Welcome to Record Types, a video in the Who sees What series, on data visibility and access
in salesforce.
You often need the ability to organize and gather data in different ways and at different
times, around the same object.
For example, you may have one case object, but have 2 variations: Internal and External.
They might gather slightly different information and need different picklist choices
Even the business processes that each flavor goes through may be different.
Record Types are the answer.
They are an incredibly versatile tool that helps you manage and organize data about an
object.
Record types control 3 things: business processes
Page layouts and Picklist values
business processes are special picklist fields that capture the lifecycle of opportunities,
cases, solutions or leads. page layouts let you select and organize groups
of fields related to an object.
picklist values are the lists of choices that you define when you create a picklist field.
You can define a master list, with all possible choices, and use record types to display a
subset, depending on the situation.
Lets take a look at this in the app.
We’ll create the business processes, page layouts, and record types we’ll need, for
internal and external cases.
Then we’ll create and assign our picklist values.
First, lets add any values we need to the Status field.
The status field is used by Case support processes.
We’ll type in any new field values we need, for either internal or external cases
and click Save Then we’ll go into the Support Processes
to define the processes that are unique to each type of case.
We’ll create a process for internal Now we’ll create a process for External
Next page layouts: We’ll create the Internal layout first
Before you do this, make sure you’ve created any custom fields you need.
The custom fields we’ll use in this example have already been created for us.
We’ve got a custom field for location, so we know if the employee logging the case is
in headquarters, or in a satellite office.
Lets drag that onto the layout, along with employee ID.
For internal cases instead of the Contact field we’re going to use a custom lookup
field, that looks up to the User table.
Let’s remove fields that aren’t necessary for internal cases, like Account.
We can’t remove contact field but we can move it to a new section, so its out of the
way.
Notice that there is no field for record type yet.
As soon as we create at least one record type, the system will generate a field called “Case
Record Type” and we can then add it to the page layouts.
This isn’t necessary but your users may find it useful to see which record type they
are using, especially if they have access to more than 1 type.
We’ll save the Internal layout, and now lets create the External layout
We’ll base this on the existing Case Layout We would add any necessary custom fields,
delete fields we aren’t using, and organize everything into sections.
And save.
Now we’ll create 2 record types.
We’ll name this record type Internal, choose the Internal Support Process we just defined,
give it a description and make sure it is Active.
Now we will make this record type available to the profiles that will use it.
Only our Support Users create internal cases, so we’ll select that just profile
On this screen we will choose which page layout to use.
We’ll select the internal page layout we just created.
And click Save and New Now we’ll create the External record type.
Both our Sales Users and our Support Users create cases for customers, so we’ll check
both these profiles.
Click Save Next, we’ll create all the picklist values
we need.
We’ll go back to the fields section, and add some values to the “Type” field
We can assign these values to the appropriate record type.
and click Save.
The last thing we’ll do is add the record type field onto both the internal and external
page layouts so any user that has access to more than one record type can quickly see
which type they are using.
We’ll go back to page layout, and edit both the internal and external layouts.
Done!
Lets log in as a Support User to see what this looks like from the perspective of our
end users.
When Lars creates a new case, he can switch between the record types if necessary.
The description field for each record type displays here, making it easy for him to know
which type he should use.
And choosing a record type provides Lars with the fields, picklist values, and business
process that he will need for that type of case.
He won’t be overwhelmed with choices he doesn’t need, or fields that don’t apply.
Things to watch our for: Once you have created and assigned record
types, you can edit those assignments by profile, in the Manage Users | Profiles section of
the Setup pages.
If any records have already been created in your system, before you have created and started
using record types, those original records will not have an associated record type.
You’ll need to retroactively assign the proper record type ID.
You can use Data Loader to extract your cases.
Be sure to include at least one of each record type so you have the ID.
Then you can apply the correct record type ID and then update the records using the Data
Loader Update button.
For more information, see the following topics in Salesforce Help or visit the Salesforce
Success Community at success dot salesforce dot com
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