Use Case
In Salesforce, when you click on the standard ‘New’ button on a Related List to create a new record on the child object from the record currently in context in a Detail Page, after you click ‘Save’ and save the new record, it returns you to the Detail Page for the newly created record by default. For parent-child object relationships that have high levels of data entry on the child object, this creates a user experience issue as the user will have to click on the link to the parent record in order to return to the Detail Page to continue adding child records or perform additional functions on the parent record.
Solution
The concept behind the solution is straightforward enough, but there are some tricky potential “gotchas” in the implementation that we need to be mindful of. What we are going to do is create a new Custom Button on the child / target object to replace the standard ‘New’ button that gets displayed on a Related List when looking at the Detail Page of a parent record.
The first thing that we need to do is grab the ID of the Lookup field on the child object that represents either the Lookup or Master-Detail Relationship to the parent object. This is important, because we will need to include two URL parameters that provide the record ID of the parent record, otherwise the lookup field will have a blank value when we create a new child record using this new custom button; this would require the user to manually perform a lookup, which is self-defeating since the expected behavior when clicking a ‘New’ button on a related list is to have the parent record ID available in context to pre-populate the dependent field.
To do this, simply go to the Detail Page for a record on the parent object. Navigate to the related list for the child object (obviously you would need to add this if it didn’t already exist), and click the ‘New’ button. Copy the URL of the new page that appears and paste it somewhere that can be referenced throughout this process. It should look something like this:
https://naX.salesforce.com/a00/e? CF00NE0000002UJYd=Name+of+Parent+Record &CF00NE0000002UJYd_lkid=a03E0000002255P &retURL=%2Fa03E0000002255P
Whoa! What does all of this mean?
- naX.salesforce.com – This is the instance of Salesforce that you are currently working on. An example could be ‘NA9′.
- a00 – This is the ID of the object that we are creating a new record for.
- e? – This simply means that we are editing a record. Now the ‘?’ character is the important part – this means that there are some parameters being passed through in the URL, and that whatever follows the ‘?’ is a parameter, which in this case is…
- CF00NE0000002UJYd=Name+of+Parent+Record - This just happens to be the first parameter that was appended to this URL…do not worry about the order in which parameters appear in the URL. But when we see something with the prefix ‘CF’, it means that this is a reference to a Custom Field. The next 15 characters are the ID of the custom field. All URL parameters follow a ‘Key=Value’ convention, so after the Key (CF00NE0000002UJYd) and the ’=’ character, we get a value that represents the Name of the parent record…this is important, because it represents the human-readable value that gets pre-populated into your lookup field on the child record. NOTE: The 15-character ID that follows ‘CF’ will be a different value than what we are using here as an example; it is a unique identifier for every Custom Field in your Salesforce org.
- &CF00NE0000002UJYd_lkid=a03E0000002255P – This is the next URL parameter. How do we know this? The ‘&’ character is our clue. Just as the ‘?’ character means that parameters are included in the URL, the ‘&’ character tells us that there is more than one parameter, and what follows the ‘&’ character is another URL parameter. In this case, the Key is ‘CF00NE0000002UJYd_lkid’. Does this look at all familiar? That’s right, it’s very similar to our previous URL parameter in that it starts out with the ‘CF’ convention for a Custom Field, and it has the same 15-character string representing the ID of the Custom Field, but you’ll notice that ‘_lkid’ is appended to the end. This stands for ‘Lookup ID’ and the corresponding value is a 15-character string representing the Record ID of the parent record. Why do we need this? Well, we may already have the Name of the parent record, but providing the ID of the parent record ensures that no additional data entry is required by the user in order for the value of the Lookup field to reference the correct parent record.
- &retURL=%2Fa03E0000002255P – Again the ‘&’ character simply tells us that another URL parameter follows; in this case we get a Key of ‘retURL’ which tells Salesforce where to redirect the user in the event that the function is cancelled, with the Value being ‘%2F’ (the URL-encoded value for a ‘/’ character) plus the record ID of the record that was in context when the ‘New’ button on the Related List was clicked.
What do we do with all of this? Well, here’s the interesting part – that URL in and of itself is sufficient for getting a user to a screen where they can enter data for a new child record, and if they click the ‘Cancel’ button, Salesforce will know to return them to the Detail Page of the record that they were viewing when they clicked the standard ‘New’ button. But that doesn’t solve our problem – we’re not looking to return to the Detail Page when clicking ‘Cancel’ per se, we’re more interested in returning to the parent record’s Detail Page after the user clicks ‘Save’ on the new record. This URL doesn’t do the trick for us, so we need to somehow have Salesforce follow a different one when a new record is created from a Related List. But how?
