Preparing for Lightning: Replacing URL Hacks with Actions
- 1. Replacing URL hacks with Actions @SFDCAdvocate Michael White Sr. Salesforce Analyst Preparing for Lightning
- 2. Michael White Sr. Salesforce Analyst Varian Medical Systems 172 Trailhead Badges 4 Superbadges
- 3. Forward-Looking Statements Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: This presentation may contain forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions. If any such uncertainties materialize or if any of the assumptions proves incorrect, the results of salesforce.com, inc. could differ materially from the results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements we make. All statements other than statements of historical fact could be deemed forward-looking, including any projections of product or service availability, subscriber growth, earnings, revenues, or other financial items and any statements regarding strategies or plans of management for future operations, statements of belief, any statements concerning new, planned, or upgraded services or technology developments and customer contracts or use of our services. The risks and uncertainties referred to above include – but are not limited to – risks associated with developing and delivering new functionality for our service, new products and services, our new business model, our past operating losses, possible fluctuations in our operating results and rate of growth, interruptions or delays in our Web hosting, breach of our security measures, the outcome of any litigation, risks associated with completed and any possible mergers and acquisitions, the immature market in which we operate, our relatively limited operating history, our ability to expand, retain, and motivate our employees and manage our growth, new releases of our service and successful customer deployment, our limited history reselling non-salesforce.com products, and utilization and selling to larger enterprise customers. Further information on potential factors that could affect the financial results of salesforce.com, inc. is included in our annual report on Form 10-K for the most recent fiscal year and in our quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the most recent fiscal quarter. These documents and others containing important disclosures are available on the SEC Filings section of the Investor Information section of our Web site. Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other presentations, press releases or public statements are not currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase our services should make the purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available. Salesforce.com, inc. assumes no obligation and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements.
- 4. The current state of URL hacks
- 5. What is a URL hack? The phrase URL hack describes a method for crafting a special hyperlink or script and exposing it via button or formula field. These specially crafted hyperlinks often used to provide additional functionality and automation to end-users. Examples: • Setting record types for newly created records. • Pre-populating values on child records created from parent. • Sending emails with a specific template IDs.
- 6. Example from the Success Community Admin needed to streamline creation of renewal opportunities from Account detail page. Organization uses multiple opportunity record types. New records must be created with a specific record type and pre-set values for other fields. Prompting / end-user selection of record type is confusing and error prone.
- 7. Create custom detail page button Look at HTML code of Opportunity page to identify key field IDs Add field IDs and values to button URL Expose to users via Page Layout How it might be solved today URL “Hack” implemented as a custom detail page button
- 8. The drawbacks when using URL hacks. Not officially supported by Salesforce. Difficult to modify and/or maintain. No native admin UI -- limited to editing a formula or URL string. Do not work in Salesforce1 or Lightning Experience!
- 9. Looking down the Trail Future proofing your Admin enhancements
- 10. Released Winter ’16 Continually enhanced and improved since initial introduction. Feature parity between LEX and Classic are getting closer with each release. Welcome to Lightning!
- 11. Start building compatible solutions now! Lightning Experience IS the Future As Admins, we need to build Lightning friendly solutions today. Learn the new tools and technologies available to Admins. Prepare our business users to make the switch. This Way To The Future
- 12. What are Actions in Salesforce? Actions are Admin defined productivity enhancers! They allow user to streamline the creation of related records, can be configured to set default values on new records and are available for use in Classic, Lightning and Salesforce1. Chatter must be enabled in order to use Actions in Classic. Two primary types of actions: Global Actions Object Specific
- 13. Global actions are available for use from any feed enabled page. Add common actions to Global Layout to make them accessible on all Feed enabled pages. In Classic, this includes the Home tab, Chatter tab, object detail records. Global Actions
- 14. Create records that are automatically associated with other records. Commonly used to create a contact or opportunity from an account. Available in Classic via the Chatter Publisher. Object Specific Actions
- 15. Making Actions Available to Users Making Global Actions Visible: Setup > User Interface > Global Actions Define New Action Add to Global Publisher Layout Assign Layout to User
- 16. Setup > Object Manager > Object Buttons, Links, & Actions New Action Add to Page Layout Assign Layout to User Making Actions Available to Users Making Object Specific Actions Visible:
- 17. Demo Actions in Classic, Lightning & SF1
- 18. Example from the Success Community Admin need to streamline creation of renewal opportunities. Business users want the ability to create these from the Account detail page. Organization uses multiple opportunity record types. New records must be created with a specific record type and preset other field values. Prompting / end-user selection of record type is confusing and error prone.
- 19. Demo – Create the Action In Classic – enter setup and navigate to Customize > Accounts > Buttons, Links and Actions New Action Set Action Values – type, target object, record type and define custom label. Save. Add an Action that creates an Opportunity with a specific record type.
- 20. Demo - Extending the Quick Action Extend the previous example to set additional values on the new Opportunity. Supply default values for fields on the newly created record. Enter Setup > Object Manager > Account > Buttons, Links and Actions Setting the Record Type was great but what about….
- 21. In Classic – enter setup and navigate to Customize > Accounts > Page Layouts Edit Page Layout Scroll to ‘Quick Actions’, locate the ‘Create Renewal’ action and drag to ‘Quick Actions in the Salesforce Classsic Publisher’ section of the page layout. Save Changes and Open Account Detail Page Demo – Add Action to Page Layout in Classic
- 22. Demo - Actions in Use Open Account detail page Expand the Feed Create Renewal should be listed in the publisher. Classic
- 23. Open Account detail page Look for ‘Create Renewal’ in Action bar. Demo - Actions in Use Lightning
- 24. The Create Renewal pop-up will appear and display the fields saved in the Action Page Layout. Demo - Actions in Use Lightning
- 25. Demo - Actions in Use Lightning
- 26. Demo - Accessing Actions in Salesforce1 Action in Salesforce1 are listed along the bottom of the App! Items added to page layout are automatically available here if: Added as first item in Classic Added to Lightning and Salesforce1 Actions
- 27. Demo - Accessing Actions in Salesforce1 The previously created action is now accessible on the Account detail page in SF1!
- 28. Demo - Accessing Actions in Salesforce1 Salesforce1 Users Now Have Access to the Same Action! Admins have a single place to go to manage and maintain this going forward.
- 29. Additional Resources Trailhead Modules and Reference Guides
- 30. Additional Resources Trailhead Modules Salesforce1 Mobile Basics App Customization App Customization Lite Chatter Basics Implementation Guides: Quick Actions Implementation Guide Salesforce Developer Blog: Take the First Steps: Ways You Can Replace JavaScript Buttons
- 31. Q&A
- 32. Thank Y u
Editor's Notes
- #4: Key Takeaway: We are a publicly traded company. Please make your buying decisions only on the products commercially available from Salesforce. Talk Track: Before I begin, just a quick note that when considering future developments, whether by us or with any other solution provider, you should always base your purchasing decisions on what is currently available.
- #14: Predefined quick-actions already exist in Salesforce today to facilitate the creation of top-level records such as Accounts, Leads, and Tasks. Predefined actions include items such as: Post File New Event New Task Log a Call Poll Add common actions to Global Layout to make them accessible across the org.
- #15: Object specific actions allow the creation of event, task and object records with master detail or lookup relationship to the parent object. Partial list of standard objects include: Account Contact Case Lead Opportunity Add object specific actions to the applicable page layout to make them accessible to users.
- #21: Switch to Lightning UI/ Enter Admin Mode and review current Action values