handling)
    • Auto Task Fulfillment Step: An auto task fulfillment step uses Salesforce Flow to process internal data. Set up a flow the way you want, then add an auto task wherever you want in the fulfillment process.
    • Manual Task Fulfillment Step: Add a manual task to orchestration when you need user input at a particular place in the fulfillment flow. For example, when you need an approval or manual enrichment of data. DRO can assign a manual task to a user or a queue.
    • Milestone Fulfillment Step: A milestone represents a point in the fulfillment process between different flows of control and is completed when all of its dependencies have been completed.
    • The Pause Fulfillment Step: The Pause step stops fulfillment until certain conditions are in place. Set the Resume On rule to something that must be true before the Pause step completes.

    Fulfillment steps can be grouped together using Fulfillment Step Groups, making your plans more structured and easier to navigate. These groups can also be conditional, allowing you to skip entire sections based on specific criteria, adding flexibility to your process.

    Additionally, you can configure Fulfillment steps with Jeopardy rules, which function as SLAs for each step. By setting an estimated time and a jeopardy time, you can identify when a step is at risk of missing its deadline, ensuring proactive issue management.

    Fulfillment steps also include a framework similar to the Order Decomposition we discussed earlier. Here’s how it works:

    • Plan: One instance of the step appears in the entire fulfillment plan.
    • Bundle: One instance of the step appears per bundle in the order.
    • Line Item: One instance of the step appears per line item.

    DRO Limitations

    As a relatively new tool in the Salesforce ecosystem, Dynamic Revenue Orchestrator (DRO) as part of Revenue Cloud+ is still evolving, and we’re learning more about its capabilities and limitations every day. While the feature set is robust, certain areas, like the add-on feature to use API callouts for Fulfillment Plans, are still a bit limiting. That being said, we’re committed to keeping our customers informed and up to date. Check back regularly as we continue to test, discover, and share insights to help you get the most out of Revenue Cloud+.

    All in all, DRO is shaping up to be a transformative addition to Revenue Cloud capabilities, offering an intuitive way to manage complex order fulfillment processes. With features like Product Decomposition and Fulfillment Plans, DRO simplifies what once required extensive customizations. We’re excited to see how this tool continues to evolve and help our clients optimize their revenue operations. Ready to see if it’s the right fit for your organization? Let’s chat!

    Co-Author: Anthony Mottola
    Junior Solutions Architect at Lane Four
    Let’s Chat!

    Let’s chat!

  • Key Insights from Agentforce World Tour Toronto: Essential Lessons for a Successful Agentforce Implementation

    Key Insights from Agentforce World Tour Toronto: Essential Lessons for a Successful Agentforce Implementation

    Last week, Lane Four had the privilege of attending and sponsoring Salesforce’s Agentforce World Tour Toronto—and what an incredible day it was! From lively conversations and super fun interactions at our booth, to an engaging theater session, the event was filled with opportunities to connect and share plenty of insights. In our session, “Key Lessons Learned for a Successful Agentforce Implementation,” Lane Four’s CEO, Andrew Sinclair, and Director of Architecture, Pete Gilbert, delivered valuable takeaways from our experience as one of Canada’s earliest adopters of Agentforce.

    Agentforce’s AI-powered capabilities are proving to be instrumental in driving operational efficiency across the RevOps engine. However, like any industry-shaping tech, it comes with its own set of learning curves. In our presentation, we highlighted some of the must-know complexities and unique aspects of Agentforce implementation that we’ve encountered firsthand, showcasing how Lane Four continues to guide clients through these new challenges to unlock the platform’s full potential.

    Whether you’re considering Agentforce or looking to optimize your current AI setup, these takeaways on data governance, credit consumption, testing, and managing your environment will guide you toward a smoother, more impactful journey. Let’s get to it!

    Data Governance: The Foundation of AI Success

    When it comes to Agentforce, data governance is non-negotiable. It’s the backbone of how AI agents operate, relying on structured, accessible, and well-categorized data to deliver accurate, context-driven responses. AI agents require access to data that is both comprehensive and appropriately governed to ensure optimal performance.

