Application security is always important—even more so when the application is delivered across a public network, such as the Internet. Salesforce.com has developed various mechanisms to secure the platform and reduce the chances of unauthorized people accessing your company's data. This chapter describes the way login attempts to the system are controlled and explores the features available to help you manage your users' access to the Salesforce CRM application.
In this chapter, we will also look at establishing your company profile within Salesforce and how core information, such as the details that are provided when your company first signs up with Salesforce.com, can be managed.
You will also be shown how to find the Salesforce Setup menu and will be introduced to the settings available for the organization-wide customization of the application's user interface along with a detailed description of the searching facilities offered by the Salesforce CRM application.
Throughout this chapter, notes and tips intended to offer further guidance within areas of functionality are provided; they have been generated from practical results and experience of the Salesforce CRM system administration.
In this chapter, we will cover:
The Salesforce Setup menu
User login and authorization
Company profile
User interface
Search options
To start, we will look at the location and the capabilities of the Salesforce Setup menu.
Depending on your organization's user interface settings, you will access the setup menu from either the drop-down menu under your name or as a top-level Setup link, as shown in the upcoming screenshots.
The setup menu appears on the left-hand side of the page. Clicking on the menu option text (or the [>] icon to the left of a menu option) expands the menu; you can then select the required menu item link, as shown in the following screenshot for the Manage Users | Users setup page:
Clicking on the down arrow icon to the left of the expanded menu option collapses the menu option. You can also expand or collapse all the menu options by clicking on the Expand All or Collapse All links, as shown in the following screenshot:
To quickly find a Setup menu item, type the first few characters of the setup name in the Quick Find search box. As you type, any options that match your search term appear in the setup menu. For example, to find the User Interface page, start to type user interface in the Quick Find box, as shown in the following screenshot:
At the top of the Salesforce page, you might see the Setup link, as shown in the following screenshot:
If you do not see the Setup link at the top of the Salesforce page, then click on your name and you will then see the Setup option, as shown in the following screenshot:
This setting is controlled by the Enable Improved Setup User Interface setting, which is covered later in this chapter.
Note
As a system administrator, you will use the Setup menu frequently, so it is recommended that you enable the improved setup user interface.
The improved setup user interface setting is activated for all new instances by default. Existing Salesforce instance admins should be aware that this user interface setting determines how everyone in your organization accesses the Setup menu.
When describing any setup steps within this book, we will begin the navigation path from Setup. For example, to enable the Improved Setup User Interface, we will present the navigation path as Setup | Customize | User Interface | Enable Improved Setup User Interface.
We will now look at how users' login requests are verified and authorized by the Salesforce CRM application.
Organizations have several methods of accessing the Salesforce CRM application. Access can be gained from either the user interface (using a web browser), the API (for example, using an integrated client application or the Apex Data Loader), a desktop client (for example, Salesforce for Outlook), or from a mobile client application.
Whenever a login attempt is made to Salesforce using any of these preceding methods, the user's login request is authorized by the system using the following sequence of checks:
Does the user's profile have any login restrictions?
Does the user's IP address appear within the organization's trusted IP address list?
Has the user been activated from this IP address previously?
Does the user's web browser have a valid browser cookie stored from Salesforce?
If the user's login is from neither a trusted IP address nor a browser with a valid Salesforce cookie, the login is denied. To gain access to Salesforce, the user's identity must be confirmed by successfully completing the computer activation process.
Now, let's look at each of these login checks in more detail.
The login hour and IP address restrictions can be set for the user's profile. If these are set and there are login attempts from a user outside the specified hours or from an unknown IP address, access is denied.
If login hour restrictions are set for the user's profile, any login attempt outside the specified hours is denied. Login hour restrictions can be set on the required user's profile by carrying out the following steps:
Go to the Profile menu, by navigating to Setup | Manage Users | Profiles. Now, choose a profile, select the Login Hours link, and then click on Edit.
Set the days and hours when users with this profile can log in to Salesforce.com.
Navigate to Setup | Company Profile | Company Information, click on the Edit button, and select the required time zone from the Default Time Zone picklist.
The login hours that are set apply strictly to that exact time even if a user has a different personal time zone or if the organization's default time zone is changed.
To allow users to log in at any time, click on clear all times, as shown in the following screenshot:
To prevent users from accessing the system on a specific day (say, to carry out internal system maintenance), set the start time and end time to the same value, for example, Start Time to 8:00 AM and End Time to 8:00 AM (as shown in the Saturday and Sunday example settings in the previous screenshot).
If IP address restrictions are defined for the user's profile, any login attempt from an unknown IP address is denied.
To restrict the range of valid IP addresses through the Profile menu, navigate to Setup | Manage Users | Profiles. Now, choose a profile, select the Login IP Ranges link, and then click on Add IP Ranges.
Enter a valid IP address in the Start IP Address field and a higher IP address in the End IP Address field.
The start and end addresses specify the range of IP addresses from which users can log in. To allow a login from a single IP address, enter the same address in both fields.
For example, to allow a login from only 88.110.54.113, enter 88.110.54.113 as both the start and end IP addresses, as follows:
This check is performed if profile-based IP address restrictions are not set.
If the user's login is from an IP address listed in your organization's trusted IP address list, the login is allowed.
To go to the Trusted IP range settings, navigate to Setup | Security Controls | Network Access.
