A couple of readers provided some feedback from yesterday’s email that I felt added to the conversation.

The 1st is the option to use validation rules for required fields. This approach has pros and cons.

Pros:

  • Fields can be conditionally required by value. This means if field B is required when field A is set, a validation rule is a good approach.
  • Fields can be conditionally required by user. Perhaps an integration user doesn’t need to populate the field, but a standard user does.
  • The field becomes required across page layouts and lightning pages, so there’s no need to update them.

Cons:

  • There’s no visual indicator that the field is required. This is considered bad UX, and can lead to user frustration.

The 2nd is whenever creating a new required field on an existing object, don’t forget about back-filling it with data.

Populating required fields with a default value avoids users from having to enter something when editing an existing record. This also provides a good UX.

The takeaway
Only use validation rules for conditionally required fields, not when the field is always required.

When adding a required field, be sure to update existing data.

Category:
Salesforce