Major Release
One of Salesforce's three annual platform updates (Spring, Summer, Winter) that introduces new features, enhancements, and changes to all customer orgs.
Definition
One of Salesforce's three annual platform updates (Spring, Summer, Winter) that introduces new features, enhancements, and changes to all customer orgs. It's preceded by preview sandboxes and release notes.
In plain English
“A Major Release is one of Salesforce's three big platform updates each year: Spring, Summer, and Winter. Each release brings new features, enhancements, and changes to all customer orgs. They're preceded by preview sandboxes and detailed release notes so you can prepare.”
Worked example
A Salesforce admin at Sablebrook Realty marks the Major Release calendar in March, June, and October - Spring '26, Summer '26, Winter '27 - and the team's preview-sandbox refresh schedule revolves around it. Six weeks before each Major Release, Salesforce auto-upgrades a designated preview sandbox so the team can test their customizations against the new platform version: a flow that started failing in Spring '26 because of a tightened picklist validation gets fixed in the sandbox before the production org is upgraded. After the production rollout, the team scans the release notes for newly-available features (a new lwc:if directive, a Flow improvement, a Lightning Web Component performance change) and decides which to adopt in the next sprint. Without the Major Release rhythm, every change would feel surprising; with it, the team treats each release as a planned event.
Why Major Release matters
A Major Release in Salesforce is one of three annual platform updates (Spring, Summer, Winter) that introduces new features, enhancements, and changes to all customer orgs. Each release goes through a preview phase where customers can opt-in to test the new release in preview sandboxes before it reaches production, followed by a sandboxes-first rollout, and finally a production rollout. Salesforce publishes detailed release notes for each release describing every new feature and change.
Major Releases are central to the Salesforce experience because they bring new capabilities continuously. Mature orgs treat releases as a planned cadence: review release notes when published, identify features that affect their org or that they want to adopt, test in preview sandboxes, plan adoption activities, and communicate changes to users. Some releases include breaking changes (deprecations, behavior changes) that require active management. Treating releases as a planned activity rather than a surprise dramatically improves how organizations benefit from Salesforce's continuous evolution.
How organizations use Major Release
Treats each major release as a planned event, with the admin team reviewing release notes, testing in preview, and planning user communications.
Adopts new features from each release deliberately, picking the ones that fit their roadmap rather than enabling everything indiscriminately.
Uses preview sandboxes to test their critical workflows against new releases, catching breaking changes before they hit production.
Test your knowledge
Q1. What are Salesforce's Major Releases?
Q2. How are releases rolled out?
Q3. What should orgs do for each release?
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