Launchpad Lesson 9 - Customizing Page Layouts

Hi there. In this lesson, we're going to look at customizing your page layouts.

For each of your objects, such as Leads, Accounts, Contacts, and Opportunities, you can edit the page layout. The page layout controls what data users can see when viewing a record.

I love page layouts. This is where you start to realize just how much control you have over the user experience.

Let's take a closer look.

There's a real art to creating an effective page layout for your users. It's always advisable to put your most important information in prominent locations on the page.

That doesn't necessarily mean placing it at the very top of the record. You might instead create a special subsection to store related data in the same category.

Ultimately, you don't want your users to have to search too hard for the information they need.

This time, let's explore an Opportunity record.

Click on the Details tab to see all of the Opportunity fields. The fields you see, and how they're arranged, are controlled by the page layout.

Notice how the custom Commission field we created earlier is displayed. Here's the help text, and the commission is exactly 15% of the Amount.

If we change the Amount, the Commission adjusts accordingly.

However, this isn't exactly where I want this field. We'll be moving it to a better location shortly.

Over here on the right-hand side of the page, you'll see a group of related lists.

Remember, in the lesson on Salesforce terminology and navigation, we covered these. Once again, these are lists of objects related to the Opportunity, such as Contact Roles, Quotes, Products, and more.

The related lists displayed here, just like the fields, are controlled by the page layout.

Up here in the top-right corner, you'll see a series of rectangular buttons. These are called Actions because they allow users to perform various commands within Salesforce.

There are usually four or so actions displayed, so we reserve these for the actions users perform most frequently. If the object has more than four actions, we can access the others using the dropdown arrow.

And guess what controls how these actions are displayed? That's right—the page layout.

Let's show you how to change the layout.

Click Setup, and then click the Object Manager tab.

Now, find the Opportunity object in the left-hand column and select Page Layouts.

You'll see that there's already a default layout called Opportunity Layout.

Every object has a default layout that's already built. This is what you see when you first get your Salesforce licenses.

As your Salesforce customization expands, you can build multiple layouts for each object and assign them to different profiles.

That way, a salesperson and someone in the Accounting department could be looking at the exact same record but see different data, arranged in different ways based on what's most important to their jobs.

For this course, we'll use only one layout for each object. For many companies, that's all you'll ever really need.

Go ahead and click Opportunity Layout.

This will open the Page Layout Builder. As you can tell, it looks nothing like the page we were viewing when we were on a record.

That's because the Page Layout Builder comes from the Classic version of Salesforce, but we still use it to control the data displayed in Lightning Experience.

At the top of the page is the palette. This is where we can choose which items we want to add to the page.

On the left side of the palette, you'll see a column with different options. As you click through these options, the contents of the palette will change.

Let's start with Fields.

Scroll down to the first section, called Opportunity Information. Here, you can see multiple sections separated by yellow lines.

Notice that as we scroll down the page, the palette stays fixed.

In the palette, any fields that are grayed out are already on the page. If they're not grayed out, they're available to be added.

Let's show you how to add or remove a field.

We'll move Quantity onto the page and remove Next Step.

To add a field, simply drag and drop it onto the page. To remove a field, click the Remove icon.

Super easy!

Now, if you're wondering why I'm removing the Next Step field, which seems like it could be useful for users, I'll explain my rationale at the end of the upcoming lesson on Opportunity setup. You can then decide for yourself whether you want to remove it as well.

Now you know how to rearrange fields. Simply click and drag them around the page layout.

Remember the Commission field we created? It's down at the bottom of the first column.

For whatever reason, Salesforce likes to put all new custom fields in this location. However, I think it makes more sense to put Commission directly below the Amount field, so we'll move it there.

If you want to create a new section, like this one for Additional Information, you can drag the Section component wherever you want on the page.

At Rocket Shop, we want to keep the information we learned during our sales calls separate. So, we'll call this section Sales Call Discovery.

We suggest keeping the default layout settings, as that's how the other sections are configured.

Then, we'll move these three standard fields that Salesforce created for us into that section.

We can also create additional custom fields to go here. And don't worry—we will.

If you don't like the standard fields Salesforce provided, you now know how to remove them.

Now, in the left-hand column of the palette, click Related Lists.

Just like with fields, you can drag new related lists into this section, remove existing ones, or rearrange the ones that are already there.

For now, let's remove Campaign Influence, Quotes, and Products. You won't need these to get started.

If you ever begin using Campaigns, a marketing object, or start working with a tool called Salesforce CPQ—which is beyond the scope of this course—you'll want to add these objects back to the related lists.

The last thing we'll look at is Mobile & Lightning Actions.

Remember those action buttons at the top-right of the record? I'm going to show you how to edit them.

Click Mobile & Lightning Actions to display the different options in the palette, and scroll down slightly to find the relevant section.

The way Salesforce has organized these actions is a little unusual.

If we go to the Opportunity record, you'll see actions for Follow, Edit, Delete, Clone, and New Note, which is nested under the dropdown.

However, on the page layout screen for this object, you'll see Edit, Delete, Clone, Log a Call, and several other actions. Here's New Note, followed by Post and File. But Follow is nowhere to be found.

Why is it organized this way? Nobody knows. Well, somebody probably knows, but it's not me.

Basically, the actions starting with Log a Call are activity actions, which we'll cover later.

Follow, which you don't see here, along with Post and File, are related to Chatter, which we'll also cover later. The remaining actions are the actions available on the record page.

If we wanted to add one more action to the page—for example, New Contact—we would simply drag it from the palette into this space.

Remember, you add actions here because they provide your salespeople with straightforward ways to update records.

We'd add New Contact because your sales team might regularly meet new people during sales calls, and we want to make it easy for them to add those contacts. By adding the action, we make it readily accessible.

Your team's most frequently used actions should be the ones that are front and center.

There are no fixed rules for why you do things a certain way in Salesforce. You design it around how your team works.

The only rules are the rules for how you implement those designs—which is, after all, why we're here in this course.

We've made all our changes to the page layout, so we can click Save.

There's also a Quick Save option, which allows you to save your changes while remaining on the edit screen. I probably should have been using it along the way, but I didn't.

We use Save to complete the entire process and close the edit window.

Let's take a look at our new Opportunity record page.

When you return to the record, note that it may take a few minutes for all your changes to appear. Keep clicking Refresh in your browser.

Some changes may appear immediately, while others can take a little longer. Don't worry—they'll show up.

And here are our changes.

Commission has been moved directly below Amount. Our new Sales Call Discovery section has been created with the three selected fields.

Quantity has been added, and Next Step has been removed.

The three related lists for Campaign Influence, Quotes, and Products are gone, and we now have a New Contact action.

There you go!

There's a lot to take in here, so don't worry if it seems a little theoretical. We'll get plenty of practice setting up pages for our four sales objects in upcoming lessons.

Next, we'll look at another form of page layout: Lightning Pages in the App Builder.

It's pretty cool stuff. We'll see you then!.