Click on New and enter a valid IP address in the Start IP Address field and a higher IP address in the End IP Address field.
The start and end addresses specify the range of IP addresses from which users can log in. To allow a login from a single IP address, enter the same address in both fields.
For example, to allow a login from only 88.110.54.113, enter 88.110.54.113 as both the start and end addresses, as shown in the following screenshot:
Each user has a list of IP addresses from which they've been activated. If the user has previously been activated from this IP address, then this IP address is added to the user's personal list and is never challenged again.
To view and remove the login IP addresses that have been recorded by your users, navigate to Setup | Security Controls | Activations. To remove Activated Login IP, click on the checkbox and then click on the Remove button, as shown in the following screenshot:
A cookie is a small file that contains a string of characters that are sent to your computer when you visit a website. Whenever you visit the website again, the cookie allows that site to recognize your web browser.
The browser will have the Salesforce cookie if the user has previously used that browser to log in to Salesforce and has not cleared the browser cookies.
So, if the user's login is from a browser that includes a Salesforce.com cookie, the login is allowed.
If the user's login is from neither a trusted IP address nor a browser with a Salesforce cookie, the login is denied and gets blocked, and Salesforce must verify the user's identity.
A trusted, genuine user can access the Salesforce CRM application using the following means:
User interface (using a web browser)
API (for example, using an integrated client application or the Apex Data Loader)
Desktop client (for example, Salesforce for Outlook)
To gain access through the user interface for the first time, the user is prompted to select how they would like to receive the verification code. Here, the verification code can be received by either an SMS or an e-mail, depending on whether the company-wide SMS-based identity confirmation option is enabled.
Note
For new organizations, an SMS text message is the default method for the computer activation process and can only be disabled by sending a request to Salesforce support. For existing organizations, the SMS text message activation can be enabled by you as the system administrator but, once enabled, it requires a request to Salesforce support to deactivate it.
To receive the SMS text message verification code, set SMS-based identity confirmation to be enabled (this has enabled by default since the Spring of 2014). This feature enables users to receive a One-Time PIN(OTP) delivered via SMS. This is set by navigating to Setup | Security Controls | Session Settings and then enabling the Enable SMS-based identity confirmation option.
Once enabled, users must verify their mobile phone number before taking advantage of this feature. This will present the following screenshot:
To receive an e-mail verification code, users must have the Email-Based Identity Confirmation Option setting enabled on their profile or included as a permission set.
Note
The E-mail-Based Identity Confirmation Option is only available if the Enable SMS-based identity confirmation option is enabled.
Once enabled, users can click on the Email me a verification code button to send an activation e-mail to the address specified in the user's Salesforce user record, as follows:
On clicking on the Email me a verification code button, a new screen is presented that allows you to enter a verification code, as shown in the following screenshot:
Salesforce sends the verification code e-mail to the e-mail address associated with the user's record in Salesforce. Here, the following screenshot shows you an e-mail example:
The e-mail instructs the user to enter the verification code into the browser to activate the laptop for login to Salesforce.
The activation code within the e-mail is valid for up to 24 hours from the time the Email me a verification code button was clicked on. After 24 hours, the activation link will expire and the user must repeat the activation process.
Confusion can occur if your company has remote users who connect to Salesforce away from the company network, such as from home or from public Internet connections. The remote users are likely to have dynamically assigned IP addresses set as their computer identity. Hence, whenever they attempt to log in, Salesforce will identify it as an unknown IP address, prompt for verification, and the remote user will have to click on the verification button.
The remote user will then have to access the e-mail associated with their Salesforce user record to retrieve the activation e-mail, and it is here that confusion can occur. If the remote user has to access a corporate web e-mail using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection, then clicking on the activation link might not work because the IP address that is being validated might now no longer be the same IP address that was used by the browser. This is because the VPN connection might most likely be using a web proxy.
Note
It is recommended that you establish a policy to ensure the user clicks on the verification button while they're connected to the VPN or check whether they can access non-VPN-based web mail (if this is permitted in your company) to ensure that the validated IP addresses are the same.
This is covered in more detail in the Session settings section in Chapter 2, User Management in Salesforce CRM.
To get access using the API or a desktop client (for example, using the Apex Data Loader), the user must add his/her security token at the end of the password in order to log in. A security token is an automatically generated key from Salesforce. For example, if a user's password is pa$$word, and their security token is XXXXXX, then the user must enter pa$$wordXXXXXX.
Users can obtain their security token by changing their password or resetting their security token via the Salesforce.com user interface by navigating to Your Name | My Settings | Personal | Reset My Security Token and then clicking on the Reset Security Token button.
When a user changes their password or resets their security token, Salesforce sends a new security token to the e-mail address associated with their Salesforce user record. The security token is valid until a user resets their security token, changes their password, or has their password reset by a system administrator.
Tip
Do not enter a security token within your password when accessing Salesforce from a web browser. It is recommended that you obtain your security token via the Salesforce user interface from a trusted network prior to attempting access from a new IP address.
When a user's password is changed, the user's security token is automatically reset. The user will experience a blocked login until they add the security token to the end of their password or enter the new password after you have added their IP address to the organization's trusted IP range.
