Salesforce Field history tracking on Record creation

In Salesforce, field history tracking can be setup for both standard and custom fields. 

On Record Creation
No, field history tracking does not log the initial values when a record is created.

On Record Update

Yes, it tracks changes to the specified fields when they are updated. It logs the old value, new value, user who made the change, and timestamp.

As noted in the last screenshot, the Mailing Country should ideally be auto-updated (from Flow, Trigger, etc.) after the record is created; however, the order can be misleading, as they have the same timestamp. If we use SOQL, will we see the difference? No, they may have the same exact milliseconds

Reference:

• Field History Tracking on Record Creation

Salesforce: Sales Territories (I)

Sales Territory

As per the Summer '24 release, Enterprise Territory Management is now called Sales Territories. 

Out-of-the-box sharing mechanism to share record access to users based on the territory setup:

• Account (View OR View and edit OR View, edit, transfer, and delete) 
• Contact (No access OR View all OR View and edit all contacts associated with accounts)
• Opportunity (No access OR View all OR View and edit all opportunities associated with accounts)
• Case (No access OR View all OR View and edit all cases associated with accounts)
• Leads (View, edit, and transfer OR View, edit, transfer, and delete)

* You can set access for the Contact and Lead if you use Private as the default internal access for contacts or cases.

Default access levels determine the default selection when creating new territory.

Territory Model

• Defines the structure and assignment of sales territories and their associated accounts and users.
• It's a hierarchical structure that organizes sales teams and their responsibilities.
• Allow for flexible assignment of accounts and users to territories based on various criteria.
• You can create and preview multiple models (2 for EE, 4 for UE/PE), but only one can be active at a time.
• Once a model has been created, you can open it to Clone, Activate/Archive, or view more info, such as the activation date, etc.

Territory Type

• It can help you group territories based on geography (e.g., North America, Europe), industry (e.g., Financial Services, Retail), or other factors.
• To categorize territories at a more abstract level, not within the hierarchy itself.
• Can be used in reports to analyze sales performance by type (e.g., compare sales across geographical regions). 
• Every territory you create must have a territory type.
• Territory types are used for organizing and creating territories only: they do not appear on territory model hierarchies.
• Each territory type has a priority (it must be a number). For example, "1" indicates the highest or lowest priority.

Create New Territory

Once the Territory Type and Territory Model are created (Territory Model does not need to be activated), you can add the Territory from the "View Hierarchy" in a Territory Model. When creating a new territory, you need to select:

• Territory Type 
• Parent Territory, this is populated by default
• Description (optional)
• Access level for: Account, Contact, Opportunity, and Case

After a territory is created, you can:

• Edit the Territory to set the Forecast Manager (for forecasting purposes)
• Assign users
• Manually add accounts
• Create assignment rules

- An assignment rule can be assigned to multiple territories
  - You need to run the rule when the account or assignment criteria are changed

• Create a child territory

- Inherited Assignment Rules from the parent territory

• Click the 'View Accounts' button to see all Accounts that fit into the rule. 

Account

Add the Assigned Territories related list to the Account page layout, and you will see all Territories related to the Account

Reference:

• Enterprise Territory Management Is Now Sales Territories
• Salesforce Sharing Using Enterprise Territory Management
• What's new in Enterprise Territory Management
• Managing Users and Roles Within Territories

Salesforce: Inactive User

When a Salesforce user has been deactivated, can we still assign the user as the record owner, or populate the user into a lookup field? 

1. Lookup Fields

From the Page Layout (UI): In the standard Salesforce user interface, you typically cannot select or populate a lookup field with an inactive user. The UI filters out inactive users from lookup fields to prevent confusion and ensure that only active users are selectable. Therefore, if you are trying to populate a lookup field from the page layout, you will not see inactive users listed.

From the Backend: You can populate lookup fields with inactive users through backend processes. This includes using data import tools, APIs, or automated processes (like Apex code, workflows, or triggers).

2. Record Ownership

From Setup > User Interface > User Interface, look for "Set Audit Fields upon Record Creation" and "Update Records with Inactive Owners" and enable it. Then, create a permission set with "Update Records with Inactive Owners" permission or enable the permission in the profile.

From the Page Layout (UI): In the standard Salesforce user interface, you typically cannot find or populate the record owner with an inactive user, even if you already have the above permission granted.

From the Backend: If you have "Update Records with Inactive Owners" permission enabled, you can populate record ownership with an inactive user through backend processes. This includes using data import tools, APIs, or automated processes (like Apex code, workflows, or triggers).

Without the permission enabled, you will receive the error message INACTIVE_OWNER_OR_USER:

CRM Analytics: Unsupported Salesforce Data

CRM Analytics (CRMA) is an analytics tool by Salesforce and is hosted in Salesforce's core platform; however, not all of Salesforce's objects and fields are supported by CRM Analytics data sync, including external objects, so you can't build a CRMA dashboard that uses those fields or objects. Check out the following article.

A supported object is one for which you can grant field-level access in Setup. If you're unable to assign field access to a Profile in Setup, that object is considered unsupported in CRMA, e.g. LoginHistory object.

The following statement from the above help article explains this: "To extract fields, the object must be visible to the Integration User. If you can’t manage a field’s visibility in Setup, you can’t grant the Integration User access to it."

Reference:

• Unsupported Salesforce Objects and Fields in CRM Analytics

Salesforce: Retrieve Report Metadata (2)

In a previous blog, we discussed how to use package.xml in Workbench to retrieve report metadata. However, if we simply need to retrieve the report metadata, e.g., to understand the object of a field added to the report, we can simply use REST Explorer in Workbench.

Use GET method /services/data/v62.0/analytics/reports/00OGB00000Dt9Qv2AJ

Change the highlighted ID above to the report ID you want to analyze.

A few items to note from the above data:

• factMap > T|T > aggregates - number of rows of the report
• factMap > T|T > rows - the cell value of each row
• reportMetadata > detailColumns - API field name for each column in the report, including the object name and whether it is a lookup field in the report type
• reportMetadata > reportType - the report type used for the report

The same result (in XML format) you can get using REST Explore from Salesforce Inspector Reloaded.

Salesforce: Custom Report Type Metadata

The Spring '25 release enhanced the Custom Report Types user experience on the setup page; "Enhanced Custom Report Type Setup Page" in the "Reports and Dashboards Settings" should be enabled in the setup menu, which should be turned on by default; otherwise, your Salesforce admin needs to enable it.

The Custom Report Type is stored as metadata, which we shared here. How can I retrieve the Custom Report Type metadata without an IDE? You need to use a tool that supports REST Explorer:

1. Workbench

• Go to Salesforce Workbench.
• Log in with your Salesforce credentials.
• Navigate to Utilities > REST Explorer.
• Use the REST API endpoint mentioned above to retrieve report metadata.

Use the GET method, for example: 

/services/data/v62.0/analytics/report-types/Account_custom__c

You can get the report type API Name from the Custom Report Type user interface in the setup menu, and add a suffix of __c.

2. Salesforce Inspector Reloaded

• Open the Salesforce Inspector Reloaded panel
• Select the REST Explore menu
• Use the GET request as in Workbench 

/services/data/vXX.0/analytics/report-types/Account_custom__c