    Despite its importance, many organizations grapple with defining a clear data governance strategy, often uncertain about their comfort levels when it comes to sharing data for AI-driven purposes. 

    To address this challenge, Lane Four developed a structured exercise to help clients clarify their approach by categorizing data according to risk levels. This method not only simplifies decision-making but also ensures that AI-driven solutions like Agentforce are built on a solid foundation of responsible data management.

    The image above shows that data categories like public knowledge articles represent low-risk data, while sensitive customer information, like detailed purchase behaviours, carries higher risk. By understanding your organization’s risk tolerance, you can confidently prioritize use cases and scale AI solutions responsibly.

    We’ve observed that early adopters often begin with use cases they can be less cautious about like public knowledge articles; gradually expanding to more ambitious AI applications as they gain confidence in the tool. Our advice? Take a gradual, phased approach—there’s no requirement to open the floodgates all at once to start leveraging AI. Start small, assess the ROI of initial implementations, and scale strategically. As trust in the technology grows, you can gradually expand to more complex or data-sensitive use cases, ensuring they align with your goals and drive meaningful impact.

    Credit Consumption: Decoding the Complexities

    When it comes to cost, Agentforce breaks away from traditional user-based licensing or subscription models. Instead, Salesforce has adopted a consumption-based pricing structure, which can initially feel a little bit confusing. Here’s what we’ve learned about managing credits effectively to optimize usage and maintaining control over costs:

    • Agentforce Conversations
      • The Most Expensive Credit
      • Applied to conversations between agents and end customers.
      • Covers all interactions within a single 24-hour messaging session unless ended by the agent or user.
    • Data Cloud Credits
      • The Most Abundant Credit
      • Designed for a wide range of Data Cloud activities.
      • The number of requests per prompt can vary significantly based on your specific use case.
      • Metrics and feedback settings can significantly impact credit usage.
    • Einstein Requests
      • Fairly Abundant in Most Agreements We’ve Seen
      • Used for all large language model (LLM) requests, both internal and external.
      • Consumption depends on the API call size, with a multiplier applied accordingly.
      • Like Data Cloud credits, the number of requests per prompt depends heavily on your use case.
    •  

    We recommend closely monitoring credit consumption during the first few weeks of implementation. Tracking trends, fine-tuning feedback settings, and targeting high-consumption areas will help you optimize and remain in the driver seat when it comes to usage and costs.

    Quick Note: At the time of writing this presentation, the Agentforce Testing Centre had not yet been released, and details about its capabilities remain limited. However, we anticipate that this tool will significantly reshape the testing process, offering a more structured and robust approach. For clients with any degree of AI hesitancy, the Agentforce Testing Centre is likely to become an essential resource, providing critical insights and confidence in AI functionality.

    Traditional Testing vs. Testing AI

    Another critical aspect of an Agentforce implementation we needed to address is testing. Traditional testing methods simply don’t apply to AI solutions like Agentforce. Why? Because AI testing introduces unique challenges: outcomes depend on usage patterns, require high testing volumes, and demand a contextual understanding of prompts. Success isn’t as straightforward as a traditional pass/fail result—it’s measured as a percentage, reflecting overall performance and usage accuracy.

    Traditional Testing

    • Outcomes are typically clear-cut: pass or fail.
    • Achieving test coverage across all scenarios is often feasible.
    • Carefully designed test cases take priority over sheer volume.
    • Success is measured by ensuring all unit tests pass.

    AI Testing

    • Response correctness can be subjective and context-dependent.
    • Testing every possible use case or question is impractical.
    • Performs better with high-volume testing rather than scenario-specific tests.
    • Success is measured as a percentage, reflecting overall accuracy and performance.

