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Salesforce Dynamic Forms: Your Top Questions Answered

By Christine Marshall

May 04, 2022

Salesforce Dynamic Forms has been in general release for a year and it’s still a hot topic. While Salesforce is continually working on enhancing this feature, Admins everywhere are learning how best to use it, which has led to a lot of questions. In this article we’ll dive into our top questions about Dynamic Forms to help you make the most out of this amazing tool.

For a full guide, check out our “Salesforce Dynamic Forms – Overview & Deep Dive Tutorial”.

1. Is Dynamic Forms available in Classic?

No! Dynamic Forms is only available in Lightning Experience. If you’ve been looking for an excuse to migrate, this might just be it.

Read More: Salesforce Classic vs. Lightning – Is Anything Still Missing?

2. Is Dynamic Forms available for standard objects?

Yes! As promised at Dreamforce ‘22, Salesforce has extended Dynamic Forms to support hundreds of standard objects! Specifically, support has been extended to the majority of LWC-enabled standard objects (Lighting Web Component enabled).

Dynamic Forms are not available on objects that do not support Lighting Web Components, including Campaigns, Tasks, and Products. To ascertain if an object supports Dynamic Forms, edit the record page on the Lightning App Builder – if you see the “Fields” tab in the component panel, Dynamic Forms are available.

Check out the latest roadmap.

3. Do I Still Need The Standard Page Layout?

Yes, not only can you update the standard page layout, you need to. The standard page layout still controls things such as which Related Lists are visible on your Lightning page layout.

UPDATE: From the Summer ’23 release, the related lists available will not be controlled by the standard page layout.

On the Candidate object, I have not added the ‘Files’ related list to my page layout:

When I try to edit my Lightning page layout, although I can see the ‘Files’ related list, when I drag it onto the page it displays an error to explain it cannot be displayed because it is not included in the page layout:

It’s also worth noting that a record’s printable view is based on the fields from the default page layout, not the fields on the Dynamic Forms page. In addition, the mobile layout is also driven by the standard page layout.

4. What If I Have The Standard Detail Page Component Plus Dynamic Form Elements Such As Sections and Fields?

There’s nothing stopping you from having both the standard detail component, as well as Dynamic Form sections and fields. However, more components will impact the page load time, plus you’ll have duplicate fields. You also need to consider what will display when a user creates a new record…see the next question for more information.

Read More: The Analyze Button: Improve Your Salesforce Lightning Page Load Speed

5. Which Is Used When Creating a Record: The Details Page or Dynamic Forms Elements?

This is a slightly complicated question and it varies depending on where/how you create a record.

Typically, once Field Section components are included in the Lightning page layout, then they are used to create a new record, not the details component. If you select the ‘New’ option from the object tab, it will use the Dynamic Forms elements, not the details page.

My Candidate Lightning page contains both the details component, as well as dynamic Field Sections and Fields:

When I try to create a new Candidate record from the relevant tab, I am presented with the Dynamic Field Sections and Fields only:

That said, if you create a record from a lookup, the fields come from the record detail component, not from the Dynamic Forms fields on the page. Check out the third bullet point on Dynamic Forms Known Issues.

6. What Happens If You Hide a Mandatory Field?

Chaos. Well, that’s not entirely true, but it does make for a very unpleasant user experience. In short, the user will not be able to save in order to create or edit, and will receive an error.

Salesforce will warn you not to do this…

And if you persist, your users will see this…

Don’t say you haven’t been warned!

7. Do Section Headings Remain, Even If All Fields Are Hidden?

Yes. Even if all the fields in a section are hidden, the section header will still be visible. Consider adding your filter to the component instead of individual fields if you want the entire section, including header, to be hidden.

8. Can You Filter By Record Type?

Yes, you can. For this, you’ll need to select ‘Advanced’ when adding your filter.

9. Can You Filter By Multiple Picklist Values?

Yes, you can. This is not to be confused with filtering by multi-select picklists (see question below).

