Admins / Users

Creating Salesforce Custom List Views

By Christine Marshall

Salesforce list views are a powerful reporting tool for you and your users. As well as many out-of-the-box list views, you and your users can create custom list views to suit all requirements. A Salesforce custom list view can empower users to grab and segment data at a moment’s notice – without the need for admin support. 

You can display up to 15 fields of your choice on a list view, and these fields can be changed and rearranged depending on your needs.

Creating Salesforce Custom List Views

You can create a Salesforce custom list view in minutes! Check out this video as I create a custom list view in Salesforce and show you a couple of cool features.

Salesforce List View Features

List View Security

  • Security features such as field level security are enforced, meaning that if a user does not have access to a field, they cannot add or view it in the list view.
  • Security features such as record access are enforced, meaning that if a user does not have access to a record, it will not be displayed in the list view.
  • You control access to the list view by choosing from three sharing options (see below).

Sharing Lists Views

When creating a list view, you can select who to share it with:

  • Only I can see this list view.
  • Share this list view with a group of users.
  • All users can see this list view (this includes Partner and Customer Portal users).

A public list view can be accessed by all users, and it’s easy to end up with too many irrelevant list views if all users are able to create public list views. In order to create a public list view, users need the “Manage Public List Views” permission; it’s a good idea to restrict this permission to a select few users.

When you select “Share this list view with a group of users”, you can then restrict visibility to a group of users based on Roles, Roles, Internal and Portal Subordinates, Roles and Internal Subordinates, Territories, Territories and Subordinates, and Public Groups. Which groups of users you see will depend on which features and products you use, for example, if you do not have Territory Management enabled, you will not see Territories or Territories and Subordinates.

List View Filters

Filters are used to define the records you wish to view in your list view. For example, you might want to return all Accounts in New York. 

As well as adding one or more filters, you can use filter logic to do AND/OR logic. 

Add a Chart to a List View

You can add a chart to accompany your list view, choosing from vertical bar, horizontal bar, and donut. Charts are a great way of visualizing and understanding your data, and can be toggled on and off by clicking the chart icon. 

Charts are not supported when you use the “Recently Viewed” list view.

Search Your List View

Users can search a list view:

  • In list view search, only the first 2000 records are searched.
  • All searchable fields from the object are searched, not just the fields visible on the list view.
  • Once selected, the list view search box will indicate which fields are NOT available for searching.

Inline Edit a List View

Instead of navigating to individual records, you can save time by updating records directly from a list view. You can also select multiple records to update them at the same time.

If you use Record Types, Salesforce custom list views will need to be filtered by a single Record Type before you are able to inline edit. 

Pinned List Views

Pinning a list view is a great way to improve navigation and reduce the number of clicks needed to get to the information you and your users need.

With your list view selected, click the pin icon.

If you choose not to pin a list view, every time you navigate to a tab, you will see your “Recently Viewed” list view by default.

Sort List Views by Time Frame

Sometimes you may want to organize your list view to show records within a specific time frame, like the last month. The best way to do this to do this is by cloning the out-of-the-box Today’s Leads list view and changing the Created Date filter from TODAY to THIS MONTH.

Types of Salesforce Custom List Views

Table View

The default display option for Salesforce list views is Table View. Similar to a spreadsheet, the table view display will allow you to easily view your data in rows, wrap text, and resize or sort by any column.

  1. Click on the dropdown arrow next to a column and select Wrap text (particularly useful for fields such as Description or Next Steps).
  2. Hover, then select the dividing line between columns to resize column width.
  3. Click on any column to sort; click once to sort ascending and twice to sort descending.

Kanban View

Kanban View gives you a visual summary of your data, whilst enabling you to keep things moving by dragging and dropping records so they move through your processes. You can choose what field records are grouped by, and also summarized by. For example, you might group Accounts by type and summarize by annual revenue. 

Kanban view is particularly useful for opportunities as you can see the count and sum of opportunities per Stage and move records through the sales process.

Records will be separated based on Record Type – each Record Type will have its own Kanban tab. 

Split View

Split View enables you to see a list and a record side by side. This is ideal for anyone who works with lists of data such as call lists. Split view is a great time-saver, reducing the need to navigate back and forth between records or tabs.

Resources

The Author

Christine Marshall

Christine is the Courses Director at Salesforce Ben. She is an 11x certified Salesforce MVP and leads the Bristol Admin User Group.

Comments:

    john doe
    April 28, 2016 6:21 am
    I've followed this as well as the instructions on Trailhead, but after clicking Save I just get a page that says "No records to display".
    Ben McCarthy
    April 28, 2016 9:01 am
    Hi John, This means that the criteria you have entered does not meet any records in your system.
    Renu
    December 12, 2016 12:42 am
    Hi Ben, I need to create a list view where the filter criteria has more than 100 values. There is field called UniqueReferenceNumber(URN). I need a filter where URN has 100 different values, one for each account. Please guide me how it can be done. Thanks in advance
    Ayla
    June 05, 2017 10:08 am
    Is there a way to add "Comments" to set as a filter?
    Charni Wiggins
    September 24, 2018 1:56 am
    Hi Ben, This is great. My users are asking for the same but for Lightning - do you have list view documentation for Lightning or, know where I can find some? Would be awesome rather than having to create myself. Charni :)
    vivek kumar trivedi
    June 06, 2022 4:49 pm
    Contact trobject have a field called "Amount", And Account object have a field called "Total amount". We need to display sum of all "Amount" field value of all related contact of an Account on "Total amount" field of account, when any contact is created or updated
    Sheela
    July 25, 2022 2:44 pm
    Hi, Can anyone please suggest me, How can I activate the "Table View" on Topic List View?
    Christine Marshall
    July 26, 2022 10:03 am
    To change the style of the List View, click on the table icon (right hand side) and choose from the List View options available.
    Yo
    August 03, 2022 12:24 pm
    Is there a way to create more than 10 filters in the list view?
    Christine Marshall
    August 03, 2022 1:11 pm
    Sounds like you need a rollup summary. Account and Contact don't support this natively. Check out your other options here: https://www.salesforceben.com/4-ways-to-create-roll-up-summary-fields-on-lookup-relationships-in-salesforce/
    Christine Marshall
    August 03, 2022 1:14 pm
    Not that I'm aware of - try asking Salesforce Support.
    jesse schabert
    October 19, 2022 3:58 pm
    how to make fields searchable in a list view ? search by account name in a case list view for example ? the tool tip says which fields aren't searchable, how to make them searchable ?
    allison
    May 27, 2023 2:38 pm
    In regards to "Sort List Views by Time Frame" can you simply sort by specific month and year? i.e January 2023

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