    We encourage taking a hands-on approach by exploring prompts and use cases directly in Copilot. This method not only fosters better engagement but also yields more reliable results. Testing for AI-driven solutions like Agentforce often consumes a much larger share of the implementation timeline compared to traditional tools. For instance, in one of our early Agentforce projects, the testing phase expanded from approximately 8% of the total cost to nearly 25%.

    This increase is partly due to the blurred line between “testing” and “building” in AI projects. Unlike traditional tools, testing AI requires significant volume to ensure reliability, like we mentioned. Making UAT as frictionless as possible for testers is essential—especially with AI-driven tools. Encouraging employees to experiment with new topics and prompts in Copilot has proven far more effective than traditional UAT methods in a sandbox environment. This exploratory approach not only boosts engagement but also ensures your AI solutions are tested thoroughly in real-world scenarios.

    Environment Management

    Testing Agentforce requires Data Cloud-enabled environments, and Salesforce has introduced a significant improvement: Sandbox environments now share the same credit system as production. This alignment means greater feature parity, reducing surprises post-deployment.

    We’ve also seen the value of activating tools like AI Audit Data and Prompt Builder Usage Metrics to track KPIs such as response satisfaction, engagement rates, and case deflection.

    Post-Go-Live: Treat AI Like a Team Member!

    AI agents require the same ongoing care as human agents. Regularly reviewing performance metrics and regression testing ensures they stay aligned with your evolving data and business needs.

    Think of it like a performance review you’d hold with one of your human team members—what worked last quarter may need adjustments as your systems and customer behaviours change. Consistency in monitoring keeps your Agentforce solutions reliable and impactful.

    Staying Agile in a Rapidly Changing Landscape

    One of the biggest challenges of implementing transformative advancements in technology is keeping up with rapid updates. Some Salesforce resources released just months ago are already being flagged as outdated, and Agentforce 2.0 is already nearing! Staying informed and maintaining flexibility are critical for success especially when it comes to AI.

    However, Lane Four’s expertise with Agentforce reflects our broader mission: continuing to help clients harness the power of tech that makes the most sense for them and their business/aligns with their business goals. Whether you want to move faster, or work more effectively, our presence at the Agentforce World Tour Toronto reinforced the importance of building strong relationships, both with clients and within the Salesforce ecosystem.

    We’re excited to continue driving these AI advancements, sharing lessons learned, and supporting organizations on their journey toward AI readiness. Ready to explore what Agentforce can do for you? Let’s chat!

  • Boosting Salesforce Developer Productivity: Local Development for LWCs

    Boosting Salesforce Developer Productivity: Local Development for LWCs

    The Salesfor Winter ’25 Release dropped some impressive upgrades this fall, but one game-changing feature is stealing the spotlight: Local Development for Lightning Web Components (LWCs). This capability now allows developers to preview, test, and iterate on their components in real-time, directly from their local machine, significantly accelerating the development workflow. If slow testing cycles have ever made you want to scream into the void, this update is here to save your sanity. 

    Let’s explore how Local Development for LWCs works, its benefits, and how you can start using it today.

    What Is Local Development for LWCs?

    Local Development enables developers to work on Lightning Web Components in an environment hosted on their own machines. Unlike the traditional process, which requires deploying changes to a Salesforce org to test and preview, this feature offers rapid-feedback loop for building components.

    By spinning up a lightweight local development server, Salesforce provides developers with a browser-based preview of their components. This environment is designed to mimic Salesforce’s user interface and behaviour, allowing you to develop and test components with a high degree of fidelity to the final application.

    Why Local Development Is a Game-Changer

    For years, building and testing LWCs involved deploying them to a Salesforce org, switching between the development environment and browser, and refreshing pages after every update. This workflow was not only tedious but also slowed down iteration cycles. The Winter ’25 release addresses these pain points by providing a seamless local experience.

