Salesforce: Send List Email (2)

This is to continue Salesforce: Send List Email blog written 19 months ago.

Task

As per the EmailMessage blog, every email sent out will also create Task, the same for emails send from Send List Email in list view, it will create a Task too, but a bit different. Let us query the Tasks created.

From the above screenshot:

1st row is manual sending email from the Contact record

2nd row is using send list email from the Contact list view

Subject

1st row - Subject start with Email:

2nd row - Subject start with List Email:

Related To (or WhatId in API)

1st row - WhatId is blank

2nd row - WhatId starts with 0XB

Comments (or Description in API)

1st row - contain: To, CC, BCC, Subject, and Body of email

2nd row - blank

Bonus:

If you do not see the Send List Email button in the Lead or Contact list view, check this:

1. Make sure Send List Email is selected in the List View Button Layout in Contact or Lead object setup, it used to be called Search layouts for Salesforce Classic prior Summer '22 release. 

2. Make sure the users have Allow sending of List Emails permission. However, if you remove Mass Email permission, this permission will be auto removed too, and re-enable back the Mass Email permission will not auto-enable Allow sending of List Emails permission.

Salesforce: Case Lifecycle report type

Case Lifecycle report is a standard Salesforce report type provided, but probably the one that is not so famous, not many people use, a bit confusing and very less official article about this.

What is the Case Lifecycle report?

Run case lifecycle reports to view the results of the Range field, which indicates the length of time since the case last changed status or owner. Each time the status or owner changes, the counter begins again at zero --- copy from Using Custom Report Types to Report on Support Activity.

Here are a few in the trailblazer community throughout the years:

• 2011 - https://trailhead.salesforce.com/trailblazer-community/feed/0D54S00000A7ThYSAV
• 2013 - https://trailhead.salesforce.com/trailblazer-community/feed/0D54S00000A7Mt7SAF
• 2013 - https://trailhead.salesforce.com/trailblazer-community/feed/0D54S00000A7Z2gSAF
• 2013 - https://trailhead.salesforce.com/trailblazer-community/feed/0D54S00000A7iXtSAJ
• 2014 - https://trailhead.salesforce.com/trailblazer-community/feed/0D54S00000A7syiSAB
• 2014 - https://trailhead.salesforce.com/trailblazer-community/feed/0D54S00000A8JsWSAV
• 2015 - https://trailhead.salesforce.com/trailblazer-community/feed/0D54S00000A7dltSAB
• 2016 - https://trailhead.salesforce.com/trailblazer-community/feed/0D53A00002j2vkQSAQ
• 2017 - https://trailhead.salesforce.com/trailblazer-community/feed/0D54S00000A80zOSAR
• 2018 - https://trailhead.salesforce.com/trailblazer-community/feed/0D54S00000A7UcBSAV
• 2018 - https://trailhead.salesforce.com/trailblazer-community/feed/0D54S00000A8FNMSA3
• 2020 - https://trailhead.salesforce.com/trailblazer-community/feed/0D54S00000A8ifqSAB
• 2020 - https://trailhead.salesforce.com/trailblazer-community/feed/0D54S00000A91WPSAZ
• 2021 - https://trailhead.salesforce.com/trailblazer-community/feed/0D54S00000A96K8SAJ

Ideas related to this in IdeaExchange:

• 2013 - Need to add "Action" filter Case Lifecycle Report
• 2015 - Case Lifecyce report Business Duration Hours
• 2015 - Bucket Business Hours Duration in Case LifeCycle Report 

List of Salesforce articles:

• 2021 - Case Lifecycle report with duration filter doesn't filter as expected
• 2022 - Enable Case duration or age in business hours to enable the 'Business Hours Age' field

From all the above documents and conversations that can be found using Google search, nothing really explained how the Case Lifecycle report works?

What is the Case Lifecycle report?

It is a standard report type that tracks the duration of a case when the case owner or status is changed.

There are 5 fields available in the Case Lifecycle report:

• Case History Owner
• Case History Status
• Case History Last Modified By
• Case History Last Modified Date
• Duration

Let us walk through this report type with samples:

1. New Case Creation

Remember, every time the case owner or status is changed, a new entry will be created for the case lifecycle report, so creating a new case will generate a new entry for the lifecycle report.

The below report uses using minutes unit.

After 2 minutes, let us refresh the report; both the duration and age increase by 2 minutes

2. Change the Case owner

As mentioned earlier, changing the case owner will create a new entry to the lifecycle report.

- 1st row: duration at 7.9 minutes, the case owned by 'Johan Dev501' for 7.9 minutes, before hand over to the new owner.

- 2nd row: duration at 1.083 minutes, the latest duration since it was assigned to a new owner and it has been held for 1.083 minutes  

Let us refresh the report without changing anything on the case

- 1st row: no change, this is completed, the duration will no longer be changed

- 2nd row: now the duration changed to 5.1 seconds

 

3. Change the Case owner

Changing the case owner will create a new entry to the lifecycle report.

- 2nd row: this is completed; the duration will no longer be changed

- 3rd row: the duration start for the new owner

4. Change Status

Changing the case status will create a new entry to the lifecycle report.

