Salesforce Summer ’25 Treasure Hunt: Preview Orgs Are Live!

Summer ‘25 preview orgs are live, and it’s time for a preview party! This exciting time, when changes become available in preview orgs, is about to kick off. We’ll share the sign-up link once preview org registrations go live on April 17. Then, we’ll have the opportunity to explore the new Salesforce release features before they’re pushed to production. It’s the perfect chance to learn how to harness these new capabilities when they are officially released (full details here).

You will be able to access these features before then if you have signed up for a preview org in the past – but if not, you’ll need to wait until then to sign up. This is an excellent reminder to save your preview org credentials so that you can access future features sooner!

1. New Debug Panel for Salesforce Flow

This feature I actually discovered before gaining access to the Summer ‘25 release in my preview org, thanks to following Adam White on LinkedIn. I highly recommend you do the same as his insightful Flow posts quite often provide a peek behind the curtain at the future of Flow.

I’m making a bold statement here: Every single Flow that you’ll build in Flow Builder will be debugged at some point, usually before being activated. That’s why this new Summer ‘25 feature is going to be so powerful – it has a direct impact on every single Flow in your org!

The overhauled debug panel adds card grouping to provide a visual separation between elements, results filtration to dig into specific areas, formatted record and record collection elements for easier comprehension of the debug log, and element summary lines showing a snapshot of what happened in each section. In addition, you can now expand the debug panel to take up up to 80% of your screen, and you have the ability to easily copy the debug log to your clipboard for further debunking of Flow mysteries.

This is certainly a larger change in the grand scheme of things and one that I believe will be a very welcome addition to Flow Builder.

2. SLDS Icons in Choices and Visual Picker

Full credit goes once again to Adam White for this one (see what I mean? Always sharing valuable insights into the upcoming Flow features!). The very next day after seeing the post above about the debug panel, Adam shared a preview of some upcoming style changes to choices in Summer ‘25. When configuring the choices in a Flow, you are now able to add an icon from the standard SLDS icon set.

These icons are then visible in the new Visual Picker component. Similar to other choice components, you’re able to make a selection from a group of choices, but this time, you get to select from a list of icon-laden boxes. Summer ‘25 is shaping up to be a visually memorable release!

3. Style Properties in Components

This comes from the same post from which I got the SLDS icons in choices update knowledge from. Kudos once more to Adam White for sharing such valuable content before we even get access to the preview!

When building out Screen Flows in Summer ‘25, you’ll notice that, as you build your components into a screen, you will have the ability to configure the style in a new Style tab.

On every component that I’ve seen so far, it gives the same ability – to set the width of the component and the vertical alignment. It’s nice to see the width property, as previously you’d need to add it to a section and use the section to set the width. This solution is far less clunky and makes customizing your screen style much easier.

4. Dynamic Related Lists for Mobile

This is something I’m personally very excited to see – we’re finally getting the ability to extend Dynamic Related Lists to the Mobile App. For a while, the Dynamic Components were being released for desktop and then immediately to mobile in the very next release. Related Lists took quite a bit longer for some reason, and it’s the first thing I check when my preview org gets released. Today’s Summer ‘25 release truly is a big day for me because of this feature alone!

Seeing the Desktop/Mobile icon next to the Dynamic Related List component in Lightning App Builder gives me so much joy, I can’t explain it. This one is personal, and has been a really long time coming. Now, you can configure brand-new Dynamic Related Lists directly on the Lightning Page without needing to add them to the legacy Page Layout first, and these will be visible for mobile users. 

This is one massive nail in the coffin for Page Layouts, if not the last one. I can think of numerous customers I’ve worked with who have had to use clunky page layouts for far too long just to support mobile users. 

To learn all about Dynamic Related Lists and how you can use them to replace classic Related Lists, take a look at the article below.

5. New Flow Wizard Launches From Setup

The new Automation Wizard that we saw introduced in the previous release for the Automation App is now also available in the legacy Flow menu in Setup. Starting in Summer ‘25, we can officially bid farewell to the old Flow Creation Wizard that has helped us create new automations over the years.

6. Manage Tabs in Permission Set View Summaries

There’s a new section to manage tabs in the View Summary section of permission sets in Summer ‘25. If you’ve assigned an object’s tab settings in the permission set, it will be visible here. Unlike what I’m about to talk about next, however, tabs are read-only in the View Summary section.

7. Editable Field and Object Permissions Now Available in View Summary for Permission Sets

View Summary has provided a modern interface over permission sets, making it easier to see what access you’re providing at a glance.

