For businesses that have invested heavily in Salesforce, the move from Classic to Lightning can be daunting… and frankly, a bit scary. It’s clear that all of the new features on the Salesforce Platform are being developed for Lightning, and as each new release passes, the need to migrate your organization to Lightning remains ever present.

Salesforce has clearly defined Lightning as the path forward. There are several business reasons for making the move to Lightning — from increased productivity to better reporting visuals, to a cleaner and more engaging interface, to adoption-friendly features like Favorites, the Utility Bar, and Visual List Views via Kanban.

But making the move to Lightning is not quite as simple as flipping the proverbial switch.  Straightforward and near out-of-the-box organizations have a number of factors that need to be considered when switching to Lightning, and the number of considerations increases with heavily customized (Classic) organizations.  

In order to keep — and hopefully dramatically increase — end-user and executive engagement, you need to create alignment and plan your migration thoughtfully. So, what are the first three critical steps you should take to facilitate a successful move to Lightning?

#1. Get leadership buy-in

Alignment with your leadership and subject matter expert leads is critical for adoption. It’s important to engage with users at both ends of the spectrum — from the bottom up and top down, as they say.

Getting on the same page with your leadership is a critical step to adoption. When they lead from the front and help reinforce that the move to Lightning is a positive and necessary transition, it helps users understand the importance of the move. As you connect with them, collaborate to align on the benefits that will apply to all verticals affected by the shift to Lightning. It’s certainly fine to communicate the benefits to the business as a whole, but be sure to curate and personalize the positives for each team and/or vertical.  

#2. Engage in communication planning

Communicate early and often! There’s an old saying that “full disclosure is the best antiseptic.” Keeping your user base and executives informed about what’s coming, what benefits they’ll get out of the transition, and what pain points are being resolved is critically important — and a piece of the transition that’s often overlooked.

Create a specific communication and messaging plan, which should include the exact dates and senders of the information. Tap into your existing communication channels (e.g., Chatter, Slack, current meeting cadences, etc.) to keep the flow of information accessible in familiar places. Make the transition fun by creating unique branding or engaging in gamification. These kinds of initiatives all help drive adoption.

You can also prepare “pre-launch assignments” for your users, which could include completing specific Trails (or completing a customized Trailmix via Trailhead) to introduce them to the new platform.  

#3. Train your users

It’s important to let your users know that training is the start of their Lightning journey, not the end of it. Tailor your training to your specific users, focusing on what’s changing for them and how the new interface will help solve their friction points.

Stay in front of your users with post-training “office hours,” virtual training sessions, and regular updates on enhancements.

As you’re creating and delivering training, design as much content as possible to be evergreen for use with future new hire onboarding and as a knowledge base for existing users who need a refresher course. As your move out of training, set up a feedback mechanism (this could be a Chatter group, custom object, case record type, etc.) for your users to share their ongoing experiences with Lightning. Letting users know you’re hearing and reacting to their feedback serves to drive adoption and engagement.

Get expert help with your Lightning migration

These three steps are an important start on the move from Classic to Lightning. Silverline has experienced Salesforce professionals ready to assist with the strategic and technical components of your Lightning migration.