The trick is to create a new Custom Button on the child object using these options:
- Label – Whatever text you want displayed on this new button. Give it a descriptive name like ‘New (insert child object name here).”
- Name – Give it a unique name, using only alphanumeric characters and underscores…no spaces or consecutive underscores.
- Description – Whatever you’d like.
- Display Type – Select “List Button” because we will be adding this to a Related List.
- Behavior - “Display in existing window without sidebar or header”
- Content Source – “URL”
Now here comes the fun part. We need to construct a formula that will return a URL that provides us with all of the functionality of the standard ‘New’ button, but includes a URL parameter that tells Salesforce to return the user to the Detail Page of the parent record after this new record is saved.
This formula will be based on the URLFOR function, and at a high level will look like this:
{!URLFOR(target, id, [inputs], [no override])}
A specific example of the URLFOR function constructed to return a URL that provides us with everything we’re trying to accomplish here:
{!URLFOR( $Action.Child_Object_Name__c.New , null, [saveURL=Parent_Object_Name__c.Link, retURL=Parent_Object_Name__c.Link, CF00NE0000002aLV0_lkid=Parent_Object_Name__c.Id , CF00NE0000002aLV0=Parent_Object_Name__c.Name])}
- target – This is where we want the user to end up when this hyperlink is clicked. In our case, we want to use $Action.Child_Object_Name__c.New, obviously changing ‘Child_Object_Name__c’ to the specific API name of your child object.
- id – This is the ID of the record in context. This actually doesn’t pertain to us, because we’re creating a new record and will not have a record ID assigned until the record is saved. So in this case, let’s use ‘null‘ for the value of ‘id’.
- inputs- Remember all of the URL parameters that we talked about above? Those go here using a Key = Value convention, with multiple items separated by commas. Don’t worry about not having the ‘?’ or ‘&’ characters in here, Salesforce will add them for you at runtime. So here are the URL parameters that we need:
- saveURL=Parent_Object_Name__c.Link – Replace ‘Parent_Object_Name__c’ with the API name of your parent object. This parameter represents the secret sauce in everything we’re trying to accomplish – this is the URL that Salesforce will return the user to after the ‘Save’ button is clicked on the new record Edit Page.
- retURL=Parent_Object_Name__c.Link - Replace ‘Parent_Object_Name__c’ with the API name of your parent object. This returns the user to a record Detail Page if the ‘Cancel’ button is pressed on the new record Edit Page.
- CF00NE0000002aLV0_lkid=Parent_Object_Name__c.Id - Replace ‘Parent_Object_Name__c’ with the API name of your parent object, and replace the 15-character ID string contained in ‘CF00NE0000002aLV0_lkid’ with the ID of the Custom Field on the child object that looks up to the parent.
- CF00NE0000002aLV0=Parent_Object_Name__c.Name - Replace ‘Parent_Object_Name__c’ with the API name of your parent object, and replace the 15-character ID string contained in ‘CF00NE0000002aLV0′ with the ID of the Custom Field on the child object that looks up to the parent.
- no override – This is completely optional, and in fact we have left it out of our example. By default this is set to ‘false’, but if it were set to ‘true’ it would override any overrides that you may have in place for the ‘View’ for the record you are referencing in context.
Once you have this formula constructed, click on the ‘Check Syntax’ button. If there are errors, troubleshoot and correct them. If you get the “No syntax errors in merge fields or functions” all-clear, save this Custom Button and you’re almost done!
To get the Custom Button to appear on the Related List, edit the Page Layout(s) of the parent object. Click on the little wrench that appears in the tab above the label of the Related List for the child object. Expand the ‘Buttons’ section, uncheck the box next to the standard ‘New’ button, and under Custom Buttons, find your new button in the ‘Available Buttons’ section, click the ‘Add’ button (arrow facing right), and your button should now appear under the ‘Selected Buttons’ section. Click ‘OK’ and then save your Page Layout. Rinse and repeat for each Page Layout that needs to include this button in the Related List for the child object.
Test out your shiny new button by opening a record in the parent object, navigating down to the Related List for the child object, clicking on your custom ‘New’ button, and entering data into a new record for the child object…
- Does it take you back to the Detail Page for the correct record if you click ‘Cancel’?
- Is the correct record name populated in the Lookup field to the parent object?
- If you click ‘Save’ after entering data in the new record for the child object, does it take you back to the Detail Page of the parent record?
- Do you see the new record in the Related List for the child object?