The company profile contains core information for your organization within Salesforce, some of which is captured during the initial system sign-up, and includes the following:
Company information and primary contact details
The default language, locale, and time zone
License information
Fiscal year settings
Currencies and exchange rates
When your company signs up with Salesforce, the information provided is displayed on the Company Information page. This page can be accessed by navigating to Setup | Company Profile | Company Information.
From the Company Information page, you can edit the company default localization settings and primary contact details, as shown in the following screenshot:
The company information settings for the language, locale, and time zone can affect how key data is handled in the organization.
However, individual users can set their own language, locale, and time zone that will override the organization-wide settings by navigating to Your Name | My Settings | Personal | Language & Time Zone, as shown in the following screenshot:
This is the primary language for the organization. All interface text and online help is displayed in this language. Individual users can, however, set their own language that will override the organization-wide settings.
Tip
For global organizations, it is recommended that you consider how the setting of language impacts the user's ability to access and share information and whether a common language is preferred to aid reporting and system administration.
You can use the feature called Language Settings (described later) to restrict the languages that your users can set in their personal information language setting.
The Default Locale setting affects the format of date, date/time, and number fields.
For example, a given date in the English (United States) locale would appear as 07/27/2016 and in the English (United Kingdom) locale as 27/07/2016.
The time in the English (United States) locale is displayed using a 12-hour clock with A.M. and P.M. (for example, 3:00 P.M.), whereas, in the English (United Kingdom) locale, it is displayed using a 24-hour clock (for example, 15:00).
Numbers in the English (United States) locale would be displayed as 1,000.00 and in the German locale as 1.000,00.
However, individual users can set their own locale that will override the organization-wide settings.
This is the primary time zone in which your organization is located, for example, the head office location. However, individual users can set their own time zone that will override the organization-wide settings.
The Company Information page also displays all of the base licenses, active users, and feature licenses that have been purchased by your organization.
There are three types of licenses:
User license: A user license entitles a user to a different functionality within Salesforce and determines the profiles available to the user
Feature license: A feature license entitles a user to an additional Salesforce feature, such as Marketing or Offline User
Permission set license: A permission set license is used to provide a user with access to certain features that are not part of their user licenses
Currency settings are organization-wide within Salesforce and can be set using either a single-currency option using the Currency Locale setting on Company Profile, or as a multiple-currency option where you can add currencies and set conversion rates using the Manage Currencies link within the Company Profile section.
Note
Multiple currencies can only be enabled by sending a request to Salesforce customer support. When activated, the Currency Locale field and its value are passed to a new field, which is Corporate Currency, as well as to Company Profile.
The corporate currency reflects the currency in which your company reports revenue and is used as the rate that all other currency conversion rates are based on. This is initially set by Salesforce.com when the Salesforce application is activated.
All organizations, whether using single or multiple currencies, are set by default with only one currency in Company Profile. For single currency instances, this setting is accessed by navigating to Setup | Company Profile | Company Information and specifying the Currency Locale field. For multiple currencies, this is set by navigating to Setup | Company Profile | Manage Currencies and then clicking on the Change Corporate button.
In a single-currency organization, you set the organization-wide currency locale for your company and your Salesforce users cannot set individual currency locales.
In a multiple-currency organization, you set the corporate currency instead of the currency locale, and your Salesforce users can also set their individual currency by navigating to Your Name | My Settings | Personal | Personal Information.
Note
The Multiple Currencies activation is available by sending a request to Salesforce customer support.
Your Salesforce user's individual currency is used as the default currency in their own reports, quotas, forecasts, and any records that contain currency amounts, such as opportunities.
Note
Currency becomes a required field on records where it has been added or was originally defined, so this must be considered when activating the Multiple Currencies option and importing data or custom object creation.
Users can also create opportunities (and all other data records that contain currency amounts) using any other available active currency.
The list of active currencies represents the countries or regions in which your company trades. Only an active currency can be set by you, as the system administrator on the organization profile, or by your users on their individual user records or on data records in the currency field.
The Manage Currencies section enables you to maintain a list of active currencies and their conversion rates in relation to the corporate currency and can be accessed by navigating to Setup | Company Profile | Manage Currencies.
Note
The Manage Currencies option appears when your organization has enabled Multiple Currencies, which are currently available by sending a request to Salesforce customer support.
Changing the conversion rates will update all existing records with the new conversion rates—even the closed opportunities. As a result, you will not be able to measure financial changes due to the effects of currency fluctuations unless you have implemented Advanced Currency Management, which stores dated exchange rates.
Dated exchange rates allow you to track conversion rates when an opportunity closes, enabling the accurate reporting of opportunity-converted amounts based on the rate that was set at the opportunity's close date. This is made possible because the historic conversion rates are stored, and rate changes after that close date can be tracked. Therefore, reports can include the opportunity amount based on the conversion rate at the close date instead of the rate at the time at which the report is run.
Note
Updating currency conversion rates will not change the original opportunity amounts; it will only change the converted amounts. Accounts and their associated contacts must use the same default currency. Account and contact records can be imported using active or inactive currencies. However, importing lead records requires the use of active currencies only.
Dated exchange rates are activated by setting the Advanced Currency Management option and are used for opportunities, opportunity products, opportunity product schedules, campaign opportunity fields, and reports related to these objects and fields.
When Advanced Currency Management is first enabled, your existing exchange rates automatically become the first set of dated exchange rates.
