Since the initial release of Lightning in 2015, Salesforce has been progressively improving the functionality, progressing from Classic Page Layouts to Lightning Page Layouts, and finally to Dynamic Forms. Each new release provided new features and less reliance on the old Page Layouts. Fields on a Dynamic Form became individual components on the page that could be rearranged and individually addressed.
Action buttons gave way to Dynamic Actions and Component Visibility, allowing us to show/hide sections, fields, and tabs on the page. Cross Object Fields enable us to add related fields to the Lightning Record Page. In Winter ’25, we have Dynamic Highlights replacing the Compact Layout to display key fields at the top of the record page and Conditional Field Formatting to apply special attributes and icons to fields.
Dynamic Forms
This overall feature enables many dynamic functions to be supported on Lightning Record Pages. Once an object has been migrated to support Lightning Web Components, it supports Dynamic Forms, making the page configurable down to the individual field level.
Benefit: Break pages into individual components as small as a single field.
Dynamic Actions
Dynamic Actions replace the actions from the Page Layout with dynamic action buttons. This can all be done inside the App Builder when configuring the Record Page, and the actions can also have component visibility enabled.
Benefit: Actions are configurable and can be shown/hidden depending on record, device, or user attributes. In the example shown below, two action buttons are configured: Edit and Delete. Conditional Visibility has been applied to the Edit button, meaning only those with the System Administrator profile will see this button.
Component Visibility
Individual components (fields/sections/tabs) can be turned on or off depending on record, device, or user attributes.
Benefit: Reduce the number of pages required by applying component visibility.
Component Visibility on Tabs
Extends the component visibility functionality to tabs and their enclosed content.
Benefit: Whole sections of a page (under a tab) can be shown/hidden depending on attributes.
Cross Object Fields
This is the ability to add related fields to the record page. For example, on a Contact record page, you can access all the related Account fields and include them on a Contact Record page without creating additional formula fields.
Benefit: Include related fields without creating extra formula fields.
Dynamic Highlights
The Compact Layout has been replaced with Dynamic Highlights which offer more fields (two rows with up to 12 fields). The fields can be dynamically displayed with conditional visibility.
Benefit: No need to create a separate Compact Layout outside the Record Page; show/hide fields with conditional visibility.
Conditional Field Formatting
With this latest feature, you can highlight individual fields with visual indicators to draw attention to them. As of Winter ’25, you’ll be able to configure custom visuals that leverage standard Salesforce Lightning Design System icons via a point-and-click wizard directly in Lightning App Builder.
Benefit: Highlight important fields so they catch the attention of the reader.
- Create a ruleset to highlight a field.
- Multiple rules can be configured within a ruleset.
- Both the icon and the icon color can be changed depending on the field value.
Related Features
Dynamic Related Lists
While not specifically a Dynamic Forms feature, when the object has been upgraded to LWC and supports Dynamic Forms, you can also take advantage of Dynamic Related Lists.
Benefit: Allows greater control over the display of the related list – sorting and field selection are all done inside the Record Page, not in the Page Layout.
Mobile Support
Dynamic Forms are also supported for mobile devices on all objects that have LWC support.
Benefit: A common configuration experience across desktop and mobile devices.
Performance
Performance has improved significantly with a 25% improvement in Lightning Performance gained since March 2023. A lot of this was gained by migrating most of the object pages to Lightning Web Components (LWC). Many more improvements are in progress that will bring that figure up to 40%.
What About Record Types?
For many, one of the advantages of Record Types is that it allows you to define separate Page Layouts for each Record Type. However, with Dynamic Forms and Component Visibility, you no longer need to create separate pages.
There are a couple of strategies that you can use to deal with the requirements for different pages/record types while still using a single Dynamic Form.
The first method is to separate the different fields into their own sections. For example, the Account Record Type of “Corporate Account” needs extra fields to store the details about credit checks. These fields can be combined into a single section and then you can use Component Visibility to only show them when the account is a Corporate Account record type. For other record types, this section will not be shown at all.
The second method is to create two separate sections and add the relevant fields inside each section. Apply Component Visibility to both sections and only show one section for each record type.
What Is Still Missing?
There are a few things still missing that may prevent you from converting every page to Dynamic Forms.
Object Support
There are still some objects that (as at Winter ’25) do not support Dynamic Forms yet:
- Campaigns and Campaign Members: Campaigns were scheduled for Winter ‘25 but didn’t seem to make it and the campaign members were planned to be a multi-release effort.
- Work Orders and Work Order Line Items: These were both scheduled for Summer ’24 but did not make it into that release or Winter ’25 either.
- Order Product: Also known as the order line items, while the Order object is complete this child of the Order remains incomplete.
- Quote Line Item: Also incomplete.
- Opportunity Product: (Opportunity line items) also incomplete.
- Tasks and Events: Planned for the financial year 2025.
For the last status on the migration of all standard objects to Lightning Web Components, refer to the Record Home Pages Migration page here.
Experience Cloud
Back in May ’24, Salesforce stated that making Dynamic Forms and Actions available on the Experience Cloud was important but not on their current roadmap for the next two releases. Here’s hoping for more news around Summer ’25.
Custom Links
Previously, you could add three columns of custom links on a Page Layout. There’s no equivalent feature for Dynamic Forms and this feature is not planned for delivery until after Winter ‘25.
Summary
Now that the key dynamic features (listed below) have all been delivered, it’s time to start migrating away from Page Layouts to Dynamic Forms with all of the fantastic features offered, such as:
- Dynamic Forms
- Component Visibility
- Dynamic Actions
- Cross Object Fields
- Dynamic Highlights
- Conditional Field Formatting
- Dynamic Related Lists
- Mobile Support
The majority of objects are now supported, so you can prioritize those and complete the others later when they’re supported.
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