Introduction to Salesforce Dynamic Forms

Imogen Caraway

Hawk-eye editor with a passion for trailblazing Salesforce experiences

Updated: Aug 1st, 2023

What are Dynamic Forms for Salesforce?

Salesforce Dynamic Forms have been a game-changer ever since they were released as generally available in the ‘Winter 21 release. Dynamic Forms address a genuine need in the Salesforce community to help declutter pages and display the most relevant information exactly when you want it. With Dynamic Forms, you can say goodbye to having to wade through useless information and you have the freedom to place fields anywhere you want on your page. Another perk is that your loading speed will increase as a result of your page only displaying the fields you really want to see.

In this article, we check out:

The limitations of traditional page layouts in Salesforce.

The intuitive Lightning Layout of Dynamic Forms and how this has transformed the Salesforce experience.

The differences between Dynamic Forms and Salesforce Compact Layout.

Read on to find out more!

Upgrading Page Layouts for Salesforce

Before there were Dynamic Forms, Salesforce had page layouts. While page layouts provide lots of useful information, they also come with a whole host of limitations. Using them can also be time-consuming and frustrating! One big reason for this is that they are not dynamic, meaning that you cannot hide or show the fields and sections based on your needs and inputs. For example, you might only want a specific field to display when a certain condition is met but with page layouts is impossible, it is up to you to make your way through all content on the page to find what you need.

Other problems with page layouts include:

Relatively inflexible: you can’t place fields and sections freely on the page. Instead, you are constrained to certain pre-arranged fields and customization is limited.

Connected to the above, different Salesforce profiles will still get the same page layout. This makes for a user experience that is not tailored to particular groups and their needs.

Problems with scalability: over time, it may be challenging to use page layouts as your organization scales up. This is because you will likely be working with a growing number of fields and sections, which will become harder and harder to manage.

These are just some of the issues that Dynamic Forms have aimed to address. Salesforce users were tired of the limitations of page layouts and wanted a better alternative!

Extending the Lightning Layout with Salesforce Dynamic Forms

Salesforce Lightning layouts empower admins to work with flexibility to create custom interfaces using only drag-and-drop tools. Lightning page layouts display record page details in an intuitive way so you can view and edit this information seamlessly. So where do Salesforce Dynamic Forms fit into the equation? Well, Dynamic Forms is designed to extend the Lightning Layout by providing more extensive customization options and dynamic detail. This is done by:

Enabling greater control of fields on your layout: hide and show fields conditionally for a dynamic experience. This results in a more streamlined and easier-to-use Lightning layout.

Tailor the fields on your Lightning layout: Dynamic Forms give you the power to effortlessly configure the properties of fields within your Lightning layout. This is great because it means everything can be done in one place!

Less is more! Using Dynamic Forms, you can declutter the Lightning layout to only show relevant information.

Personalization based on Profile or Record: Dynamic Forms tailors the experience so that particular profiles or record types need only see the data most relevant to them. Fields can be visible or invisible based on specific needs and use cases.

These are just a few ways that Salesforce Dynamic Forms improves and extends Lightning layouts. Dynamic Forms and lightning layouts ultimately work together to provide admins with a more intuitive, focused, and enjoyable user experience. The beauty of the Dynamic Forms feature is its easy-to-use and understand dynamic page layout in Salesforce.

Differences between Salesforce Dynamic Forms and Compact Layout

We hope that you have enjoyed the read so far and learned more about what came before Dynamic Forms and how it extends the Lightning layouts. But you might be thinking, where do Salesforce Compact layouts come in? And how do they differ from Dynamic Forms? Well, Compact Layouts are distinct from both Lightning layouts and Dynamic Forms! Like Dynamic Forms, Compact layouts aim to provide admins with the most relevant information. But whereas Dynamic Forms enables you to view and edit fields on a Lightning layout, Compact layouts provide a brief summary of the principal fields in a given record. Compact layouts can be added to lists of records, related records, and searches to give admins quick insight into the most useful information on a given record. The main difference between Compact layouts and Dynamic Forms is that Compact layouts provide a summary of the information in a record whereas Dynamic Forms enables you to dynamically dictate the information displayed on a Lightning page.

Top Tips for Using the Dynamic Form Feature

As you may have figured out already, Salesforce Forms are best when they are dynamic And working with custom dynamic fields empowers you to create sleeker and more user-friendly page layouts in Salesforce! So what are the best tips and suggestions for using Dynamic Forms from Salesforce?

Try to avoid having both a Record Detail Component and Field Section on one page. According to Salesforce, this can cause issues such as issues with visibility rules. Similarly, Record Detail and Field sections’ tabs line up in contrasting ways, which can create visual confusion.

Do not place a Field Section on Mobile! These are only designed for desktop.

Remember that even though you can add the same field more than once to your Lightning page, this field will keep displaying the same data.

Any actions you perform to open up or close a Field Section while creating a dynamic form will not apply to the user experience of the page.

Look out for known issues with visibility rules for example when you clone a record from a page enabled with the Dynamic Forms feature, these visibility rules are automatically added to the record. This may be inaccurate!

There are some problems when doing inline editing of fields: if you don’t click save and then do a quick action, the quick action’s edit and save overrides your inline editing.

We hope to see you soon!

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