These exchange rates will be valid until you set another set of exchange rates by navigating to Setup | Company Profile | Manage Currencies | Manage Dated Exchange Rates.
If you enable Advanced Currency Management, you cannot create roll-up summary fields that calculate currency in the opportunity object. Any existing currency related roll-up summary fields in the opportunity object will be disabled and their values will no longer be calculated.
Tip
How do you convert currency amounts automatically using the Data Loader?
In a Salesforce organization with multicurrency enabled, when you change the currency on a record via the browser, currency amounts on that record are not updated. Thus, if you change the currency of an opportunity whose amount is 5,000 from USD to EUR, the amount remains 5,000 and is not converted from USD 5,000 into EUR 3,900 (based on a USD:EUR exchange rate of 1:0.76). However, currency amounts are converted when you change the record currency using the Data Loader. This means that changes to the currencies of records will cause a mass recalculation of any currency fields on those records.
To change the currency of records using the Data Loader, update the CurrencyIsoCode field with the three-letter ISO code of the currency you want to set, for example, USD for US Dollars, EUR for Euros, and so on.
The fiscal year settings in Salesforce can be set by navigating to Setup | Company Profile | Fiscal Year.
By default, the fiscal year settings in Salesforce use the Gregorian calendar year (a 12-month structure) starting from January 1 and ending on December 31. If your organization follows the 12-month structure, you can use the standard fiscal years. Standard fiscal years can start on the first day of any month, and you can specify whether the fiscal year is named for the starting or ending year. For example, if your fiscal year starts in April 2015 and ends in March 2016, your fiscal year setting can be either 2015 or 2016.
If your fiscal year is more complicated than this, you can define these periods using custom fiscal years. For example, as part of a custom fiscal year, you can create a 13-week quarter represented by three periods of 4, 4, and 5 weeks instead of calendar months.
If you use a fiscal year structure such as a 4-4-5 or a 13-period structure, you can define a fiscal year by specifying a start date and an included template. If your fiscal year structure is not included in the templates, you can modify a template. For example, if you use three fiscal quarters per year (a trimester) instead of four, delete or modify the quarters and periods to meet your needs. These custom fiscal periods can be named based on your standards. For example, a fiscal period can be called P12 or December.
Fiscal years can be modified any time you need to change their definition. For example, an extra week can be added to synchronize a custom fiscal year with a standard calendar in a leap year. Changes to the fiscal year structure take effect immediately upon being saved.
The Language Settings feature allows you to specify the acceptable languages that can be used within the Salesforce CRM application.
This feature can be set by navigating to Setup | Company Profile | Language Settings.
You then choose the languages that you want to make available to users by selecting them from the Available Languages list and then clicking on Add.
In the following example, we have added Spanish and French along with English, and these appear in the Displayed Languages list, as shown in the following screenshot:
The languages that appear in the Displayed Languages list are now shown as available options in the Language picklist section in the user's Personal Settings page, as shown in the following screenshot:
Salesforce currently has two user interface themes: Classic Theme and New Theme. Starting with the Summer 2010 edition (released in June 2010), all new organizations are enabled with the new user interface theme by default.
All screenshots and setups in this book have been undertaken using the new user interface theme. The difference in themes can be seen in the following screenshot that appears when you attempt to switch from Classic to New Theme (described shortly in this section):
Not only does the new user interface theme change the look and feel of Salesforce, but it might also position some key links such as Setup and Logout under the user name for each user in your organization.
Note
The new user interface theme is seen only by users with supported browsers. This is discussed in detail later in the Supported browsers section.
Some newer functional areas are dependent on New Theme and cannot be provided when Classic Theme is activated, such as Chatter (a collaboration application suite). Therefore, to enable Chatter, you must first activate New Theme.
The following browsers are supported by Salesforce:
Microsoft® Internet Explorer® Versions 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11
Mozilla® Firefox®—the most recent stable version
Google Chrome™—the most recent stable version
Apple® Safari® Versions 5.x and 6.x on Mac OS X
Note
Starting from the Summer 2015 release, Salesforce will discontinue browser support for Microsoft® Internet Explorer® Versions 7 and 8.
Along with the user interface theme, there are many other aspects of the user interface that can be set up in Salesforce to present an optimal user experience for the users in your organization.
Additional user interface options include User Interface settings (such as Collapsible Sections and Inline Editing); Sidebar settings (Collapsible Sidebar settings and Custom Sidebar Components on All Pages); and Calendar settings (such as Home Page Hover Links for Events and Drag-and-Drop Editing on Calendar Views).
There are also some administrator-specific settings that can improve your experience with the application located under the Setup settings. This also includes the Enhanced Page Layout Editor and Enhanced Profile List Views settings.
The selection of the User Interface option can be carried out by navigating to Setup | Customize | User Interface.
Note
The User Interface option is the final option in the Customize section on the left-hand setup sidebar.
The User Interface screen is presented as shown in the following screenshot:
In the following sections, we will look at the various user interface settings. Let's look at them one by one.
Collapsible sections enable your users to collapse or expand sections on record detail pages using the arrow icon next to the section heading. Sections remain expanded or collapsed until the user changes their settings for that section. Salesforce will store a different setting for each record type if the record types have been set up as shown in the following screenshot:
Note
When enabling collapsible sections, you need to ensure that the section headings have been entered on the page layouts.
