Ravindra Yadav, PBU Director at Provar, contributed to this post. Follow our blog for more insights from our Salesforce and testing experts!

Introduction

The Salesforce Winter ’26 Release is here, and it’s not just another seasonal upgrade. It signals a strategic shift in design, metadata, and security that testers and automation engineers cannot ignore. With SLDS 2 now GA, checkbox and picklist redesigns, renamed entitlement fields, and API Access Control enforcement, QA leaders must balance stability, adaptability, and forward planning.

For automation teams, the challenge is clear: brittle frameworks will struggle, but resilient strategies will thrive. Let’s break down the Salesforce Winter ‘26 release highlights, their implications, and how Provar ensures your automation continues to deliver value.

Core UI and Metadata Updates

1. SLDS 2 – Generally Available

What it is:
SLDS 2 is now officially GA in Winter ’26, marking one of Salesforce’s most significant UI upgrades to date. It introduces a cleaner, more modern design, improved spacing, and accessibility compliance aligned with industry standards. More importantly, SLDS 2 establishes a future-ready design system that Salesforce will continue to build upon in coming releases.

Tester Challenges:
This upgrade is more than visual. Locators tied to SLDS 1 CSS classes or DOM structures are likely to break, particularly in tools that rely on brittle selectors. Visual regression tests may also raise false positives as spacing, font, and color styles change. Teams will need to pay closer attention to automation testing as SLDS 2 puts a stronger emphasis on visual and css properties.

What This Means for Provar Tests:
Provar dynamically adapts to SLDS 2 DOM changes, thanks to its metadata-driven approach. This means your tests will continue to work on SLDS 2 as well without re-engineering. Still, we recommend re-running UI regression packs in Winter ’26 preview sandboxes to confirm that your custom implementation and visual alignment are intact.

2. Multi-Column Sorting in List Views

What it is:
Salesforce Winter ’26 introduces multi-column sorting for list views, giving users the ability to sort records by more than one field at a time. This enhancement reflects real-world business needs, where prioritization often requires layered sorting, for example, ordering Opportunities first by Stage and then by Amount to quickly surface high-value deals. For large datasets, this feature significantly improves usability and decision-making efficiency.

Tester Challenges:
For testers, this new control means ensuring list views are configured with the correct field combinations and validating that results display in the expected order. Test automation must now account for multi-level sorting logic, including persistence of sort order across sessions and when filters are applied. Done well, this can save testers substantial time, because the right data surfaces quickly in every execution run.

What This Means for Provar Tests:
Provar ensures that existing test scripts for list view interactions continue to work without any rework, even with the introduction of multi-column sorting. However, automation teams are encouraged to expand their test coverage by configuring and validating multi-field sorting scenarios within list views. This ensures business-critical data prioritization behaves as expected in real-world workflows.

3. Checkbox Rendering Overhaul

What it is:
In Winter ’26, Salesforce introduces a new rendering model for checkboxes, replacing the earlier DOM structure with a Lightning-icon component. The visual appearance is noticeably different, offering a cleaner, more modern design across list views, related lists, and tables.

Tester Challenges:
This update alters how checkboxes are represented in the DOM, which poses challenges for many automation tools.

  • Locator Failures: XPath-heavy scripts tied to the old checkbox structure are likely to break.
  • Visual Regression Noise: The redesigned states for checked/unchecked boxes may cause false positives in snapshot-based tests.
  • Bulk Selection Risks: Multi-select scenarios in list views (e.g., mass update or delete) may behave differently if scripts fail to recognize the new checkbox structure.

What This Means for Provar Tests:
Provar’s metadata-driven locator strategy automatically adapts to the updated Lightning-icon component, ensuring uninterrupted checkbox testing. Existing scripts continue to function without any changes, allowing teams to stay productive — even as Salesforce modernizes the UI.

4. Entitlement Process → SLA Policy

What it is:
In Winter ’26, Salesforce has renamed Entitlement Process fields to SLA Policy fields, for example, “Entitlement Process Start Time” is now “SLA Policy Start Time.” This change applies across all objects using these fields, such as the Entitlement Object and the Merge Case screen. Importantly, this isn’t just a label adjustment, it’s a metadata-level update, which means the change impacts both UI references and backend metadata.

Tester Challenges:
Automation that references the legacy field labels directly will fail, as the old identifiers no longer exist. This also impacts label assertions, where tests validating field names against expected values will need to be updated to match the new terminology.

What This Means for Provar Tests:
Provar automatically adapts to the updated metadata, ensuring that existing scripts referencing the Entitlement Process continue to work without changes. The only exception is label-based assertions: testers validating field names will need to update their expected values to align with the new SLA Policy terminology.

5. Picklist DOM Restructuring

What it is:
In Winter ’26, Salesforce has restructured the DOM for picklists in Sales and Console applications. While there is no visible change in the UI, the underlying tag attributes in the DOM have been updated. This impacts picklist fields across multiple objects, including Case, Campaign, Opportunity, Quick Lead, Account Team Member, and Operating Hours etc.

Tester Challenges:
The change is subtle but far-reaching. Automation frameworks that rely on DOM attributes for picklist locators will see failures, particularly in regression packs with heavy picklist coverage. Because this spans multiple objects, the effort to manually update brittle locators could become significant.

