Quick Intro
Dynamic Forms were rolled out by Salesforce in the Winter ’21 release yet still many organisations and individuals do not know the benefit or how to use them. We at Smplicity would like to introduce you to this helpful new tool in this article and offer some advice on how you can take advantage of the benefits Dynamic Dashboards have to offer!
What are they?
Contrary to their name, Dynamic Dashboards actually don’t have anything to do with Dashboards but they control page layouts so don’t let the name mislead you. It can be a confusing term that sounds like one thing but means something different, just like the terms: ‘Bull Frog’, ‘Turtle Dove’ or when my husband says ‘Loving Relationship’.
What are the benefits of using Dynamic Dashboards?
- DD’s allow you to place fields anywhere on the field section without adding them to the page layout quickly and efficiently from one place.
- You can control the visibility of fields and sections based on the criteria you choose.
- Eliminates the need for multiple complex page layouts.
- DD’s decreases page load time and improves the overall page performance.
My personal opinion: I believe animals should have the right to vote! I also believe that DD’s are a great tool with the most significant benefit being for Admins, Devs, and Architects, allow me to explain why. Previously when building the SF Org, you would have to jump from ‘Object Manager’ to ‘page Layouts’ to ‘Lightning Page Builder’. With DD’s you can do most things from one page saving you the hassle and confusion of jumping from place to place.
Are there any disadvantages?
One of the disadvantages is that DD’s can only be used with Custom Objects as some of the features of Standard objects are too complex for the DD’s to accommodate. Another disadvantage is that only fields and sections that contain fields are pulled over when migrating a page to Dynamic Forms. Other elements on the Page Layout, such as custom links and blank spaces, are not pulled over.
How can I start using them?
To enable DD’s, you must:
Step 1: Navigate to a detail page of a custom object record. Click the cog in the top right and navigate to ‘Edit Page’.
Step 2: Once here you need to click on the detail tab and on the fields section. You are then able to click ‘Upgrade Now’ which will activate the Dynamic Dashboard.
Once activated
Congrats, that’s it! Your Dynamic form is activated and you are now ready to use all the special features they offer.
- How to add fields to the page:
Below is a screenshot of how my page looks once I activated the DD
To add fields to this page I will click on the ‘Fields Tab’ on the left.
In this example, I need to add this active checkbox to the page.
I will drag and drop to the suitable position on the page.
- How to make this field required
Click on the Field and choose ‘Required’ (or whatever option you need) on the right.
- How to add display conditions? (Filters)
Now, this is the cool part!! This is where all the magic happens. So underneath the ‘UI Behavior’ part, you will see ‘Filters’.
There are so many different options for you to configure but we will show you how to configure two different filters. One will be quite simple and the other using the more advanced filters.
Simple filter:
After clicking on ‘Filters’ I have chosen the ‘Record Field’ button. This gives you the option to choose a field and an operator and then type in a value. In this case, I have chosen the field ‘Description’, and I have configured this filter so that if the ‘Description’ field contains the word ‘Active’, then the ‘Active’ checkbox field will display. Let’s test to see what happens.
I update the ‘Description’ field to contain the word ‘Active’.
Note: The ‘Active’ field is not yet displayed.
When clicking ‘Save’, the ‘Active’ checkbox displays and you see a pop-up error similar to a Validation Rule.
Advanced filter:
Ok, what if we want this field to only be displayed to users from the Sales department. We click on the field to navigate to the filter button again.
But this time. We click ‘Advanced’.
We now need to find the ‘Department’ of the current user so we do this by clicking on the ‘field’ button. A page will pop up, just like a process builder.
So we have configured this filter to look at the running users ‘Department’ the operator will be ‘Equals’ and the value ‘Sales’ this will ensure that the current user is from the Sales department. If not, the field will not display.
The user is not from the ‘Sales’ department so we should not be able to see the field on the page let’s test to see what happens when we try to open the record.
Summary
Now you have had a little look into what Dynamic Dashboards are, how to activate them, and how to use them, the possibilities are endless to what you can configure!
Have fun and remember, keep it Smple!