Clicking on the triangle icon toggles between showing and hiding the section, as shown in the following screenshot:
The Show Quick Create option adds the Quick Create fields section to the sidebar on a Record tab page to enable users to create a new record using minimal data fields, as shown in the following screenshot:
The Show Quick Create option also controls whether users can create new records from within the lookup dialogs. With the setting enabled, users see a New button in the lookup dialog screen. The following example shows the creation of a new account within the account lookup dialog while working with an opportunity record:
Clicking on the New button reveals the fields that are available in order to create the new record.
The option to create new records and the display of the New button in the lookup dialog is only available for accounts and contacts. Also, users still need the appropriate create user profile permission to enter data with Quick Create irrespective of whether the entry fields are displayed.
The Enable Hover Details option allows users to view interactive information for a record by hovering the mouse pointer over a link to that record in the Recent Items list on the sidebar or in a lookup field on the record detail page. The fields displayed in the hover details are determined by the record's mini page layout that is set at the page layout edit screen.
In the following screenshot, we are hovering the mouse pointer over a link to a record in the Recent Items list on the sidebar:
In the following screenshot, we are hovering the mouse pointer over a lookup field on the record detail page:
Note
To view the hover details for a record, users require the appropriate share access to the record and field-level security to the fields in the mini page layout, which is set at the page layout edit screen (see Chapter 3, Configuration in Salesforce CRM).
The Enable Related List Hover Links option enables related list hover links to be displayed at the top of standard and custom object record detail pages. It allows users to view the related list and its records by hovering the mouse pointer over the related list link. Users can also click on the related list hover link to jump down directly to the Related List section without having to scroll down the page.
The Enable Separate Loading of Related Lists option enables the separate loading of record detail pages. First, the primary record detail data loads, and then the related list data loads. This option serves to improve display performance for organizations with a large number of related lists on record detail pages. When the page is loaded, the record details are displayed immediately; afterwards, the related list data loads, during which the users see a progress indicator for the related list.
You will see that the related list sections are not loaded yet. They appear as […] while the primary record detail (for the account example) is loaded immediately, as follows:
After the primary record detail has loaded (the account page), the related lists are then loaded. You can see that the number of records for the Contacts related list is now displayed as [2].
This option does not apply to pages for which you cannot control the layout (such as user pages or Visualforce pages).
The Enable Inline Editing option allows users to change field values directly within the record detail page, avoiding the need to load the record edit page first. By double-clicking on the field to be edited within the detail page, the field changes and becomes editable. The new value can then be entered and saved, or the action can be undone using the Undo button.
First, the field is highlighted by hovering over it with the mouse to reveal the pencil icon, indicating that the field is editable, as follows:
Then, double-clicking on the field causes the field to switch from view mode to edit mode to allow a new value to be entered, as follows:
After a new value has been entered, the value is displayed in orange text and the user has the option to undo the change using the undo button, as follows:
The changed value and the detail page can then be saved in the standard way using the Save button, as follows:
Tip
To check whether inline editing is enabled for your organization and to discover which value can be edited, you can hover over a value with your mouse and note the following result:
A field that is editable will have a pencil icon to the far right of the value when the mouse is hovered over it
A field that is non-editable will have a padlock icon to the far right of the value when the mouse is hovered over it.
This option is enabled by default. Certain fields cannot be changed using inline editing, such as system fields (created by, last modified by, and so on), calculated fields (formula, auto number, roll-up summary, and so on), read-only Fields, and special fields (such as owner and record type).
The Enable Enhanced Lists option provides users with the ability to view, customize, and edit list data, which is the resulting data section that is rendered from Views. When enabled along with the Enable Inline Editing setting, users can also edit records directly within the list without having to move away from the page, as shown in the following screenshot:
With enhanced lists enabled, users can perform the following actions:
Create a new view or edit, delete, or refresh the existing view.
Navigate through the list results by clicking on the first, previous, next, and last page links at the bottom of the list. You can jump directly to a specific results page by entering a number in the textbox in the lower-right corner. You can also change the width of a column by dragging the right-hand side of the column heading with the mouse. Changes made to column widths apply to that specific list only and are recalled whenever that list is viewed. Please note that, when columns are added or removed from a list, any column width setting for that list is discarded.
Change the order in which a column is displayed by dragging the entire column heading with your mouse to the desired position. For users who have the permission to edit the list definition, the changes are saved for all who see the list. For users who do not have permission to edit the list definition, their changes are discarded after leaving the page.
If inline editing is enabled for your organization, values can be entered directly into the list by double-clicking on individual field values. Users who have been granted the Mass Edit from Lists option on their profile can edit up to 200 records at a time.
A mass edit is performed by first selecting the records to be edited using the checkboxes and then clicking on one of the fields that are to be edited.
Upon clicking on the field, a new pop-up window is displayed, which prompts whether the change is to be made to just the selected record or to all the records that have been selected. In the following screenshot, we see an example where two account records have been selected and where one of the record's billing street fields has been clicked on. This feature only allows mass edit; users cannot mass delete.
Tip
Remind users that they cannot mass delete records
As a system administrator, you might need to remind users that they cannot mass delete records as, occasionally, users might try to mass delete using the only visible Delete link, which is, in fact, the link to delete View, as shown in the upcoming screenshot.
Hopefully, communication of this fact will save you from having to recreate any views that have been deleted due to an error.
