How to Transition from Salesforce Classic to Lightning Experience: A Complete Guide

The business landscape has become typically hostile and to sustain in this competitive environment, businesses must implement a robust CRM system that stays agile and relevant. Today, almost every business irrespective of their size and domain has realized the significance of implementing a robust system like Salesforce. While Salesforce promises optimal processes, improved efficiency and better business outcomes, it’s crucial to consider the edition, which organizations have stuck to.

So, if your organization is still using the classic version of Salesforce, it’s time for Salesforce Lightning Migration. There are several key differences between Salesforce Classic and Lightning Experience that make adoption essential for businesses aiming to stay competitive

Boost Business Efficiency with Salesforce Classic to Lightning Migration

Salesforce Lightning – representing the next generation of Salesforce signifies a gradual shift as to how organizations connect with the platform. This smart and outcome-driven platform offers an intuitive interface that is designed to help teams function more effectively, ensure informed and faster decision-making along with improved scalability.

With the Salesforce Lightning Experience offering AI-driven features, automation tools, and augmented analytics—the shift is no longer discretionary. It has become a strategic imperative.

This article throws light on Salesforce Classic to Lightning migration along with a step-by-step approach.

Why Shifting to Salesforce Lightning Experience Matters?

• User Experience

  Salesforce Lightning offers an intuitive interface with active components, tailor-made pages, and quicker navigation. It shows detailed data in a single view, reducing the need to toggle across multiple screens while aiding users work more efficiently.

• Built-in Tools

  Lightning includes native features such as Path, Kanban views, Workspace tabs and more. This enables teams to manage work efficiently without relying on third-party tools.

• Advanced AI

  With access to powerful capabilities such as Einstein AI, AI-driven insights and more, Lightning also offers features that aren’t a part of the Salesforce Classic edition and are crucial for intelligent automation.

• Future Readiness

  The product roadmap of Salesforce is Lightning-first. This means new features, security developments, and innovations are being built solely for the Lightning Experience. This confirms organizations remain secure, scalable and prepared for future developments.

Step-by-step Guide to Ensure Successful Migration from Classic to Lightning Experience

Step 1: Assess Your Current Salesforce Classic Environment

For a successful transition, a thorough assessment of your existing Classic setup is required. Start by assessing patterns to comprehend which teams depend on Classic, how often they access the platform, and which objects and features they utilize most. This insight helps focus on migration efforts, recognize high-impact areas, and ensure a seamless and targeted shift to Lightning. Some Salesforce Classic components might not be well-suited with Lightning and will require to be restructured using Lightning Web Components or substituted with usual Lightning functionality. Review your AppExchange applications to ensure they enable Lightning Experience. While most modern apps are Lightning-ready, outdated solutions may need upgrades, replacement or reconfiguration to ensure compatibility and performance.

Step 2: Lightning Readiness Check

Salesforce offers in-built Lightning Readiness Check that serves as a crucial diagnostic point for businesses planning the migration from Classic. The Readiness Check assesses the compatibility of the existing features of the Lightning identifies supported objects and workflows, highlights risk of user adoption, and assesses overall business impact. By running the Readiness Check from Salesforce Setup, teams get visibility into what will work and what requires redress, and what might not function as anticipated in Lightning. This insight helps businesses avoid amazement while building a realistic and informed transition roadmap.

Step 3: Define Your Transition Strategy

Defining a clear strategy for transition is crucial, as there is no standard approach to migration. The right strategy relies on several factors including but not limited to business complexity, user engagement, and the extent of customization. Common approaches include a phased rollout, department-based shift, and a complete switch, which is suitable for small organizations with minimal needs for customization.

Step 4: Prepare your Salesforce Org

This could be done by emphasizing on the required technical aspects once your strategy is in place. Lightning Experience can be activated without turning off Salesforce Classic, while allowing users to temporarily switch back during the transition period. Next, organize role-based Lightning Apps for various teams. Each app can be tailored with navigation, pertinent objects, and more to support workflows and augment user productivity.

Step 5: Modernizing Customization

It is a critical step in the transition to Salesforce Lightning, as various elements built for Classic need to be updated. For this JavaScript buttons present in Classic and not supported in Lightning should be substituted with Lightning-ready substitutes. Shifting Visualforce pages to Lightning components might offer better performance and a more spontaneous user experience. Additionally, legacy workflows and process builders should be augmented using Lightning-native Flow Builder, which offers flexible, powerful and scalable automation capabilities.

Step 6: Focusing on user adoption

This is crucial, as technology might not alone assure a successful Lightning transition. Organizations must communicate the reason behind the change by emphasizing personal benefits such as reduced manual effort, quick access to information, and enhanced insights, rather than focusing on business objectives. Providing role-based training for service agents, sales reps, managers, etc. ensures effectiveness, with demos proving way more effective than basic presentations. Additionally, utilizing in-app guidance helps users learn features of Lightning directly within the platform. This reinforces adoption through routine use.

Step 7: Run a Pilot Program

Before rolling out Lightning organization wide in order to validate the experience in a real-world setting, it’s crucial to run a pilot. The pilot should focus on finding usability gaps, confirming customization, assembling practical user feedback, and gauging efficiency enhancements.

Step 8: Optimizing Performance and Security

It is a critical step in ensuring a seamless Lightning Experience. While Lightning offers optimized performance, further enhancements help maximize reliability. This includes removing unexploited fields and components, streamlining reports and dashboards, and reducing dependence on heavy Visualforce pages to improve page load times. At the same time, security settings should be studied to ensure everything aligns with Lightning navigation and access patterns. This maintains both usability, as well as robust access control.

Step 9: Roll-out Lightning

Once testing and optimization are over, Lightning should be rolled out to users. A steady approach allows admins to control the pace of rollout by activating access through permission sets. During this stage, it is crucial to monitor metrics such as login frequency, usage feature, task completion rates, and user feedback.

Final Words: (and Your Next Best Action)

Salesforce Classic to Lightning Migration isn’t just a technical upgrade. It showcases a significant business transformation. Organizations that take a deliberate approach gain quick workflows, insights, and a more scalable CRM foundation. So, sooner you adopt Lightning Experience, the quicker you can shift from outdated systems for driving growth and customer engagement.

About Author

Jaya Ghosh

Jaya is a content marketing professional with more than 10 years of experience into technical writing, creative content writing and digital content development. Her decade long experience lends her the ability to create content for multiple channels and across different technology verticals.