    Key Benefits:

    • Real-Time Feedback: See your changes in real-time as you edit your LWC code. No need to deploy for every small tweak.
    • Improved Productivity: Work faster by removing the deployment step and focusing on what matters—building great features!
    • Streamlined Debugging: Isolate and troubleshoot issues in a controlled, local environment without external dependencies.
    • Enhanced Collaboration: Team members can work on the same project locally, share their changes, and avoid conflicts that arise from working in a shared Salesforce org.
    • Optimize Shared Resources and Save Time: Local development is particularly valuable in environments where org resources are shared or limited. It reduces API usage and speeds up workflows.

    Now, Let’s Set Up Local Dev!

    For now, this feature is only available through the Salesforce command-line interface (CLI) ; there is another  LWC Local Development Server, which has limited testing and previewing capabilities. To run a real-time preview for your app or site, ensure you:

    Install the Local Dev Plugin 

    In your terminal, run this CLI command for your project:

    sf plugins install @salesforce/plugin-lightning-dev

    Enable Local Dev
    Before you can use Local Dev for an app or site, you have to enable it for your Salesforce Sandbox org or scratch org. To turn on this beta feature for your Sandbox org:
    • Open Setup
    • In the Quick Find box, enter Local Dev and then select 
    • Select Enable Local Dev (Beta) to turn on the feature for all org users.
    Scratch Org
    To enable Local Dev for your scratch org:
    • In your SFDX project, open the file config/project-scratch-def.json.
    • In the settings section of the file, add the key “enableLightningPreviewPref” and set it to true, like this:

    {

      “orgName”: “My Company”,

      “edition”: “Developer”,

      “features”: [“EnableSetPasswordInApi”],

      “settings”: {

        “lightningExperienceSettings”: {

          “enableS1DesktopEnabled”: true,

          “enableLightningPreviewPref”: true

        },

        “mobileSettings”: {

          “enableS1EncryptedStoragePref2”: false

        }

      }

    }

    Run a Real-Time Preview

    To preview a Lightning app, run this command in your terminal:

    sf lightning dev app

    To preview an Experience Cloud LWR site, run this command:

    sf lightning dev site

    Before you can run Local Dev for an Experience Cloud LWR site, you have to finish these setup steps:

    • After Local Dev is enabled for your org, publish your Experience Cloud LWR site.
    • Set your site’s base path to /. To learn how to configure site paths, see Salesforce Help: Add a Custom URL

    Features of the Local Development Environment

    The local server is built to provide an authentic Salesforce-like experience. Here are some of its notable features:

    • Simulated Salesforce Context: The local environment includes base Lightning components, event-handling capabilities, and a UI consistent with Salesforce’s look and feel.
    • Dynamic Theming: Test your components under different Salesforce themes, such as Lightning Experience or Salesforce Mobile.
    • Cross-Browser Compatibility: Ensure your components work seamlessly across various browsers.
    • Error Debugging: Use browser developer tools to debug your code with detailed error messages and stack traces.

    Limitations to Consider

    While Local Development is a significant leap forward, it’s essential to note some limitations:
    • Platform-Specific Features: Features like App Builder or Flows cannot be simulated locally.
    • Setup Requirements: New developers might need time to configure the environment and understand its capabilities.
    • Implementing <lightning-button></lightning-button> resulted in ‘404: Could not find module with specifier “lightning/button”‘ error

    Some Final Thoughts

    The Local Development feature for LWCs in Winter ’25 empowers developers to build faster, iterate quicker, and debug more effectively. By bringing the development and testing processes closer together, Salesforce is addressing a major bottleneck in LWC development workflows.

    Whether you’re prototyping a new component, fixing a bug, or building an entire library of reusable UI elements, Local Development makes the process smoother, more intuitive, and more efficient. For teams working in agile environments or under tight deadlines, this is a must-have tool.

    After diving into the Winter ’25 release and exploring the standout features which we called out and were excited for, we’re confident that Local Development for Lightning Web Components is a game-changer for boosting developer productivity. With real-time feedback and rapid iteration, this feature sets the stage for faster innovation and higher-quality components. Are you looking to streamline your Salesforce development process? Let’s chat!

    Author: Faisal Anwar Mohammed
    Developer at Lane Four

    Let’s chat!