What This Means for Provar Tests:
Provar remains fully compatible with the restructured DOM. Existing Provar test cases continue to work without any modifications, saving teams both time and effort, especially since this change touches multiple high-use objects across Sales and Service workflows.

6. Convert Lead – Accordion Heading Update

What it is:
In Winter ’26, Salesforce updated the accordion heading tags on the Lead Conversion page, changing them from <h3> to <h2>. While the UI looks unchanged, this is a structural update to the HTML markup.

Why Salesforce did it:
This aligns page structure with accessibility and semantic standards, making Salesforce pages more screen-reader friendly.

Tester Challenges:
Scripts that rely on header tags for navigation or locators may fail due to the tag change. Similarly, assertions validating header text can produce false results if tied to the old <h3> markup. While the update is subtle, it can ripple across regression packs that use header-based locators.

What This Means for Provar Tests:
Provar dynamically adapts to the updated DOM, ensuring test stability even when heading tags change. Existing test cases continue to work seamlessly without modification, and gives testers time to focus on new features.

Other Notable Enhancements

Beyond the headline updates, Winter ’26 introduces several smaller but important changes that testers should be aware of:

  • ICU Locale Format: Salesforce continues its shift toward standardized international formats for dates, times, and numbers. QA teams should validate accuracy in both single-locale orgs and multi-locale deployments, especially where regional compliance is critical.
  • Edit Select Product Header DOM Change: Minor DOM restructuring in the “Edit Select Product” flow may break brittle selectors. Provar adapts automatically, but testers should confirm behaviors in commerce and quoting workflows.
  • Confirm Verified Email Addresses: Enhancements around verified email handling improve trust and compliance. Testers should ensure email verification status flows work correctly in user management and security scenarios.
  • FSL Gantt View DOM Updates: DOM changes to the notifications button in Field Service Lightning (FSL) Gantt View may cause locator instability. Validation of scheduling and notification workflows should be prioritized.
  • Replace Instanced URLs in API Traffic: Salesforce is deprecating instanced URLs in favor of standardized endpoints, improving portability and reducing errors. Testers should validate API test suites for endpoint consistency.
  • Case Descriptions with Rich Text (Beta): Case descriptions can now include formatted text, bullet points, and links. Testers must validate persistence of formatting across different UIs (desktop, console, mobile) and ensure compatibility with reporting and integrations.
  • Lead Convert Accordion Header DOM Change: As noted earlier, accordion headings on the Lead Convert screen now use <h2> tags instead of <h3>. Testers should confirm navigation and assertions remain reliable.
  • Lightning Base Components – Internal DOM Changes: Salesforce has made structural adjustments to several Lightning base components. While visually unchanged, brittle selectors in other tools may fail. Provar ensures test stability through its metadata-driven approach.
  • Scale Center (Deploy Scalable Apps) Updates: There are new enhancements available for Scale Center. It helps organizations monitor and optimize app scalability. From a testing perspective, QA teams may be asked to validate performance and resilience under large-scale deployment scenarios.
  • Agentforce Enhancements: Multiple improvements expand the capabilities of Salesforce’s agent-focused AI. Testers should track these to identify new automation and validation opportunities.

View Provar release notes and Salesforce Winter 26 release notes for more details!

Salesforce Security Policy Updates

API Access Control Enforcement

What it is:
Starting September 2025, Salesforce will enforce API Access Control, which blocks legacy SOAP logins for third-party applications. Only authorised OAuth-based connections will be allowed to make the connection.

Why Salesforce did it:
This policy is a direct response to cybersecurity risks and credential leakage incidents. By mandating OAuth, Salesforce strengthens authentication and aligns with modern enterprise security standards.

Tester Challenges:
Once enabled, any integration or automation still relying on SOAP logins will fail immediately. This poses significant risk for large enterprises with long-standing dependencies on legacy authentication methods, as migrations require careful planning and cross-team coordination.

What This Means for Provar Tests:
Provar already supports OAuth-based connections options, ensuring a smooth transition for customers. Teams using Provar will avoid disruption, provided they validate and migrate test environments to OAuth well before enforcement takes effect. This aligns with Salesforce’s own security best practices.

Best Practices for Test Teams:

  • Create dedicated Connected Apps specifically for test automation.
  • Transition all test connections to OAuth following Salesforce’s security guidelines.
  • Validate test environments against org-level enforcement well before GA.

Note: Until this feature is enabled in your org, legacy login methods will continue to function, but plan proactively to avoid last-minute failures.

For more details, check out Provar Documentation: Salesforce API Access Control Security Update — Impact on Provar Connections. 

Looking Ahead

Winter ’26 makes one thing clear: Salesforce is preparing customers for a modern, secure, and globally consistent platform. For testers, this means doubling down on functional, globalization, and security validation.

While brittle automation tools may face significant disruption, Provar’s adaptability ensures testing remains a driver of confidence, not a blocker of innovation.

As we move forward, the organizations that succeed will be those who evolve their automation strategies proactively, future-proofing test suites while embracing Salesforce’s accelerated innovation cycle.

Ready to talk with a Provar expert about how we can help you stay release-ready? Contact us today to schedule a free demo.