Winter ’26 Salesforce Release – Key Features for Admins and Developers
Written ByNikh T
The Winter ’26 release isn’t about flashy new tools. Instead, it focuses on practical changes that make everyday work easier for admins and smoother for developers. Let’s walk through the most important features you’ll want to know about.
Salesforce Winter ’26 Release: What’s Coming and What You Need to Do.
Winter ’26 Salesforce Release Features for Admins
1. Permission Set Licenses Clean Up Automatically
In the past, if you removed a permission set from a user, the linked license would stick around. That meant extra manual cleanup and sometimes wasted licenses. With Winter ’26, Salesforce takes care of that step for you. Once you unassign the permission set, the license is released as well.
This is one of those small but powerful changes that keep your org tidy without adding more admin overhead.
2. Safer Report Exports (Beta)
Anyone who’s exported a report into Excel has probably run into this issue: values starting with = or + get treated like formulas instead of plain text. Winter ’26 fixes that by automatically protecting exported data so it comes through exactly as it appears in Salesforce.
That means fewer user complaints and no corrupted exports.
3. Faster List View Setup
Building list views can be painful when you’re scrolling through dozens of fields. Now you can simply type the first letter of the field name and jump directly to it.
It may seem like a small usability tweak, but if you build list views often, you’ll notice the time saved.
4. Dashboard Tables Retain Report Settings (Beta)
When you pulled a report into a dashboard as a Lightning table, you often had to redo groupings or formulas because those settings didn’t carry over. Winter ’26 changes that. Now, dashboard tables respect the report settings you’ve already built.
The result? Dashboards finally look the way you designed them in the first place.
5. Translate Reports and Dashboards
Global teams get a big win here. Admins can now translate report and dashboard names, descriptions, and even widget titles.
If you manage a multi-language org, this will make adoption and usability much smoother for your end users.
Winter ’26 Salesforce Release Features for Developers
1. ApexDoc for Consistent Documentation
Salesforce is introducing ApexDoc, a standard way to document Apex classes and methods. It’s modeled on JavaDoc, so developers familiar with that format will feel right at home.
Clear documentation makes it easier for teams to collaborate and helps new developers quickly understand existing code.
2. MyDomain Required for API Calls
Say goodbye to old instance URLs like na1 or eu11. Starting with Winter ’26, API integrations are expected to use your org’s MyDomain instead.
Why the change? Instance URLs can shift when Salesforce does maintenance or migrations, but MyDomain is stable. Moving to MyDomain means your integrations will be more reliable.
3. Role and Subordinates Change
The long-standing roleAndSubordinates sharing group is being phased out. It’s replaced by roleAndSubordinatesInternal.
This means developers and admins need to review Apex, SOQL, Flows, and metadata that reference the old group and update them. If you don’t, things could break once Salesforce enforces the change in Spring ’26.
4. Local Preview for Lightning Web Components (Beta)
Deploying just to check how a Lightning Web Component looks? That’s no longer necessary. Winter ’26 lets you preview components locally in your browser.
This speeds up testing, reduces deployment cycles, and makes LWC development far more efficient.
5. Flow Tests from the CLI
With Winter ’26, you can now run Flow tests directly from the Salesforce CLI. This works for record-triggered and Data Cloud-triggered flows, with options to run tests asynchronously (default) or synchronously. There’s also a –code-coverage flag (for Apex only right now), which suggests Salesforce may eventually add coverage metrics for Flows.
Wrapping Up
Winter ’26 isn’t about new bells and whistles—it’s about tightening up the Salesforce experience.
- Admins get smoother license management, safer report exports, better list view controls, and dashboards that finally behave the way they should.
- Developers benefit from standardized code documentation, more stable integrations with MyDomain, clearer role handling, and faster LWC testing.
These are quality-of-life updates, the kind that don’t make headlines but make a real difference in how you work every day.