New in Summer ‘25 – not only can you view the fields in View Summary, but you can also edit them. You can select the object for which you wish to edit the fields and mark each field as Read and/or Edit.

In addition to the ability to edit the fields, you can also give access to the entire object. You can provide Read, Create, Edit, Delete, View All Records, Modify All Records, and of course, View All Fields (which was new in the previous release).

The ability to edit the object and field permissions from View Summary is something I personally appreciate a lot. Permission sets are such a core feature, but the interface to configure them feels extremely dated. While this isn’t the complete refresh of the permission sets UI that I had hoped for, I am glad to see this new functionality.

Object permissions can also now be edited from the Object Access page after navigating to individual objects within Object Manager. The Edit option is available for both permission sets and profiles (although you did hopefully start the migration already!). So, in case you need to change object permissions in multiple permission sets or profiles quickly, this is now the place for it.

8. Orchestration Flows in the New Flow Wizard

In the previous release, we saw the first iteration of the new Automation Wizard. We got the ability to quickly create new flows from as little as one click and a great new modern interface. However, the Orchestration Flows were only able to be built from the previous Flow Wizard, which was available only in the Setup menu, not the Automation App. This all changes in Summer ‘25.

As I’ve mentioned already, the new Automation Wizard is now the only method of creating new flows, which also means the Orchestration Flows are able to be created through this Wizard as well.

9. New Flow Element Block UI

Initially, I wasn’t a fan of this update, but it very quickly grew on me, and now I struggle going back to my ‘peasant’ flows of the past! Flow elements are now made up of a larger rectangle, with both the icon and the name taking up more horizontal space. There’s also a three-dot menu for the elements that allows you to take further action. In the example below, I can use this menu to cut, copy, or delete the element. I can also open the referenced Subflow.

This change certainly caught me off guard when I started building my first Flow in my Summer ‘25 preview, but very shortly after, I realized that this made much better use of the white space on the canvas. Kudos, Salesforce – this is a great uplift to the user experience that I didn’t see coming!

10. Screen Flow Preview Sized

Our screens come in all different sizes and shapes, and Summer ‘25 makes it much easier to guarantee a positive experience for your users with the new ability to preview screens at different sizes.

Select from large, medium, or small when configuring a Screen element to see what it looks like at each of those three sizes. The examples for each option give you a rough idea of the devices that your users will be experiencing those sizes with which is handy.

11. Flow Approval Process Updates

The new Flow capability to build approval processes using orchestrations at no extra cost was launched in Spring ‘25, and it’s already seeing updates in this release. When creating a new Flow Approval Process from the Approvals home page, you have the option to start from scratch or use an intuitive Wizard to have Salesforce generate the paths, stages, and decision elements for you to complete with the actual criteria and steps.

The option to add a recall path has been introduced as well, making the Approval Flow Orchestration option even more powerful!

WANTED: Missing Salesforce Features

Believe it or not, this new section was inspired by the delivery of a feature I’ve long considered ‘missing’ – Dynamic Related Lists on Mobile. Many predicted that this would come in the release following its desktop debut, and we were all wrong and left wanting. I want to keep a record of the features that are seemingly missing in each release and link to the IdeaExchange post that we can use to share our opinions.

Enhanced Role List View Hierarchy

The Enhanced Role List View was released in Spring ‘25 but did not come with a Hierarchical View. This makes it a great feature that is borderline unusable because it is missing a critical feature.

Editable Data Table Component

I know there are countless third-party solutions, which is brilliant and one of the great strengths of the Salesforce ecosystem, but what about orgs with tight security where it’s difficult to install third-party apps? What about making the already great Data Table component even greater by allowing editable cells?

Summary

And there you have it! These are my favorite features (uncovered so far!), including a few that I’ve read about but have not yet been lucky enough to get my hands on. This release includes a number of large changes to many areas of the system that are going to make for an even more polished experience for admins, developers (both declarative and programmatic), and end users alike.

I’m sure there are a lot more user management and Setup features that I’m yet to uncover, as this has been a key area of focus for the Salesforce development team. These changes are always extremely well received by admins, developers, and users alike as they help create a sense of seamlessness for the entire core product.

It’ll be exciting to see some of the more hidden features come to light when the Salesforce release notes are available on April 23 – what a bonanza of a release this one is! And don’t forget to sign up for a pre-release org (the link will be available here once registrations are open) to see what you can find.