Salesforce Winter ‘27 Admin Highlights: Security and UX
When release season arrives, big headline features grab the attention. If you manage access, sharing, and page layouts, the smaller platform updates often matter more. Winter ‘27 delivers several of them.
Here are the admin features we think deserve a spot in your sandbox this week.
Security and Sharing
Field History Tracking for the User Object (GA)
User Field History Tracking started as a beta in Winter ‘26. In Winter ‘27, it reaches general availability.
You can track up to 20 fields on the User object. Each change records the old value, the new value, a timestamp, and the user who made the edit. The log captures changes from the UI, bulk operations, Apex, and the API. That gives you a native answer to “when did this user’s profile change?” without custom Apex or a third-party package.
To set it up, open Object Manager, select the User object, and go to Fields & Relationships. Choose the fields you want to track. You can view the history on the user’s access summary page, and you can build reports on it.
This feature applies to Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic in Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, and Developer editions. It isn’t available in all orgs, so confirm your edition before you plan around it.
Keep Manual Shares When Transferring Records
Until now, changing a record’s owner deleted its manual shares. Colleagues you had deliberately granted access lost it the moment ownership moved.
Winter ‘27 adds an org-level setting called Keep manual shares when transferring records. It is off by default, so your current behavior stays in place until you change it. To turn it on, go to Setup, open Sharing Settings, click Edit, select the setting, and click Save.
The setting applies to Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic in Professional, Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, and Developer editions. Test it against your territory reassignment and account transfer processes before you enable it in production.
Profile Filtering (Release Update)
Profile Filtering has been available since Summer ‘26, and Salesforce enforces it in Winter ‘27. Once it applies, users can see only their own profile name. Anyone who needs to see other profile names must hold the View All Profiles permission.
Check who needs that access now. Assign the permission to users whose roles depend on seeing profile names. We also recommend testing any Apex, flows, or integrations that display profile names for users other than the running user. Check them in a sandbox first.
To review the update, go to Release Updates in Setup and find Enable Profile Filtering. Follow the testing and activation steps there. Look up your instance’s upgrade date on Salesforce Trust Status under the maintenance tab.
This applies to Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic in Essentials, Professional, Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, Developer, and Database.com editions.
View Setup Audit Trail Permission (Release Update)
Auditors used to need View Setup to read the Setup Audit Trail. That permission opens far more of Setup than they need. The new View Setup Audit Trail permission closes the gap. You can now share the log and nothing else.
Salesforce enforces this update in Spring ‘27. At that point, it automatically enables the new permission on every profile and permission set that already has View Setup, so existing access carries over. Salesforce admins aren’t affected. For new profiles, permission sets, and users, you enable the permission explicitly.
Look up your instance’s upgrade date on Salesforce Trust Status under the maintenance tab.
This applies to Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic in Professional, Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, and Developer editions.
Everyday User Experience
Flexible Inline Editing in List Views
Two new settings give you more control over list view editing. Both are optional and off by default. You will find them in Setup under User Interface Settings:
- Remove list view inline edit dependencies on page layout lets users edit any field they have edit access to. The field no longer needs to appear on the page layout.
- Make inline edits in list views with multiple record types allows inline editing when a list view mixes record types. This works only in list views rendered with Lightning Web Components.
Without these settings, page layout rules still apply. Inline editing stays unavailable for list views that contain more than one record type. The settings apply to Lightning Experience in Professional, Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, and Developer editions.
Follow Button in the Dynamic Highlights Panel
You can now add the standard Follow button to the Dynamic Highlights Panel. Users can then subscribe to updates on the records they care about most.
The button is hidden by default. To show it, open Lightning App Builder and select the Dynamic Highlights Panel on the canvas. In the properties pane, deselect Hide Follow/Unfollow button, then save. Select it again whenever you want the button hidden.
This applies to Lightning Experience in Group, Essentials, Professional, Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, and Developer editions.
Multiple Flow Approvals on One Record Page
The Request Approvals component now lets submitters choose from up to 10 autolaunched flow approval processes. Each process appears under its own label, and the submitter picks the one that fits.
To set it up, open the record page in Lightning App Builder. You need the Customize Application permission. Add the Request Approvals component, then click + Add Flow Approval Process in the property panel. Enter a label for each process so users can tell them apart.
Two options apply to each process:
- Hide submitter comments blocks submitters from adding comments to their submission.
- Require the submitter to select an approver forces them to choose one.
Click a process’s label at any time to review or change its configuration.
This applies to Lightning Experience in Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, Einstein 1, Agentforce 1, and Developer editions. For more Winter 27 Flow updates, click here.
Your Winter ‘27 Test Plan
Pick two or three items from this list and test them in a sandbox:
- Choose your tracked fields on the User object, then confirm the changes appear on the user’s access summary page.
- Turn on Keep manual shares when transferring records, then reassign a test record.
- List the users whose roles require seeing other profile names. Assign them View All Profiles, then run your profile-related Apex, flows, and integrations to confirm they still work.
- Review which profiles and permission sets will receive View Setup Audit Trail in Spring ‘27.
Small platform updates tighten security and remove daily friction. Start with the one that solves a problem your users already report.
Explore related content:
Field history on the User object is the one I’ve been waiting for. Until now, answering “who changed this person’s role and when” meant digging through Setup Audit Trail, and that gets old fast during an audit. If anyone’s turning it on, Profile, Role, Manager and Active cover most of the questions auditors ask, so I’d leave a few of the 20 slots open for custom fields you might need later.
Please note – that did not make it into the final release! I updated the article. Thank you for reading.
I can not find anything on “Custom Field Usage Analysis” in the release notes where did you see this ?
You’re right, that did not make it to the final release! I updated the article. Thank you!