What we mean here is can you filter on multiple picklist values e.g. if you have a picklist field ‘Rating’ with the values ‘Hot’, ‘Warm’ and ‘Cold’, can you create a filter to display only if the field value is ‘Hot’ or ‘Warm’?

Simply add two filters and set the filter logic as 1 OR 2.

10. Can I Use Multi-Select Picklists For Filters?

No. You cannot filter on multi-picklist fields.

11. Can I Use Fields From The Parent Record As Filters on Dynamic Forms?

Yes you can. When you set component visibility, click ‘Add Filter’, then select ‘Advanced’. In my developer org I have two custom objects: Role and Candidate. Role is the parent object and Candidate the child object.

By navigating to ‘Advanced’, I am able to select ‘Record’ which then displays all fields available on Candidate including the lookup to Role. I select ‘Role’ and am then able to choose a field on the Role object called ‘Level’ to use as a filter on my Candidate page layout.

A word of caution when using this functionality; when creating a new record, even with the parent record selected (e.g. referenced in a lookup), values aren’t calculated until you save.

What does this mean in terms of the functionality you can expect? It means that if you have Field Sections or Fields that are filtered based on values in a parent record, they will not be visible until after the new record is saved.

12. What About Field Visibility vs. Field Section Visibility?

Something worth noting is that Field visibility and Field Section visibility behave differently.

Although both are dynamic e.g. can be set to appear or disappear based on filters you define, Fields are super dynamic as they are evaluated live (as a user makes changes). This means that a field may appear/disappear while a user is editing a record.

In contrast, Field Sections are only evaluated on Save, so a new section won’t appear/disappear until the user saves the record.

13. Can I Add a Field More Than Once?

Yes! Unlike the traditional page layout where you can only add a field once, you can add a field multiple times using Dynamic Forms.

The reason for this is because you may create multiple Field Sections that display fields based on different criteria or for different record types or users. Although there is a clear need for this functionality, be careful you don’t accidentally add a field several times for no reason!

14. Are New Fields Auto-Added to Dynamic Forms?

No! Traditionally, when you create a new field, you have the option to auto add the field to your page layouts. It’s important to note that this only applies to the standard page layout or details section. If you are using Dynamic Forms, you need to remember to go and add your new field to your Dynamic Forms field section!

Summary

We love Dynamic Forms and hope that you do too! There are many exciting enhancements to expect from Dynamic Forms over the next few releases. Do you have any other pressing questions about Dynamic Forms? Pop them in the comments below!

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.

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Comments:

    Corey
    December 08, 2021 5:36 pm
    A workaround for filtering on Multi-Select picklists is to create a text formula field that concatenates the selected values into a comma or semicolon separated string. Multi-Select Field(String) (Multi_Select_Field_String__c) IF(INCLUDES(Multi_Select_Field__c, "PicklistValue1"), "PicklistValue1;", null) + IF(INCLUDES(Multi_Select_Field__c, "PicklistValue2"), "PicklistValue2;", null) + IF(INCLUDES(Multi_Select_Field__c, "PicklistValue3"), "PicklistValue3;", null) Then you can filter on that text field using the Contains operator. Multi-Select Field String Contains PicklistValue1 The drawback to this workaround is that the formula won't calculate until the record is saved, so the dynamic form won't update in real-time as values are selected or removed from the multi-select picklist. This solution works best when you need to display or hide whole sections on your page layout
    Reply
    Dan
    December 09, 2021 3:23 pm
    #11 IMO is something that needs to be corrected sooner then later. Picture having a Order / Order Line Item. In the OLI you want to lookup a product. If you want to filter fields related to the selected product you have to create the OLI then Save. Then when you reopen the OLI the visibility works and if one of the fields was required in dynamic forms you will see the record saved and will not enforce this until the second save. This is silly , common Sales Force get this fixed ! Also would be nice if you get the fields feature out of beta on Flows.
    Reply
    Ethan
    January 12, 2022 6:16 pm
    One thing that needs to be dealt with is the time it takes to rearrange. I have a section that needs to be combine with another section. On a standard page layout I'd just drag all the fields at once to their new section. However on dynamic forms I have to move each individual field to it's section. This would be less of a burden if the page scroll was a bit better. I'm constantly "pushing" the dragged field against the border to get the page to scroll. Just overall a real pain in the butt.
    Reply
    Chaitanya Walukar
    August 11, 2022 11:44 am
    The Dynamic force once a beginning now becoming a big and most useful update
    Reply
    Clay
    October 07, 2022 10:05 pm
    What is the point of Record types now with this form?
    Reply
    Christine Marshall
    October 10, 2022 11:31 am
    Record Types still control things like sales processes and what picklist values are available!
    Reply
    Leah
    November 01, 2022 7:24 pm
    Are we ever slated to have this for Activities (and all the other objects not mentioned above) or is the plan to have two completely different ways of creating page layouts for the rest of time?
    Reply
    Michael
    November 30, 2022 3:22 pm
    Hi, I set up the Dynamic Forms I made the setting when I do a record update the conditions work. But when I create a record the conditions don't work. In my case I have 2 type records. I would like the conditions to work when creating the record thanks a lot for your help
    Reply
    Mathew Abraham
    February 01, 2023 3:46 pm
    Dynamic Form is great, but several important functionalities that I found missing or not available are: 1. The tab-key order setting from left to right. The default tab-key order in Dynamic Form is top to bottom. This is causing issues with big forms where there are several fields, and the related and subsequent field need to be in the same area of the page left and right. 2. Related list 'All View' button is missing! This is important to click and see all related records more than 30, i.e., the current limit. 3. There no blank space option available, to skip a line space on the page. For example, if we want to keep only one Field section with several fields, and within that section need sub-sections with varying number of fields (and do not want another field section), and each sub-section must start in the left column and then the next field to the right, it is not possible!. This is also an issue in conjunction with the tab-key order issue stated above. These and any other missing functionalities must be fixed for better user acceptance.
    Reply
    Arrify
    February 10, 2023 5:02 am
    This is a fantastic resource, Christine! I was struggling with some of the concepts around dynamic forms in Salesforce and your post has been incredibly helpful in clarifying things. Your answers to the common questions are clear, concise, and easy to understand. The real-life examples and practical tips for implementation were especially valuable. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and expertise, this will be a go-to resource for many Salesforce users.
    Reply
    Christine Marshall
    February 10, 2023 2:40 pm
    Thanks for reading and for your lovely feedback!
    Reply
    Christine Marshall
    February 10, 2023 3:05 pm
    Salesforce announced at Dreamforce that they plan to make Dynamic Forms available to all standard objects by Winter '24! But this is not guaranteed!
    Reply
    Meg K
    March 06, 2023 7:51 pm
    We switched to dynamic forms for accounts, but now when creating a new account, SF uses the default record type for the user's profile. There isn't an option to choose the record type like we had in standard page layouts. Is there a way around this issue? I have tested using a custom button but no matter what syntax I use, SF still uses the default record type. I don't want to create a custom field for users to choose between types and then create a flow to apply that to the record type, but I don't see a way around this issue.
    Reply
    Pierre
    April 06, 2023 5:53 pm
    How would you go about "migrating" several page layouts matched to different record-types ? I see the move to dynamic forms on the current lightning page, and you get the option to select a single page layout to go about doing the new "dyanmic form", isn't there a way to migrate all layouts ?
    Reply
    Curious
    May 16, 2023 11:02 am
    Will Dynamic Form Component visibility block on Salesforce Report level?
    Reply
    Israr
    June 07, 2023 9:51 am
    How do I enable Dynamic forms on mobile beta in production org..? It is available in dev org (sandbox) but not in QA, UAT Sandboxes and Production Org.So how to get that option in other orgs..?
    Reply

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