Lightning App Builder gives you much more flexibility to what your users see than your classic page layout.
There are many Standard Components to choose from or you can create custom Lightning Components to use in your org. This discussion will be focused on the Standard Components and the flexibility they provide to your Lightning Record Pages.
You can access Lightning App Builder from Setup –> Lightning App Builder and access your individual Lightning Record Pages you’ve created or you can access the Lightning Record Page for the exact page you want to edit from the record itself. For example, navigate to a Case record in Lighting and click on the Gear icon in the upper right and select ‘Edit Page’ to open Lightning App Builder/the Lightning Record Page applicable to that Case record. Note: if you have multiple Lightning Record Pages for the same object, the one that will open is the one you are currently viewing.
You will see a plethora of options on the left for Standard Components. I’ll walk through a few of my favorites and how to use them to their fullest potential.
These are a few of my favorite things “Components”:
Related Record Component:
This component may be my favorite in terms of giving you flexibility to pull in fields outside your page layout. When Dynamic Forms is GA and available on Standard Objects, I’ll be excited to use Dynamic Forms to give my Lightning Record Pages additional flexibility in what surface, but for now the Related Record Component allows you to surface, yes, related records but so much more…
For instance, I have used this to highlight important fields from the Case Object for particular teams on the Case Lightning Record Page that fall outside of the Case Page Layout. I can use this component instead of needing additional record types or profiles to manage. Instead, I can use the same Service Cloud Profile and singularly record type, yet still have the flexibility to highlight key fields to the teams that need them under the Service Cloud umbrella.
To create a specific Related Record set of fields to use on your Lightning Record Page, first navigate to the object in question in Setup –> Click Buttons, Links, and Actions –> Click New Action:
Choose ‘Update a Record’ as the Action Type:
Choose the fields you want to include in your action and hit Save:
Now your action will be available as an option when you add the Related Record Component to your Lightning Record Page:
To add additional flexibility, you can add filters to your component visibility to limit who can see the component or show the component only when certain criteria is met.
Set Criteria in the ‘Set Component Visibility’ section at the bottom of what you can configure for the component.
Filter a component to only show when criteria are met. Similarly throughout Salesforce, you can have it surface when all criteria are met, when any of the criteria are met, or when custom criteria are met (AND or OR/more complex logic):
Filter a component to show for only certain users:
Advanced –> User:
Select from User Fields to use in your criteria including Profile and Role:
Add Advanced Logic, if needed:
Flow Component:
Easily drag the flow component onto your Lightning Record Page and select the flow you want to bring onto the page, configure any Component Visibility you need, and voila!
Highlights Panel Component:
The Highlights Panel lets you bring in fields you want to highlight about your record, right at the top of the page. This is one of my favorites because it lets your users see important information at a glance:
This is configured in Setup under the object you wish you configure –> select ‘Compact Layouts’ and select the Compact Layout you wish to edit. System Default is there to start, which you can Clone and Edit to create your own and assign it to your users.
Note: While you can include up to 10 fields in your Compact Layout, fewer fields may show up for the user if they are on a laptop vs. using a monitor to view. Learned this one the hard way! It’s also important to note that the following field types are not supported for Compact Layouts: text areas, long text areas, rich text areas, or multi-select picklists (Source: Trailhead Module). My advice is to consult with your Ops teams or designated business owners to pull in the most relevant and high value fields for Sales, Service, Marketing, etc. depending on the object.
If you created a new Compact Layout and want to use it, be sure to click ‘Compact Layout Assignment’ on the right to set it as the Primary Compact Layout.
Hopefully, this gives you a glimpse into the enormous world that Lightning and the Standard Components alone open up to you in terms of flexibility of configuration for your users. Much more fun to come with Lightning configuration in the coming months.
5Coats of Salesforce 