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Salesforce.com lets you put custom links in the application. These can be hyperlinks to other objects in Salesforce.com, custom code, external sites, etc. You can dynamically create these links based on the context of the current object. So you can parameterize the URLs with Salesforce.com data, like address info. Here’s a custom link that pulls up a Yahoo! Map for the Contact’s address:

http://maps.yahoo.com/py/maps.py?cn={!Contact_MailingCountry}&csz={!Contact_MailingCity}+
{!Contact_MailingState}+{!Contact_MailingPostalCode}+&addr={!Contact_MailingAddress}

Until recently, you were very limited in where you could put your custom links on the page layout. You had to put them in a bucket called “Useful Links”, and only custom fields could go in there. But there is a better way. You can now create Formula fields that are Hyperlinks. Here’s a Hyperlink for a link to an S-Control I wrote for creating a new gift for a contact:

HYPERLINK(”/servlet/servlet.Integration?lid=00b30000000nIAI&eid=” & {!Id} , “Create a New Gift”)

The lid is the Id of the S-Control I wrote to create a new gift. The {!Id} is the Id of the Contact I’m coming from. So I’m calling custom code in the context of my current object.

Now I can put that link anywhere I want on my layout, and I can put descriptive text near it to make sure its function is understood. The descriptive text is put in as text Formula fields that has static descriptive content. That field is then put directly below the link.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 15th, 2006 at 9:56 am and is filed under CRM, Technology. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.