Custom Page Layouts

In the previous section on page layouts, we looked at how to customize a layout Salesforce has provided to our preferences. But Salesforce also allows us to create our own custom page layouts for more flexibility.

Previous article, Salesforce Admin tutorial – 7, explains about Page Layouts.

Let’s see how we can do this. 

Right now, we only have the Employee Layout on the Page Layouts pane of the Employee object. To add a new custom layout to it, click on the New button at the top. 

Salesforce allows us to build this new layout on top of an existing one for faster setup. So, let’s pick the Employee layout as the Existing Page Layout from the drop-down to import its current format. Then, you can also give it a name (Teaching Employee) and save the layout. 

It takes us to the layout customization page where you can drag and drop fields and widgets to organize the page according to your needs. 

Once you’ve saved the layout after making the necessary adjustments, you’ll be able to see this listed on the object’s Page Layouts pane. 

Let’s also create another new custom page layout called Non Teaching Employee while using Teaching Employee as the existing layout. 

Now, we can make a small customization to the layout to separate it from Teaching Employee. We’ll change Specialization, which is a mandatory field on the Teaching Employee layout, to a non-mandatory field on the Non Teaching Employee layout. And then, we’ll entirely remove the Specialization field from the page by clicking the delete icon. 

After creating these two new custom layouts, we can decide how to handle the page layout assignment. 

For this, Salesforce provides a Page Layout Assignment button on the Page Layouts page that takes you to the following page. 

Here, you can assign different page layouts to different profiles based on their responsibilities. You can use this strategy to ensure users don’t make changes to the system that are beyond their access level.

Next article, Salesforce Admin tutorial – 9, explains about Record Types.