On July 22nd, 2017, Salesforce will drop support for TLS 1.0. Make sure your business is ready for the change.

 

What is TLS?

Transport Layer Security, or TLS, is a protocol that is used to create encrypted connections via the internet. TLS is a good thing – it helps keep your data secure; however, as time passes, updates to this protocol are required to make sure your information stays safe.

Originally defined in 1999, the TLS 1.0 protocol has been updated multiple times to keep the TLS protocol safe.  Currently, there is TLS protocol 1.0, 1.1 and 1.2.

 

What is happening?

Salesforce is disabling the TLS 1.0 protocol on July 22nd, 2017. It is doing so to follow data security best practices.

 

How will this impact me/my business?

The biggest impact will be that on July 22nd, if you haven’t made the appropriate changes, you will no longer be able to access some or all of your Salesforce services. Not only would you (or your end users) no longer be able to access Salesforce, but the majority of your company would likely have no idea why this was happening. All of this culminates into a fire drill of upset end users who are, by the minute, losing productivity while gaining frustration.

 

That sounds bad. How do I avoid this?

Unfortunately, there is no single “magic button” that will work for everyone here. The correct actions to take will depend on which services your business uses and how it accesses Salesforce.

As of this publishing (May 5, 2017), Salesforce lists the following as factors that may require different instructions to be followed:

• Channels impacted:
  • Internet browsers
  • API (inbound) integrations
  • Call-out (outbound) integrations
• Salesforce Help/Success Community:
  • Salesforce Help & Training
  • Success community
  • Case submission and management
• Salesforce features impacted:
  • Salesforce Mobile Apps
  • Salesforce Classic
  • Salesforce1
  • SalesforceA
  • Data Loader
  • Identify Connect
  • Community and Sites
  • Custom HTTPS Domains
  • CTI Toolkit
  • Open CTI
  • Chatter Desktop
  • Salesforce File Sync
  • Salesforce IQ
  • Marketing Cloud
  • Pardot B2B Marketing Automation
  • Single Sign-On
  • Delegated Authentication
  • SAML
  • Force.com Offline Connect
• AppExchange apps impacted:
  • Apps
• Developer tools impacted:
  • Mobile apps developed with the Salesforce Mobile SDK
  • Force.com Migration Tool
  • Force.com IDE Plug-In for Eclipse

 

So what are my options?

DIY

If you feel confident you can handle this internally, Salesforce has started to put together directions of their own. You can find those here.

 

PREVENTATIVE MAINTENANCE

If this seems too large of a project to handle on your own, it may be time to consider investing into preventative maintenance, an important yet sometimes undervalued concept.  

Maintenance is neither a high profile nor fun topic, yet it is fundamental to maintaining and even improving your end users’ productivity and experience.  And in the world of Salesforce, which introduces various types of innovation at blazing speeds (e.g. seasonal updates, acquisitions, yearly product launches), ongoing maintenance becomes even more important to both your long-term strategy as well as protecting your investment in Salesforce.

Below are three ways preventative maintenance can help your organization maximize its investment:

1. Continuous Improvement.  No one likes stale software, especially one that is riddled with bugs. But when it comes to maintenance, most of us only focus on the defects.  In reality, maintenance is just as much about taking in new ideas, prioritizing those ideas in a meaningful way and introducing productive change into the system as it is fixing bugs.  
2. Innovation.  Salesforce is committed to innovation. As you probably know, Salesforce releases three major updates a year. And whether it’s through internal development or acquisitions, Salesforce is continually introducing new products or features. These innovations, while incredibly helpful, frequently require time and energy to utilize. You, as the customer, must often balance the benefits of new updates against all of the change requests and bug fixes already on your plate. In most cases, we find organizations aren’t able to maximize what is available as the backlog of other items builds.
3. Peace of mind.  With the TLS change coming, you already see a potential fire drill on the horizon. Unfortunately, for every fire drill you do see, there could be dozens waiting to be discovered. A solid maintenance program puts processes in place to efficiently find these hidden emergencies before they happen. Investing a little time in these processes now will significantly minimize future issues and keep your end users happy.

 

Don’t wait until after you’ve had an emergency to consider preventative maintenance. Keeping your end users happy while maximizing productivity through continuous improvement, innovation and peace of mind are all value-rich results that few businesses can afford to lose.

 

If you would like to learn more about how Simplus can help your organization prepare for the TLS 1.0 change or manage your Salesforce instance, please contact us call us at 855.256.8391 or [formlightbox text=”Click Here.”][high_intent interest=”Footer”][/formlightbox]