Record Types and Page Layouts in Salesforce

Cloud Coach

Sep 30 2022 7 min read

In this article we will discuss two features of the Salesforce platform: record types and page layouts. In order to create a page layout, we must learn the fundamentals of a Salesforce record type first.

What is a Record Type in Salesforce?

Before we dive into detail on how record types are best managed, let’s start with the basics of how Salesforce defines a record type. According to Salesforce, “record types let you offer different business processes, picklist values, and page layouts to different users. You might create record types to differentiate your regular sales deals from your professional service engagements, offering different picklist values for each.”

In plain English, Salesforce record types allow you to treat various types of data as one unit, for example, name and phone number.

The benefits of Record Types in Salesforce

  • Enabling Salesforce Administrators to break out and bucket records on objects
  • Control which related lists are displayed and which values from a picklist field are relevant for a specific record
  • Allows users a single source of truth
  • Multiple page layouts from the same object 
  • Optimized work efficiency

Where are Record Types used?

Record types are used on standard S-objects such as Accounts and Opportunities to help classify types of customers or different aspects of the sales process such as a sales group, region, or stage.

Now that we have a clear understanding of what Salesforce record types are, let’s dive into page layouts and how the two work together.

record type basic

What is a Page Layout in Salesforce?

Salesforce page layouts are essential for the user experience as they allow users to organize fields in a logical order, set field properties, and add buttons, actions and related lists. Page layouts can easily be tailored to your team and organization. Ultimately, ensuring that you have a consistent and organized layout may lead to a greater ROI (return on investment) and overall success for a user and organization.

What you can control with Page Layouts

  • Which fields are visible (add and remove fields)
  • Where blank spaces appear between fields
  • Field properties, including Read-Only and Required
  • Page sections
  • The number of columns in a section and tab-key order
  • Which buttons and actions are included such as ‘Edit’, ‘Clone’, or ‘Delete’, and in which order
  • Which related lists appear, and customize their properties (ex. Choosing which fields to display)
Page Layout no record types

How Page Layouts and Record Types work Together in Salesforce

As Mentioned previously, another method for utilizing page layouts is with record types. Record types further expand the ability to control the user’s experience on a record page. Besides being able to break out page layouts by profiles, the ability is expanded to support separate page layouts for both profiles and record types. This is done within the page layouts area of an object and by clicking on the page layout assignments button at the top of the page. 

Record types also allow users to filter picklist value sets by each record type. Additionally, when used in conjunction, filtering list views gives users the ability to inline edit. Most Salesforce processes aren’t one-size-fits-all and these features of the platform give Salesforce Administrators a high level of flexibility to help meet a user’s process needs within similar records and workflows. 

Record Types, Page Layouts and Cloud Coach

At face value, these two features on the Salesforce platform are very powerful tools. Combining these features with custom user interface elements inside products like Cloud Coach allow you to better utilize the tools offered by Salesforce!

In many organizations, Cloud Coach is being used by multiple different business units with varying use cases. With our unique approach utilizing record type capabilities, custom pages can be broken into sub-tabs based on your record types present in the org.

cross project with record types
record type on ticket

As seen in the screenshots above, page layouts can be rendered in a custom user interface, allowing capabilities from the page to be increased while still serving up a customized workflow for different types of users and records.

All things considered, Cloud Coach has just the tool for you–through effective utilization of page layouts and record types, there is no doubt that a clear and organized structure will help pave the way to success in your business.




AUTHOR

Cloud Coach

Cloud Coach specializes in enterprise-class project, PSA & PPM software built for businesses that want to make strategic investments in their success.

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