In the Account, Contact, and Lead List views, there is an Open Calendar link at the bottom of the page that displays a weekly view of a calendar underneath the list. A record can be dragged from the list to a time slot in the calendar to create an event associated with the record.
Note
To perform inline editing on an enhanced list, Advanced Filter options must be turned off in the list view filter criteria.
Some standard fields do not support inline editing. For example, Case Status, Opportunity Stage, and several of the Task and Event fields can only be edited from the record edit page.
The number of records displayed can be changed per page by setting the view for 10, 25, 50, 100, or 200 records at a time. When this setting is changed, navigation is set to the first page of list results, as shown in the following screenshot:
If users change the number of records to be displayed per page, that setting is applied to all the lists (not just the current list).
Also, if the option of displaying 200 records is selected, a warning message appears as it can reduce performance, as shown in the following screenshot:
The Enable New User Interface Theme option changes the look and feel of Salesforce from the classic theme to the new theme. It also houses links, such as Setup, Developer Console, and Logout, under the username for users in your organization.
There are still some older browsers (such as IE 6) that cannot render the new user interface theme and should be avoided.
The Enable Tab Bar Organizer option automatically arranges users' tabs in the tab bar to control the width of the CRM application pages and prevent horizontal scrolling. It dynamically measures how many of the application tabs can be displayed and puts tabs that extend beyond the browser's current width into a drop-down list that is presented on the right-hand side of the tab bar, as shown in the following screenshot:
The Enable Printable List Views option allows users to easily print list views.
If enabled, users can click on the Printable View link (the printer logo), located in the top-right corner on any list view, to open a new browser window. Within the new window, the current list view is displayed in a print-ready format, as shown in the following screenshot:
This option allows users to click on the Printable View link from any list view; this opens a new browser window that displays the current list view in a print-ready format.
When the Enable Spell Checker option is selected, the Check Spelling button appears in certain areas of the application where text is entered, such as sending an e-mail or when creating cases, notes, and solutions. Clicking on this button checks the spelling of your text, as shown in the following screenshot:
The Enable Customization of Chatter User Profile Pages option allows you to customize the tabs on the Chatter user profile. The way to customize Chatter user profile pages is described in detail later in Chapter 7, Salesforce CRM Functions.
In the following screenshot, we have customized the Chatter User Profile Page tabs and added the Learning Zone tab, which results in the modified page shown in the following screenshot:
This enables you to add custom tabs or remove default tabs such as the Feed and Overview tabs. Custom tabs are available by customizing Subtab Apps, which are described in more detail in Chapter 3, Configuration in Salesforce CRM. If this option is disabled, users only see the Feed and Overview default tabs.
When the Enable Salesforce Notification Banner option is selected, an announcement banner appears on certain pages.
Note
In the Summer 2014 release, the Salesforce Notification Banner will appear in the setup area for your organization and on pages for accounts, contacts, and dashboards.
Your users can exclude the banner from all pages by clicking on the Close button, or you can prevent the Salesforce Notification Banner from appearing for your entire organization by disabling this option.
The following options are available to help users view and edit information on the sidebar that is presented on the left-hand side vertical section of the screen:
Enable Collapsible Sidebar
Show Custom Sidebar Components on All Pages
We will now cover the Sidebar options in detail.
The collapsible sidebar gives users the ability to show or hide the sidebar on every Salesforce page where the sidebar is included. When the Enable Collapsible Sidebar option is selected, the collapsible sidebar becomes available to all users in your organization. However, each user can set their own preference for displaying the sidebar. Users can set the sidebar to be permanently displayed, or they can collapse the sidebar and show it only when needed.
If you have custom home page layouts that include components in the sidebar, the Show Custom Sidebar Components on All Pages option displays the sidebar components on all pages in Salesforce and for all users. If only certain profiles are allowed to view sidebar components on all pages, you can assign a Show Custom Sidebar on All Pages permission to just those profiles.
The following options are available to help users view and edit information on calendar sections and views:
Enable Home Page Hover Links for Events
Enable Drag-and-Drop Editing on Calendar Views
Enable Click-and-Create Events on Calendar Views
Enable Drag-and-Drop Scheduling on List Views
Enable Hover Links for My Tasks List
Let's see what they are in detail.
The Enable Home Page Hover Links for Events option enables hover links in the calendar section of the Home tab and allows users to hover the mouse over the subject of an event to see interactive information for that event.
The Enable Drag-and-Drop Editing on Calendar Views option enables your users to drag-and-drop existing events around their daily and weekly calendar views to reschedule events without having to navigate from the page to the event creation page. The loading performance of the calendar control might suffer with this option enabled. Drag-and-drop editing is not available for either multiday events or on console calendar views. Also, this option is enabled by default.
The Enable Click-and-Create Events on Calendar Views option enables the creation of events on daily and weekly calendar views by double-clicking on a specific time slot and entering the details of the event in an interactive section. The fields presented in the interactive section are set using the mini page layout on the Event page layout screen.
The Enable Drag-and-Drop Scheduling on List Views option enables users to create events by dragging the record to be linked from the list view to the weekly calendar view. Upon dropping, an interactive section for the event detail is displayed where the available fields are set using the mini page layout.
