Monday, February 28, 2011

Admin Journal: Preventing My @Salesforce Users from Including Time-Specific Information in Description Fields with a #Simple Validation Rule

dear_admin_journal

I’ve noticed while doing data cleaning that some users add date-specific information to Description fields on Accounts, Leads or Contacts.

Why This is Bad

No one may notice ‘must follow up by 12/11/2007 or earth will explode’ in the Description of a record such as an Account. That could be bad news.

An Easy Fix (Sorta)

To encourage users to log this information in the most efficient way, I an create a validation rule that looks for keywords in the Description field of a specific object, such as Account.

I can customize the rule based on the typical phrases that I know my users enter, such as ‘follow up on’.

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I like to include a detailed error message so that the user will have a good idea of what their next step should be.

Error: You have included a 'Follow up' task in the Description field, where it may be overlooked. Please remove that reference from the Description field and add it instead as a related task.

I gave it a quick test and it worked.

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I’m sure there are plenty of other ways to accomplish the same thing, but this simple rule is one way to gently herd my users in the right direction.

dear_admin_journal_end

 

Additional Resources

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Jenna Baze is a rather geeky girl with average social skills and an affinity for: all things Google, Remember the Milk, Salesforce.com, Inbox Zero, Etsy, natural light photography and finding creative ways to avoid doing dishes (which includes updating a handful of blogs).
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