A number of readers commented after yesterday’s email about guidelines for helptext. They felt the only thing missing were some examples.
Not wanting to disappoint, here are a few.
Acknowledgement Date
Original: Date of acknowledgement
Better: Date the donation was acknowledged.
Deceased
Original: When selected, this option marks the contact as deceased, and excludes them from household naming, emails, and phone calls.
Better: When true, excludes this contact from various household fields.
Soft Credit Last Year
Original: Total soft credit amount last year.
Better: Blank (there’s no need to have a helptext, as it’s obvious)
Honoree Name
Original: The honoree name as provided by the donor. If this field is left blank, and the Honoree Contact field contains a value, Salesforce automatically populates this field with that value.
Better: Name of the person being honored. Note: Either use this field or select a Honoree Contact.
Preferred Email
Original: Which email should be used for most communications involving this Contact?
Better: This contact’s most used email address.
Notice
- Object names are not capitalized, but field names are.
- The sentence always ends with a period “.”
The takeaway
Hopefully these helptext examples will help you write more helpful helptexts.