Salesforce Lightning vs. Classic

How Do Salesforce Lightning and Classic Differ?

While Salesforce Classic and Salesforce Lightning share functionality, their interfaces use different methods to help businesses achieve their goals.

Visuals vs. Text

Like many legacy solutions, the Salesforce Classic interface is text-heavy. While this is familiar for those who have used older business solutions, some users may struggle to navigate the dense text. Parsing information in this display can eat up valuable time, and the Classic interface lacks more simplified widgets for quick reference.

Salesforce Lightning takes a modern approach to design, balancing white space with colorful icons and graphics. Not only is a visual interface easy to navigate, but it also improves data accessibility. Intelligent metrics display in real-time to put easily digestible information in the hands of those who need it most.

Page Layouts

There aren’t many ways to customize your dashboards in the Classic interface. When different users log in, they typically see the same information displayed in the same way. While slight adjustments can be made, these adjustments usually change how every user at a company sees information.

Salesforce Lightning completely changes this, allowing users to tailor their personal dashboards with the most relevant graphs and widgets for everyday use. Users can select themes and palettes, create folders and subfolders, and view tables with up to 10 columns and 200 rows from their home page. Additionally, users can embed leads, campaigns, accounts and contacts, opportunities, and other information in a variety of formats.

Security

Security for the Classic interface is centralized, with one overarching protective program broadly covering the software. While the security is pretty robust, it is only one line of defense to protect many congruent areas of business. If it is bypassed by a major cybersecurity threat, any data connected to the software is vulnerable.

Salesforce Lightning introduces LockerService, an advanced security protocol that protects the connections between features. If a major cybersecurity breach occurs, the data is segmented enough that the breach will be contained in one area of a business, protecting the others from the threat. LockerService ensures data is siloed by security without impacting communication or real-time data transfer.

Forecasting

Salesforce Classic offers limited forecasting capabilities for revenue and opportunities. On this interface, users can view opportunity and overlay splits, product families, and quota information to better understand what milestones will lead them to success. However, these capabilities won’t be enough for companies that want to scale. 

Salesforce Lightning fleshes out forecasting functionality with custom measures for opportunities and line items as well as product and territory forecasts, sharing capabilities, and new grid organization options. These features let users study data from unique perspectives to get a better sense of how their business can scale and succeed.

Reporting

The Classic interface for Salesforce lets users build reports based on report types and templates. These templates focus on products, opportunities, and campaigns that can be displayed with pie charts, matrices, and other visuals. While the features are fine for small businesses without much growth, the capabilities are quite limited.

The Lightning interface overhauls the reporting features of Salesforce Classic with enhanced charts and more interactive capabilities. Users can hide totals or subgroups from report views to keep reports focused on the most important data. Additionally, users can toggle filters in the report view to easily drill down without changing windows. These features make report analysis easier than ever.

Is Salesforce Lightning Better Than Classic?

When Salesforce Lightning first rolled out, it wasn’t easy to implement. Some early-launch hiccups led companies to write off the Lightning interface in favor of keeping Salesforce Classic. Thankfully, Salesforce rolled out more updates and patches for the Lightning interface, ensuring it is easy to implement and easy to use.

Salesforce still supports the Classic interface, but its sunset is inevitable. All of Salesforce’s new features are built specifically for the Lightning interface, which means Lightning users get the best parts of Salesforce Classic with modern upgrades and more robust features. And, since the cost of implementation is the same between the two interfaces, businesses using Salesforce Classic can transition to Salesforce Lightning without having to purchase a new license. 

How Do I Switch to Salesforce Lightning?

If you’re interested in switching software, or you just want to learn more about how Salesforce Lightning improves on its Classic predecessor, you can reach out to a dedicated software partner like Cargas. Our team of experts is ready to evaluate your needs and offer support as you move towards Salesforce Lightning.