Quickly edit records in Salesforce

There are features in Salesforce most users don’t know about, which can make their life easier and work quicker. Also reason why I hate to use record types as much as possible. And things I usually forget to tell new users.

Edit multiple records at once

It was here forever, in Classic you had to enable it and it was one of the first thing I enabled – enable multiple records at once from list view.

When you slowly move your mouse over records at list view and take a good look you might spot it – the cursor sometimes changes to pencil. That is the place!

Edit in list views

And it is also reason why Salesforce in Lightning allows you to wrap lines. The idea is simple – you might be able to edit records in a similar way as in Excel, directly in list views and then save it all at once!

When it doesn’t work?

There are a few reasons why you might not see pencil but rather a lock.

  • you have multiple record types in a view, in such case you need to filter for specific record type;
  • the field isn’t on a page layout;
  • the field is on a page layout but read only;
  • the field is DateTime or standard fields of specific types – read the whole list of exceptions at Salesforce site.

Quickly edit a specific field on a record

Ok, what if it isn’t possible to edit a field in list view but you still want to make it easy for users and minimise number of clicks?

Some users found out, that they don’t have to open a record, click on the pencil next to a field and edit the value, but they can click on the arrow of right side in a list view and edit right from there, in a dialog. Not bad, about one click less, it might be also quicker to load. But what if they want/need to open the detail, to check something and then update the value?

Quick Actions to win!

That’s exactly the moment for Update quick action. I love them from the moment Jodie showed them to me at London’s Calling and this is perfect example.

You create Update quick action and put the fields you need to be able to quickly edit on its layout. Plus you can predefine some values. And then just add it on a page layout and when user click on the button they can see and immediately edit the fields they need, plus the values can be preset for them. Click Save and they saved some time as it is usually way quicker than to edit the whole form.

Update Quick Action

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