As a 5-star certified Salesforce Partner, we frequently get asked about Salesforce List Views. End-users and system administrators are always looking for Salesforce List View tips and best practices.
Salesforce list views allow you to access data on objects where you can create new views in an organized fashion, with up to 15 visible fields displayed as columns in the list view. Additionally, you can leverage field filters to refine the data and select fields to display based on any field you have access to. You can pick the order that the columns display in, and you can even sort by a column ascending or descending.
Each user can have their own personal custom list views, and these new list views can and should be leveraged to speed up user access to important records. For example, if you would like to create an Account list view for records you own, such as “My Accounts in California”, then use the “My” criteria in the “Filter by Owner” section instead of adding an additional filter of “Owner = Your Name” (picture below).
All object list views will have the “Filter by Owner” section. If your company is using teams (Account, Sales, or Case), then you can use the “My Team” option to see all records owned by all members of the team(s) that you are a member of.
Salesforce list views for Task and Event records in the system use the “My Team” option in a slightly different manner. When selected, this option shows Task and Event records that are owned by users who report to you in the role hierarchy. This permits you to see a holistic view of activities your team members are working on; however, if you don’t have any users below you in the role hierarchy, the option may not be available to you.
Task list views in Lightning Experience also give you the option to display Tasks you have delegated to other individuals in order to track their progress. Behind-the-scenes, this displays all of the Tasks you have created but assigned to someone else. Additionally, you can add filter criteria of “Closed = False” so that you only see open Tasks show in the list (picture below).
Salesforce Lightning Experience allows you to leverage the “Search this list…” functionality, where you can type in search criteria and further refine the results of the list view based on your input. You can also drag the lines between the columns to make them wider or narrower to meet your needs. The column widths will stay as you set them until the list view is edited. When edited, the columns go back to their default widths.
With “Inline Editing” and “Enhanced Lists”, you can even edit certain fields right in the lists. When hovering over a field in a list view with your mouse, you will see a pencil icon (picture below) next to fields that are editable. Just double click on the field and edit away.
You are not limited to one record. By using the “Action” boxes on the left, you can select up to 200 records at one time to edit (picture below). Then double-click in the field to bring up the edit window. In the picture below, I have chosen to update the four selected records with a rating of cold. Save and you are done. This is much quicker than editing each record individually!
Use mass edit list views if you need to make the same change to many records. For instance, say you want to start using the “Rating” field on the lead page and want to start all of your leads out as “Cold”. You could create a lead list view with the criteria of “Rating = “ leaving the value text field blank. Then you can mass update 200 leads at a time and they will fall out of the list when you refresh.
If you are using Record Types on your objects, or if you want to edit tasks in a list view, then you need to specify the record type in the list view criteria (or use “Task = True”) in an activity list view. Salesforce only allows Salesforce list views for a single record or activity type.
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