- Case History Last Modified By, show who changed the status or owner

- Case History Last Modified Date, show when does the change happen 

- Case History Owner, show the owner when the entry is created 

- Case History Status, show the status when the entry is created

- Notice that Age keeps counting from the beginning; this is because the case is still open

5. Closing the case

Changing the case status will create a new entry to the lifecycle report.

Let us refresh the report without changing anything on the case

- Notice that the age stops at 26 minutes because the case has been closed

- But, the duration on the last entry keeps counting, no matter the case status  

6. Re-open the case

Changing the case status will create a new entry to the lifecycle report.

- Age recalculate again from the beginning

- Duration of the initial Closed entry stopped at 4.033 minutes

7. Re-closing the case

After a few minutes, hours, or days, refreshing the report will not change anything, except the duration for the last items, which will keep counting.

Can this report type be customized? 

Can we use a custom field instead of standard status and owner? Unfortunately, not; see the above list of idea exchanges. Can we track only the owner or status? Unfortunately, also not.

Can we get the data with SOQL? 

The closest we can get is by query to the CaseHistory object but the result will not have duration and age. 

SELECT Id, CaseId, CreatedBy.Name, CreatedDate, Field, OldValue, NewValue FROM CaseHistory WHERE CaseId = '5000I00002FBKqF' AND Field IN ('Owner','Status') ORDER BY CreatedDate

Note: The owner will show double, as ID and Name, so you just need to get one as needed.

For the owner with Name, the DataType field = Text, while for the owner with Id, the DataType field = EntityId

If you have anything to add for the Case Lifecycle report type, please comment on this blog.

Salesforce: Getting Started with Salesforce Flow

Dreamforce 21 announced that Flow is the future of Salesforce, it will replace Workflow and Process Builder and is also friendly for admin without coding background. The flow itself is not something new but it has been added with many features recently, at least can do all workflow and process builder can do.

Here is the business use case: ABC Inc. would like to have a simple "quick create" form that allows users to easily give feedback or idea to enhance the system, from anywhere in Salesforce Lightning, does anyone still in Classic ⚡

Solution: Screen Flow

1. Create a custom object to capture the data

• Create all the fields needed
• Add a custom tab if needed
• Enable the object for reporting, allow activities, track field changes, and allow search
• Set the object permission by profiles, and fields level security 

2. Create screen flow

Add 3 elements in the flow: screen for form, create records, screen for thank you 

Main screen element, nothing fancy here, just add the input type and set it as required, for this example, type values are derived from a picklist field and set as Picklist Choice Set. You can add emojis to make it fun 😊

Picklist Choice Set gets values from the Type__c custom field.

Create Records element, this is pretty simple, just map each screen component as a value to a field of the object, and remember to select "Use separate resources, and literal values".

** You can add a fault path, in case the system is unable to save the record, such as because of validation rules or etc.

Thank You screen element, the purpose of this screen is simply to tell the user that the data has been captured. In this sample, I will hide the button at the footer.

You can try to debug or run the flow to make sure it will run correctly.

3. Add Flow to Utility Bar

Few items to note here:

• The flow must be activated
• Only Screen Flow will be available 
• Users must have "Flow User" enabled in the user detail, otherwise, the user will not see the flow in the utility item

There is really nothing to be configured here, it is just standard items such as label, icon, panel width, panel height, and of course, the most important is to select the correct flow.

Done and the form looks pretty nice and fits into the utility bar.

Salesforce: Subscribe Report

Almost 5 years ago, I wrote about Subscribe report in Classic and Lightning, but now in 2022, everyone has migrated to Classic (or at least 90%). 

Here are a few items related to Subscribe report:

1. As of Spring 22, the max report to subscribe is 7

Check out this idea exchange, but if someone adds you as a recipient for a report subscription, it does not count for the limit.

2. Add other users to receive the report

The report must be not stored in the Private Reports folder, and the recipient must have access to the report folder.

3. Find all reports that you subscribed to

All reports that you subscribed to will have a checkmark in the Subscribed column (Pro tip: you can sort by this column too). But, if you are added by someone, there will be no checkmark on that column. 

You will see in the email user who adds you subscribe to the report.

4. You can set the Run Report As someone else or as yourself

If there are many people added as recipients, the report will run as a user, whether the one subscribes to the report or a recipient. But what does this mean? 

• Everyone will receive the same report result
• No matter each user's access to the report, it will be based on the visibility of the user set as the run report
• If the report is filtered with date, the data will be based on the time zone of the running user set in SFDC, e.g. created date = 1-Jan-2022 and running user timezone is Singapore, the user sees 200 records when running the report, the same number of records will be delivered in email for all users, but other users where timezone set to EST run the same report, that user may see 201 or 199 records, this is because based on that user timezone. SOQL sample: SELECT Id, Name, CreatedDate FROM Opportunity WHERE CreatedDate >= 2022-04-12T00:00:00+08:00 AND CreatedDate < 2022-04-13T00:00:00+08:00 ORDER BY CreatedDate

Bonus: Standard fields with type = date/time, such as Created Date and Last Modified Date will only show the date portion without time information, but if you sort the report based on this field (ascending or descending), the sort order will include time information, even all date is the same.

