Salesforce Summer ’26 introduces new capabilities across AI, automation, data, security, and platform administration. For Salesforce admins and business technology teams, the most valuable question is whether the Salesforce environment is prepared to support the next phase of growth, automation, and AI adoption.
Salesforce continues investing heavily in Agentforce, Flow, Data 360, and workflow intelligence. Those investments reinforce a trend that has been building for several releases: Salesforce is becoming increasingly central to how organizations operate. Workflows span multiple teams, automations support critical business processes, and platform decisions have direct operational consequences.
This is a governance and readiness release. Every new capability introduced in Summer ’26 will rely on the operational discipline established before it is enabled. Strong governance, thoughtful testing, clear ownership, and effective change management create the foundation that supports future innovation.
Start with Flow because everything else depends on it
The most valuable place for admins to begin is Flow.
Over the last several years, Flow has evolved into the execution layer for many Salesforce environments. Customer onboarding, approvals, routing, notifications, service processes, integrations, and operational workflows are increasingly managed through automation.
As environments mature, complexity naturally grows alongside capability.
Many organizations have reached a point where a single object update can trigger multiple Flows, integrations, notifications, and downstream processes. A business process that began as a straightforward automation may now support multiple teams and operational dependencies.
One observation we see frequently is that business-critical workflows continue evolving while the documentation supporting them remains largely unchanged. The automation works, but the visibility surrounding it becomes more difficult to maintain.
Most admins can identify their most important Flows. Fewer can confidently map every dependency connected to those Flows.
This is why Flow should be the first stop in any Summer ’26 readiness effort.
Review:
- High-impact Flows supporting core business processes
- Flow dependencies and downstream impacts
- Error logs and failure trends
- Ownership assignments
- Documentation quality
- Monitoring practices
The healthiest Salesforce environments are not defined by how much automation they contain, but rather how well that automation is understood, governed, and maintained.
Evaluate release updates through an operational lens
After reviewing Flow, the next step is understanding how Summer ’26 changes affect the broader environment.
Many release reviews begin by cataloging new features, but admins can get more value by evaluating updates through the lens of operational impact.
Required updates, retirements, security changes, setup enhancements, and platform improvements all influence how users interact with Salesforce. Some updates affect specific teams, while others have implications across workflows, integrations, permissions, and reporting.
Successful Salesforce teams often maintain a release readiness backlog that tracks:
- Required updates
- Testing requirements
- Dependencies
- Business owners
- Adoption considerations
This approach creates continuity between releases and helps teams evaluate platform changes systematically rather than reactively.
Review permissions before complexity increases further
Permission models often reflect years of organizational growth.
As new projects introduce new access requirements, teams evolve, business units expand, and acquisitions occur, temporary exceptions remain in place because they continue supporting operational needs.
Over time, however, access models become increasingly complex.
One pattern we regularly encounter is that permission structures grow faster than they are simplified. As a result, admins may inherit permission models that no longer align closely with current business responsibilities.
Summer ’26 provides a natural opportunity to evaluate:
- Permission set assignments
- Profile usage
- Administrative access
- Integration user permissions
- Sensitive data access
Permission reviews often create benefits beyond security. They can simplify administration, improve governance visibility, and reduce long-term maintenance effort.
As organizations evaluate AI-enabled workflows and connected data experiences, access governance becomes increasingly important because it directly influences how information moves through the platform.
Test how work happens in the real world
Testing remains one of the most important responsibilities in release preparation. The challenge is ensuring testing reflects operational reality.
Many release issues emerge from interactions between systems rather than individual components. While a Flow may function correctly on its own, an integration may perform as expected, an approval process may pass every test case, the unexpected behavior often appears when those components interact within a complete business process.
We frequently see production issues emerge at the intersection of:
- Automation
- Integrations
- Approvals
- Exception handling
- User permissions
This is why business-process testing creates so much value.
When preparing for Summer ’26, focus on:
- End-to-end workflows
- Integration-dependent processes
- Approval chains
- Exception scenarios
- User-specific experiences
A useful question to ask is whether testing reflects how employees actually perform their work each day. The closer testing mirrors reality, the more confidence teams can have when changes move into production.
Use Setup improvements to reduce administrative overhead
As Salesforce environments mature, admin teams often spend more time supporting existing capabilities than implementing new ones.
Troubleshooting, documentation, governance, user support, monitoring, and maintenance become a larger part of the role. This is why Setup enhancements deserve attention during release reviews.
The most valuable improvements are often the ones that help admins manage the platform more effectively.
When reviewing Summer ’26 setup changes, consider:
- Does this improve visibility?
- Does this simplify troubleshooting?
- Does this reduce administrative effort?
- Does this strengthen governance?
- Does this improve scalability?
Setup enhancements can create meaningful operational value when they help teams spend less time maintaining complexity and more time supporting business outcomes. A new feature coming in Summer ‘26 that falls under this category is the Field Access Summary in Object manager, for example.
Strengthen change management before enabling new capabilities
Every release introduces change, but successful adoption depends on how well that change is managed.
Every improvement requires communication, documentation, training, and support planning. Users need to understand what is changing, how it affects their work, and where to go when questions arise.
Organizations that consistently manage change well experience smoother releases, faster adoption, and stronger user confidence.
A strong change-management plan includes:
- Stakeholder communication
- User impact assessments
- Documentation updates
- Training plans
- Support readiness
These activities help ensure platform improvements translate into business value.
A Summer ’26 release readiness sprint
Before deploying Summer ’26 changes, focus on these priorities:
Flow & Automation
- Review critical Flows and dependencies
- Address known errors and failure trends
- Validate ownership and documentation
Release Updates
- Review required updates and retirements
- Assess business impact
- Prioritize readiness activities
Permissions & Access
- Audit permission sets and profiles
- Review administrative access
- Validate security controls
Testing
- Test end-to-end business processes
- Validate integrations
- Review exception scenarios
Change Management
- Assess user impacts
- Update documentation
- Prepare communication and training plans
Governance scales innovation
Salesforce Summer ’26 creates new opportunities across AI, automation, workflow intelligence, and platform management. Organizations will naturally focus on the capabilities that generate excitement, but long-term success is built through operational discipline.
The Salesforce environments that adapt most effectively to AI, automation, and future platform changes share several characteristics, including:
- Strong governance
- Disciplined testing
- Documented processes
- A deep understanding of how the platform supports the business
These environments can adopt new capabilities confidently because they have invested in the foundations that support scale.
For admins and business technology teams, Summer ’26 is an opportunity to strengthen those foundations. The work performed before new functionality is enabled often creates the greatest long-term value.
Before adopting Summer ’26 updates
Run a guided release readiness sprint with Sikich to assess automation, permissions, testing, governance, and change-management priorities.
This publication contains general information only and Sikich is not, by means of this publication, rendering accounting, business, financial, investment, legal, tax, or any other professional advice or services. This publication is not a substitute for such professional advice or services, nor should you use it as a basis for any decision, action or omission that may affect you or your business. Before making any decision, taking any action or omitting an action that may affect you or your business, you should consult a qualified professional advisor. In addition, this publication may contain certain content generated by an artificial intelligence (AI) language model. You acknowledge that Sikich shall not be responsible for any loss sustained by you or any person who relies on this publication.
