Salesforce Forms Best Practices

Salesforce forms are an art form, as is the creation of any form or report in the digital age. Never let anyone convince you otherwise. While the creation of simplistic, utilitarian forms isn’t that difficult, and just making space to present organized data or to take in that kind of data works alright, there’s something to be said for aesthetics and sense of space and care when creating a form regardless its purpose. Well, Salesforce forms, and their versatility and flexibility is one of the things that has gotten Salesforce the reputation of being one of the most diverse and powerful CRM solutions out there. But, Salesforce is a tool, and like any other tool, it’s only as good as the person who wields it. So, if you don’t take care in designing your forms and reports well, then Salesforce won’t be the amazing CRM it’s destined to be. Take heart, because I’m going to give you some pointers as far as things to consider when designing your forms, so in the future, you’re more likely to accomplish this far better. #1 – Look Before you Leap Before you start designing forms and reports, talk to the people who use forms and reports as part of their regular functions. This will help you to optimize these forms and reports to meet their needs more concisely, as well as reduce the chances of creating unnecessary designs that nobody will use. While being proactive and designing things to fill voids is a good philosophy, in this case, it’s best to always ask if people need it before you create it. Space is limited with Salesforce, and time is a valuable resource. #2 – Training First Before you create a form or report, train people on how it’s going to work, explain its purpose and the needs it is addressing. People often don’t know what extra things do without being told first, unless they were in on the creation of it themselves. They will be reluctant to ask what something is unless it’s pressing that they find out, resulting in good designs going unused and problems going unsolved as “inevitable”. So, when creating forms, inform people before and during their creation not only of their existence, but what they’re for and how they work. #3 – Avoid Excess of Information Remember how we talked about consulting with people about their needs in reports and forms? Take this to heart with information being given or requested, boiling it down to only what actually matters. This makes things more efficient, and reduces confusion and frustration. #4 – Use some Aesthetics Ok, designing your forms to be artistic and “fancy” is a bit silly, but using some aesthetic sense in their creation to aid eye tracking and make things pleasant to the eye in wording, color and font coordination and special sense will make them more user friendly, and reduce how tiresome repeated looking at the forms can become. Salesforce forms can do many things, especially when working in tandem with the Apex API, among other things. So, be sure to follow these practices when creating them, so that they can best serve people, and so that they don’t go ignored due to lack of information. Further Salesforce assistance is available on how to use salesforce page.