Here’s our hot take on this hot topic, which we get asked about just about daily.
While Salesforce Lightning (their newest user interface paradigm) has been around for a few years, moving from Classic isn’t as simple as a flip of a switch. And there are—typically—costs associated with the transition.
However, don’t fret just yet.
Let’s look at the two aspects that affect costs here:
- Licensing considerations
- The cost of services to have someone make the switch for you
Let’s tackle the first, first. There’s good news. There is no licensing cost to upgrade to Lightning. In fact, Salesforce is pushing users to move to Lightning, as it’s the future of the platform and maintaining legacy code costs them time, money, and the ability to innovate quickly.
Now, let’s look at the second part: someone has to make the transition, and it can be a little work, or a lot of work depending on a variety of factors.
Small, clean, really basic Salesforce environments may have little-to-no complications transitioning.
However, the larger organizations who have spent years (and dollars, probably lots of them) customizing, configuring, and Frankensteining their platform to get it just right, will have a project on their hands.
Long story short, there’s no stock answer to how much it will cost. It’s about how complex the existing system is and how compatible the configuration is with Lightning out of the box.
But Salesforce has given us some great tools to evaluate (before the plunge) how much needs to change. There’s a Lightning Rediness Check built right into Salesforce that shows exactly how ready the system is.
With Lightning, there’s a ton of flexibility that didn’t exist in Classic (like this), and so while the rediness check will tell you what might break, it won’t tell you the best way to configure your ideal user interface or user experience.
So, long story short, while there’s no one-size-fits-all answer, we absolutely recommend moving to Lightning, and we’re ready to help your organization figure out just what kind of an undertaking you’re looking at.
If you’re ready to explore Lightning or any other Salesforce project, we offer a no-hassle, no-cost, (no, really!) consultation.
