The latest seasonal update to Salesforce is Winter ‘24, and it’s prepared to keep manufacturing, energy, and utility businesses warm with innovation and efficient operations through the coming months. 

For energy and utilities, leaders should watch for the expanded capabilities for Clean Energy Programs as well as improved mobile functionality for field service. For manufacturing, there are enhancements to warranties and the Intelligent Document Reader. We’ll dive into each of these further:

Enhancements to Clean Energy Program

For getting utility customers involved in sustainability, Clean Energy Programs are the way to go. And now with Winter ‘24, there are additional fasttracks for the application approval process in Clean Energy Programs. Users can auto-assign tasks to approvers throughout the org so that users can get started in the program as soon as possible. This also includes trigger emails for different approvers at the appropriate times, decision matrices for auto-approve/reject, etc.

Mobile Apps for Utility Field Service

The preconfigured mobile apps for utility field services are newly improved with more best practices for managing service appointments and service data while on the move. Whether it’s turn-on and turn-off service requests or meter replacements and more, field service agents can use the mobile app to track and populate critical details quickly for improved productivity in the field. 

Enhanced Insights for Warranties

Switching over to manufacturers, enhancements to warranty claim processing are making it even easier to be efficient and reduce costs during adjudication. Detailed, extensible business rules can be used to verify coverage of products, validate claim payments, etc. List groups and list filters can be used to conditionally narrow Claim Coverage Payment Detail records associated with different Claim records. This update also includes more flexible claims adjudication rules for warranty administrators to eliminate redundancies and improve performance during the process with greater context.

Additionally, with scoring enabled, you can also use previously approved claims to predict the likelihood of current warranty claims getting approved or whether they will need further verification. 

Intelligent Doc Reader

Finally, the Intelligent Document Reader for Manufacturing Cloud allows users to extract data from documents automatically, mapping the matching fields to Salesforce objects for autopopulation of records. This means faster lead and work order creation so you can fulfill customer requests as fast as possible. 

To get started with Manufacturing Cloud or Energy & Utilities Cloud, or to better leverage your existing implementation, reach out to our expert, advisory-led team for roadmapping, delivery, change management and training, and ongoing strategic services that empower users to get the most from your investments.