Salesforce Winter ’27 is here, and as always, there’s a lot to go through in the release notes.
Rather than putting together another long list of every new feature, I decided to pick just five updates that caught my attention. They cover a mix of Apex, administration, APIs, reporting, and security—and most of them have a fairly practical impact.
So, let’s keep it short and look at the six updates I found interesting.
1. Bigger Apex Heap Limits
This is probably one of the more useful updates for developers working with larger datasets.
The Apex heap limit for synchronous transactions increases from 6 MB to 10 MB, while the limit for asynchronous transactions goes from 12 MB to 25 MB.
That extra space could help reduce heap-related runtime errors when Apex code has to process larger datasets or perform more complex operations.
One nice touch from Salesforce is the ability to temporarily enforce the older Summer ’26 limits in nonproduction orgs. This gives teams a way to test whether their code will still work before deploying to a Summer ’26 production org.
Read the Salesforce release note
2. Field History Tracking for Users Is Generally Available
This is one of those features that seems simple, but can be quite useful for admins.
Salesforce now supports Field History Tracking on the User object, allowing you to track up to 20 User fields.
You can see what changed, the old and new values, when the change happened, and who made it. The tracking also covers changes made through the UI, bulk operations, Apex, and the API.
For anyone who has ever had to investigate “Who changed this user record?”, this should make that investigation considerably easier.
Read the Salesforce release note
3. Use latest Instead of a REST API Version Number
A small API change, but an interesting one.
Salesforce now lets you use latest instead of a specific API version in a REST API URI.
For example:
/services/data/latest/sobjects/Account
Salesforce routes the request to the most recent REST API version supported by the org.
For integrations that want to work with the latest supported API version, this removes the need to keep changing the version number in the endpoint.
Read the Salesforce release note
4. Compare Field Values Directly in SOQL
This is an interesting one for developers. Winter ’27 introduces the FORMULA() function in a SOQL WHERE clause (Beta), allowing you to perform arithmetic calculations and compare values between fields directly in your query.
That means you can handle some comparisons in SOQL without creating a separate formula field or adding post-processing logic in Apex.
It should make certain queries more expressive—and potentially save you from creating a formula field just to support a single comparison.
Read the Salesforce release note
5. Preview Records Directly from Lightning Reports
This one is more about improving the everyday Salesforce experience.
With record preview in Lightning Reports (Beta), you can view a record in a side panel without leaving the report.
Your report filters, columns, and record list remain visible, so you can review multiple records without constantly navigating back and forth.
It’s a relatively small change, but if you spend a lot of time working from reports, these little improvements can make a difference.
Read the Salesforce release note
6. Profile Filtering Is Now Enforced
The final update is more about security and something admins should be aware of.
Profile Filtering is now enforced in Winter ’27. With profile filtering enabled, users can’t see profile names other than their own unless they have the View All Profiles permission.
The update was first introduced in Summer ’26 and is being enforced in Winter ’27.
If you have users, automations, or processes that depend on visibility into profile names, it’s worth checking whether they have the required access before the update affects them.
Read the Salesforce release note
Final Thoughts
There are obviously many more changes in Salesforce Winter ’27 Release, but these six stood out to me for different reasons.
The Apex heap limit increase gives developers more room to work with larger datasets. User Field History Tracking gives admins better visibility into changes. The latest REST API version simplifies a small part of API management. Record previews make reports a little easier to work with, while Profile Filtering is an important security-related change for admins to be aware of.
If you’re going through the Winter ’27 release notes, these are five updates I’d put on my reading list.
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