Remove Personal Information when sharing Office documents

Microsoft Office by default documents stores your personal information when creating or editing an office document. You can remove that information like comments, version history, and metadata containing personal information like document author, and date of creation, before sharing the file with other people externally. The Document Inspector feature in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or Visio can help you find and remove hidden data and personal information in documents that you plan to share.

For Windows

1. In an open Word document, click File then Info.
2. Select Check for Issues and choose Inspect Document to control what type of content you want to be flagged.
3. To start your search, click Inspect and then Remove all the information you want to be edited from your content.

Repeat the process by clicking the Reinspect and Remove all buttons until your document is clean. Click the Close button to save your changes

Reference: Remove hidden data and personal information by inspecting documents, presentations, or workbooks

Streamlined Salesforce Data Collection

Salesforce out of the box offers web-to-lead and web-to-case, where we can create a simple form and publish it to our website, our customers or prospects can submit their questions or issues, and the data will be stored in Salesforce. However, if you need a custom form for a specific purpose, such as order, request, etc. that links to Salesforce, you need to get developers to build force.com sites, which is not simple, takes time, and also takes a big effort to support and maintain.

In this blog, I would like to introduce FormAssembly, a platform that supports large and complex data collection workflows that require advanced Salesforce integration. You'll benefit from FormAssembly’s powerful, all-in-one data collection platform and visual workflow builder that doesn’t need a team of developers to build and maintain the form as your business changes. Simply use FormAssembly builder (with point and click, instead of code) to make the changes and publish the form to your website.

FormAssembly provides a secure, versatile, and scalable solution for solving data collection challenges for organizations across industries. With a user-friendly platform and intuitive builders, non-technical users can easily create web forms and data collection workflows for any use case no matter the complexity or security requirements. With a simple connector and integration setup, data flows seamlessly from people to web forms, then directly and cleanly into Salesforce.

A FormAssembly Enterprise or Compliance Cloud plan gives users access to several key features and benefits, including: 

• Advanced Salesforce integration: Create or update data for standard and custom objects in Salesforce, prefill forms, use Dynamic Picklists, and more.
• High security and compliance: Protect data with Section 508 compliance, spam protection, PCI DSS Level 1 Certification, encryption at rest, and TLS 1.2 secure forms.
• Respondent authentication: Allow only authenticated users of LDAP, SAML, CAS, or Salesforce Communities (now Salesforce Experience Cloud).
• No-code web form builder and workflow builder: Easily create custom web forms and build out complex data collection workflows without code or technical support.
• 24/5 support by live chat, email, or phone: Receive friendly, helpful support from a dedicated and knowledgeable team (phone is for Priority Support customers only).

The Form Builder

FormAssembly’s web form builder provides a user-friendly, drag-and-drop interface that lets users easily create custom Salesforce-connected forms, edit themes, add images, and more.

1. Once logged into your FormAssembly account, you can start building a web form by clicking on “+ New Form” and choosing a blank form, template, Salesforce import, or clone of another FormAssembly form.

2. All forms are customizable, from text (drop-downs, radio buttons, text area, etc.) to images and themes. You’ll have the ability to add your organization’s logo and brand colors. 

3. Setting a form to active or archived status, setting a processing quota, and creating custom messages can all be achieved in the form processing options section.

4. You can also customize a “thank you” message for a web form submission as well as set a URL for a page redirect.

Salesforce Integration

When it comes to Salesforce, FormAssembly makes this integration seamless and streamlined, while providing several powerful connectors. This powerful Salesforce integration lets users update and create records for standard or custom objects, prefill data, leverage multiple objects, and more. 

FormAssembly’s level of form customization and advanced integration is in most cases even better than Salesforce’s native options. This is why this external data collection platform is the go-to solution for building web-to-anything forms that send data seamlessly to your connected Salesforce Org.

Salesforce Integration Benefits

Leveraging FormAssembly’s platform and integrations offers several advantages that help solve common challenges of Salesforce data collection:

• Eliminate manual work: Create or update records with Salesforce forms that work with any standard or custom object and even objects from AppExchange apps.
• Enable form prefilling: Data pre-loads from Salesforce into a FormAssembly form, making it easy for customers to update information, which syncs back to your CRM.
• Seamless file upload: Customers can easily attach files that upload to a specific Salesforce record when a form is submitted.
• Complete live lookups: FormAssembly’s Salesforce Dynamic Picklist tool lets users complete live lookups to Salesforce from specific fields in a form.
• Streamline processes: Embed and easily load FormAssembly forms in Salesforce Communities using the FormAssembly Lightning component.
• Build forms in minutes: Easily create FormAssembly forms with your own Salesforce objects using FormAssembly’s Salesforce Import too.

Connecting FormAssembly and Salesforce

1. Within the connector section, you have the option to choose between form opened, form submitted, and after form submitted connectors. 

2. Once you choose the Salesforce Connector, click the “Configure button” to connect to Salesforce. Enter Salesforce credentials and allow access to FormAssembly and click the save button.

Learn More

To learn more about FormAssembly for Salesforce, visit their website or find them on AppExchange.