There are administrator-specific user interface settings that can improve your experience with the application and that are located under the Setup settings for the following options:
Enable Enhanced Page Layout Editor
Enable Enhanced Profile List Views
Enable Enhanced Profile User Interface
Enable Streaming API
Enable Custom Object Truncate
Enable Improved Setup User Interface
Enable Advanced Setup Search
Let's see what these settings are in detail.
The Enable Enhanced Page Layout Editor option enables the Enhanced Page Layout Editor for your organization, so you can edit page layouts with a feature-rich What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) editor.
The Enable Enhanced Profile List Views option enables the enhanced list views and inline editing on the profiles list page, which allows you to manage multiple profiles at once.
To go to the Profile menu, navigate to Setup | Manage Users | Profiles. Now, select a profile and click on Create New View, as shown in the following screenshot:
The following are the three steps to produce the list of profiles that allow you to modify multiple profile settings at once:
Enter the view name.
Specify the filter criteria
Select the columns to be displayed.
The following screenshot shows the three steps used to create a new view for profiles:
Now that the profile view has been created, we can select multiple profiles to manage all at once, as shown in the following screenshot:
You can display multiple lists of profiles that can be selected and actioned upon, as shown in the following screenshot:
You can also modify multiple profile selections to apply the setting to all the profiles, as shown in the following screenshot:
The Advanced settings of User Interface set up the screen that is currently related to the Extended Mail Merge features.
The Enable Enhanced Profile User Interface option allows you to enable the Enhanced Profile User Interface, which then offers the following features to help you:
Find permissions and settings: With this, you can start typing a specific permission or setting name in the find settings box and then choose from a list of matching results.
Edit profile properties: With this, you can change the name or description of a profile.
Assigned Users button: You find out who belongs to a profile by clicking on this button to see a list.
Browse permissions and settings: This is for both app and system properties. Here, the app-related and system permissions and settings are grouped on individual pages where the profile overview page provides the descriptions and links.
The Enable Streaming API option enables the use of the Force.com Streaming API in your organization. The Streaming API provides near real-time streams of data from the Force.com platform. You can create topics with which applications that receive asynchronous notifications of changes to data in Force.com can subscribe.
Note
See the Force.com Streaming API Developer's Guide at https://developer.salesforce.com for more details.
Select the Enable Custom Object Truncate checkbox to activate truncating custom objects, which permanently removes all of the records from a custom object while keeping the object and its metadata intact for future use.
Note
When this option is enabled, a Truncate button appears in the list of edit buttons within the custom object setup page.
Truncating custom objects is a quick way to permanently delete all of the records from a custom object, for example, if a custom object has been created and filled with test records. When testing is complete and the test data is no longer required, you can truncate the object to remove the test records but keep the object and make it ready to be deployed into production. This is quicker than batch-deleting records and recreating the custom object.
Note
Truncating a custom object permanently removes all of its records, and you cannot recover the records from Recycle Bin. A copy of the truncated object appears in the Deleted Objects list for 15 days, during which the object and its records continue to count toward the organization's data limits. The copied object and its records are then permanently deleted after 15 days.
When the improved setup user interface is enabled in an organization, you might notice several differences as compared to the original user interface.
The setup menu is accessed from the Setup link in the upper-right corner of any Salesforce page. It is arranged into the following goal-based categories:
Administer, Build, Deploy, Monitor, and Checkout
Personal settings, which all Salesforce users can edit, are available from a separate My Settings menu
When enabled, the Advanced Setup Search option allows you to search for setup pages, custom profiles, permission sets, public groups, roles, and users from the sidebar search textbox within the setup area. When the option is disabled, you can search for setup pages only.
As you type in the sidebar Setup searchbox, any options that match your search term appear in the Setup menu. When you press Enter, you will be presented with a page that will list any matching permission sets, custom profiles, public groups, roles, or users.
Salesforce.com uses custom algorithms that consider the following within searches:
The search terms
Ignored words in search terms (for example, the, to, and for)
Search term stems (for example, searching for speaking returns items with speak)
The proximity of search terms in a record
Record ownership and most recently accessed records
A user might not have the same search results as another user performing the same search, because searches are configured for the user who is performing the search. For example, a user recently viewed a record, the record relevancy increases, and the record moves higher in their search results list. Records that are owned by the user also move higher in their search results. Currently, there are three types of search, and they are as follows:
Sidebar search
Advanced search
Global search
Let's see what they are, shall we?
From the sidebar search box, users can search a subset of record types and fields. Wildcards and filters can be used to help refine the search.
Note
A wildcard is a special character or token that can be used to substitute for any other character or characters in a string. For example, the asterisk character (*) is used to substitute zero or more characters. More information about the wildcard characters can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildcard_character
The advanced search in the sidebar allows you to search for a subset of record types in combination and offers more fields including custom fields and long text fields, such as descriptions, notes, tasks, and event comments. Wildcards and filters can be used to help refine the search.
From the global search box, users can search more types of records, including articles, documents, products, solutions, chatter feeds, and groups. Users can also search more fields, including custom fields and long text fields, such as descriptions, notes, tasks, and event comments. Wildcards and filters can be used to help refine the search.
Note
To enable global search, you must enable Chatter. If global search is enabled, sidebar search and advanced search are disabled. Global search is not supported in Partner Portal or Customer Portal. Only users with supported browsers can use global search, as it has indirect dependencies on the New Theme user interface.
