Salesforce.com For Dummies. Paz Jon

Using the View drop-down list

      Strategy and execution are all about focus. With custom list views, you can see and use lists to better focus on your business. A list view is a segment of the tab’s records based on defined criteria. When you select a list view, a list of records appears based on your criteria.

      On each tab, Salesforce provides a selection of popular default views to get you started. To try a list view (using Accounts as the example), follow these steps (which apply to all tabs):

      1. Click the Accounts tab.

      The Accounts home page appears (refer to Figure 3-8).

      2. Select My Accounts from the View drop-down list.

      A list page appears that displays a set of columns representing certain standard account fields and a list of your account records. If no account records appear, you don’t own any in Salesforce.

      3. From the list page, you can perform a variety of functions:

      • Re-sort the list. Click a column header. For example, if you click the Account Name header, the list sorts alphabetically, as shown in Figure 3-9.

      • View records beginning with a certain letter. Click that letter link above the list to view those records.

      

If a user sorts by a column other than name, the letter search looks for values in that column starting with the selected letter. For example, if sorting by State, selecting C filters for accounts with states starting with C rather than account names starting with C.

      • Display fewer or more records on the page. Use the Display Records per Page picklist on the bottom left of the page to show more or less records. Additionally, the Next Page link takes you to the next set of records.

      • View a specific record. Click the link for that record in the Account Name column. The Account detail page appears, displaying the record and its related lists.

      • Update a specific record. Click the Edit link at the beginning of its row. The account record appears in Edit mode.

      • Delete a record. Click the Del link near the beginning of that record’s row. A pop-up window appears, prompting you to click OK to accept the deletion. If you click OK, the list page reappears, minus the account that you just wiped out. Don’t worry – in Chapter 5, in the “Resurrecting records from the Recycle Bin” section, we show you how to bring recently deleted records back to life.

      • Follow this record. If you have Chatter enabled, you’ll see a green circle with a white plus sign (+) in it to the right of the Del link. Clicking this plus sign changes the green circle to a blue checkmark that signifies that you are now following that record. Any updates, modifications, or discussions made on that record will show up in your Chatter feed so you can stay informed.

      FIGURE 3-9: Re-sorting a list.

       Building a custom list view

      If you have a particular way that you like to look at records, you can build a custom list view. If you have the right permissions, you can share this view with other groups or your entire organization. (Or maybe you should just keep your views to yourself.)

      To create a custom list view (using Contacts as the example), follow these steps (which apply to all tabs):

      1. Click the Contacts tab.

      The Contacts home page appears.

      2. To the right of the View drop-down list, click the Create New View link.

      A Create New View page appears.

      3. Name the view by typing a title in the View Name field.

      For example, if you want to create a list of your contacts that are senior executives, use a title like My Senior Execs.

      4. Select whether you want to search All Contacts or just My Contacts by selecting one of the two radio buttons.

      In this example, select the My Contacts radio button.

      5. Type the campaign name into the Campaign Name field.

      For this running example, assume that your marketing manager created campaigns. You may want to tie a campaign to filter your List View after identifying which contacts you want the view to search.

      

Tying a campaign to your List View filters your results to those contacts related to a specific marketing campaign. You must have the proper permissions in the Professional, Enterprise, and Unlimited editions for this capability.

      6. (Optional) Below the Filter by Additional Fields heading, enter search criteria.

      A basic criteria query is made up of three elements:

      • Field: The leftmost box is a drop-down list of all the fields on the contact record. In this example, choose Title.

      • Operator: The middle box is a drop-down list of operators for your search. That sounds complicated, but it’s easier than you think. For this example, select the Contains option.

      • Value: In the rightmost box, type the value that you want in the search. In this example, you might type vp, vice president, ceo, cio, or cto.

      7. Select the columns that you want to have displayed by selecting a value from the drop-down lists in some or all of the fields provided.

      Although Salesforce’s preset views have common fields, such as Phone and Email, you can select any of up to 15 fields to display on your custom view page.

      8. Decide whether you want others to see your custom view.

      Administrators and certain users have this permission. Your decision is made simple if the step doesn’t appear. Otherwise, select one of the three options. (Basically, the three radio buttons translate to none, all, or selective.) If you choose the third option, use the drop-down list to select a group and then click the arrows to move that group into the Shared To column.

      9. Click Save.

      A new list view appears based on your custom criteria. If you don’t get all the results that you anticipate, double-check and refine the filter criteria. For example, if your list should include directors but doesn’t, click the Edit link and update the view.

      

As long as you save your custom list view, you can use it later from the Views menu. To reduce list view clutter, be considerate and lean toward saving list views that are visible only to yourself. Otherwise, you risk flooding your public list view with several similar-but-slightly-different views that aren’t culled over time.

       Reviewing the Recent Items section

      On a tab’s home page, just below the views, you see a Recent Items section. (The name of the item will match whatever type of record you’re on. For example, Recent Accounts is the section name if you’re on the Accounts tab.) This section comes with three or four relevant columns that you can modify. You can see as few as 10 items and as many as 25 items at a time by clicking the link at the bottom of the table.

      To test the Recent Items section (by using Leads as the example), go to the Leads home page and follow these steps (which you can apply to all tabs):

      1. In the Recent Leads section, select an option from the drop-down list at the upper-right corner of