Your search term must have two or more characters. Special characters, such as ", ?, *, (, and ), are not included in the character count. For example, a search for m* will fail to return any search results.
Search terms are not case-sensitive. For example, a search for martin returns the same results as a search for Martin.
Finding phone numbers can be done by entering part or all of a number. For example, to find (512) 757-6000, enter 5127576000, 757, or 6000. To search for the last seven digits, you must enter any punctuation, such as 757-6000.
In Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, you can find a person by entering the last name before the first name; searching for howard trevor returns any person named Trevor Howard.
Tip
If you're using advanced search or global search, refine your search using operators such as AND, OR, and AND NOT.
If you're using advanced search or global search, search for exact phrases by selecting the Exact phrase checkbox or by putting quotation marks around multiple keywords; for example, "phone martin brown" returns results with phone martin brown, but not martin brown phoned or phone martina browning.
If you're using sidebar search, your search string is automatically treated as a phrase search.
Search for partially matching terms using wildcards as follows:
Asterisks match one or more characters in the middle or at the end (not the beginning) of your search term. For example, a search for brown* finds items that start with variations of the term brown, such as browning or brownlow. A search for ma* brown finds items with martin brown or mandy brown. If you're using sidebar search, an * symbol is automatically appended at the end of the search string.
If you're using global search, question marks match only one character in the middle (not the beginning or end) of your search term. For example, a search for ti?a finds items with the term tina or tika but not tia or tinas. Fields on custom objects are only searched if you have added a custom tab for the object.
If any using sidebar search or advanced search, question marks match only one character in the middle or end (not the beginning) of your search term.
There are various search options that can be customized to change the way information can be searched by your users in Salesforce. These options either present enhanced search features that are visible as a part of the user interface or are nonvisible and used to optimize the search behind the scenes. The search settings can be set by navigating to Setup | Customize | Search | Search Settings.
The following screenshot shows you the search settings that are available if Chatter is not activated in your Salesforce CRM application:
By activating Chatter, the Global Search setting is automatically enabled and provides the following reduced set of options:
In the upcoming sections, you will see how to work with various search settings.
The Enable "Limit to Items I Own" Search Checkbox option allows your users to restrict the search results to find only the records of which they are the record owner when searching in the sidebar.
The Enable Document Content Search option allows users to perform a full-text search of a document. When new documents are uploaded or an existing document is updated, its contents are available as search terms to retrieve the document.
The Enable Search Optimization if your Content is Mostly in Japanese, Chinese, or Korean option optimizes searching for Japanese, Chinese, and Korean language sets. It affects Sidebar Search and the account search for Find Duplicates on a lead record in Sidebar Search and Global Search.
The Use Recently Viewed User Records for Blank and Auto-Complete Lookups option causes the list of records returned from a user autocomplete lookup and from a blank user lookup to be generated from the user's recently viewed user records. By not enabling this option, the dialog shows you a list of recently accessed user records from across your organization.
The Enable Drop-Down List for Sidebar Search option causes a drop-down list in the Search section to appear; this allows users to limit searches by the type of record.
The Enable English-Only Spell Correction for Knowledge Search option is used with the Articles and Article Management tabs, in the articles tool in Case Feed, and in the Salesforce Knowledge sidebar in the Salesforce console.
Note
This setting applies only to article searches via the API and not to article searches when using the global search.
When enabled, any search suggests and searches alternate spellings for English search terms.
The Enable Sidebar Search Autocomplete option ensures that, when users start typing search terms, Sidebar Search displays a matching list of recently viewed records.
The Enable Single-Search-Result Shortcut option allows users to skip the search results page and navigate directly to the record detail page if their search produces a single result.
The Lookup Settings section of the Search Settings page allows you to enable enhanced lookups and lookup autocompletion for Accounts, Contacts, Users, and custom objects.
The Enhanced Lookups section provides an enhanced interface for your users to sort and filter search results by any field that is available in regular search results, as shown in the following screenshot:
With enhanced lookups enabled, users can hide and reorganize the columns that are displayed in the results window. Enhanced lookups return all records that match the search criteria and allow you to scroll through large sets of search results.
After enabling enhanced lookups, you must specify which fields users can use to filter lookup search dialog results. This is set by accessing search layouts and choosing the fields from the Lookup Dialog Fields layout.
For custom objects, this is done by navigating to Setup | Create | Objects. Choose the object you want to modify, scroll down to the Search Layouts related list, and choose the fields from Lookup Dialog Fields.
For Accounts, Contacts, or Users, this is done by navigating to Setup | Customize; go to Accounts, Contacts, or Users, and then go to Search Layouts. Then, choose the fields from Lookup dialog fields, as shown in the following screenshot:
Currently, only Accounts, Contacts, Events, Users, Chatter objects, and custom objects can be enabled to use the enhanced lookup settings.
This chapter looked at the mechanisms in place to help manage login access to the Salesforce CRM application and how organization-wide settings can be set to determine your company-specific information within Salesforce.com.
The options to set up and configure the look and feel of the application were identified along with details of the methods to search for information in Salesforce.
Notes and tips gained from the experience of Salesforce CRM system administration were outlined to help guide the understanding and improve the implementation of these features.
Having looked at these core customization feature sets, we will now look at how profiles and sharing in Salesforce CRM govern the functionalities and access permissions a user has throughout the application.
