Maintain Your Platform App Builder Certification for Winter ’25
Learning Objectives
After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:
- Use the new Dynamic Highlights Panel to configure fields in the Lightning App Builder.
- Create or update records efficiently with the Create Records element.
- Restrict user input on screen components with the Disabled and Read Only fields.
- Manage details about a user in the improved User Access Summary page.
Maintain Your Certification
If you hold the Platform App Builder credential, keep in mind that you need to complete this module by the due date to maintain your certification. Another important part of maintaining your credential is ensuring your Trailhead and Webassessor accounts are linked.
Interested in learning more about getting certified? Check out the Platform App Builder credential.
Protect the Integrity of Your Certification
The quality of our certification exams and the value that our credentials provide are our highest priority. Protecting the security and confidentiality of our exams is essential to providing our customers with credentials that are respected and industry-leading.
As a participant of the Salesforce Certification Program, you’re required to accept the terms of the Salesforce Credential and Certification Program Agreement. Please review the Salesforce certification exam-taking policies in the Salesforce Credential and Certification Program Agreement and Code of Conduct Trailhead Help article for more details.
Salesforce introduced new feature enhancements over the past year. Let’s take a look at some of the more important ones.
Configure Record Highlights in Lightning App Builder
Simplify your configuration of important fields in the Lightning App Builder using the new Dynamic Highlights Panel. It gives you more flexibility to provide the most relevant information your users need, exactly where you want it on the page. Previously, you could only configure fields in the Highlights Panel using compact layouts in Setup. The Dynamic Highlights Panel can contain up to 12 fields.
The Dynamic Highlights Panel provides several advantages, including:
- A more responsive layout, so fields aren’t truncated when the browser window size is changed
- Support of visibility rules to dynamically show or hide fields based on specific criteria
- The ability to work right in the Lightning App Builder rather than in Setup
This change applies to Lightning Experience in Group, Professional, Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, and Developer editions.
To use the Dynamic Highlights Panel, simply drag the component onto the Lightning App Builder canvas, and add the desired fields. The Primary Field value is preselected, but you can change it if needed. This panel is responsive, so your information remains visible and wraps appropriately when you resize your browser window.
The Dynamic Highlights Panel functions similarly to a Field Section, serving as a container for fields. You can find it on the Fields tab in the Lightning App Builder.
You can also customize the actions that appear in the panel. The Dynamic Highlights Panel uses dynamic actions by default and is supported for all LWC-enabled objects. For a list of LWC-enabled objects, see LWC Migration for Record Home Pages.
Your users can see the Dynamic Highlights Panel immediately on desktop, but for it to appear on mobile record pages, you must enable it from Setup | Salesforce Mobile App | Dynamic Forms and Dynamic Highlights Panel on Mobile.
Create or Update Records Efficiently with the Create Records Element
Make the process of saving records easier and faster. In Flow Builder, you can now use the Create Records element to create or update records based on whether a specified field value exists in the database. By merging create and update into one element, you no longer need to check separately for existing records. With the Create Records element, you configure and maintain the flow more easily while reducing potential errors from separate operations.
Examine a Practical Application
Let’s imagine a district sales manager in charge of 30 salespeople with established territories. The sales manager requires a territory update each month. Every salesperson submits a list of existing customers with their purchasing budget and a list of new prospects with a projected purchasing budget. A single flow element handles all these updates without requiring one step to search for records that can be updated and a separate step to create new records.
Here’s how the sales manager would set it up.
- From Flow Builder, add the Create Records element.
- For How Many Records to Create, select Multiple.
- Select a record collection.
- Enable Update Existing Records.
- Select the field used for identifying existing records and an option for processing the remaining records in case a record fails.
This change applies to Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic in Professional, Enterprise, Unlimited, Performance, and Developer editions.
Restrict User Input on Screen Components with the Disabled and Read Only Fields
Gain greater flexibility and control over how users interact with screen components. Ensure important data can’t be modified, and control which fields can be viewed or copied but not altered. Use two new fields, Disabled and Read Only, to specify how users interact with screen components. Enhance the user experience with clear visual clues while ensuring original data remains intact.
When the Disabled field is set to true, users can’t navigate to or modify any fields in the component. A gray background in the input fields gives users a visual cue to improve their experience. When the Read Only field is set to true, users can’t modify any fields in the component. However, they can navigate to and copy values.
How to Use the Fields with a Screen Component
In Flow Builder, create a screen flow and add a Screen element to the flow. Include one or more components with the Disabled or Read Only field. Set one or both of the new fields to {!$GlobalConstant.True}
or to a formula resource that evaluates to true. Save and run the flow. For example, this image shows a Name component with the Disabled field set to true.
This change applies to Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic in Essentials, Professional, Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, and Developer editions. It’s not supported in Classic runtime for flows.
Manage Details About a User in One Place
User information is now consolidated on the improved User Access Summary page, so it’s easier to view and edit that information. In the User Access Summary, you can see a consolidated view of a user’s assigned permissions, public groups, and queues. The standard and custom user fields that appear on the summary page match the User Details section of the user’s assigned user profile page layout.
From Setup, in the Quick Find box, enter Users
, and then select Users. Select a user, and then click View Summary.
This change applies to Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic (not available in all orgs) in all editions.
Sum It Up
You’ve learned about some of the most important Salesforce releases to app builders over the past year, including the Dynamic Highlights Panel, the Create Records element, and Disabled and Read Only fields. Test your understanding of these topics by completing the quiz in this unit. In Unit 2, you learn how to make records stand out with conditional field formatting in Lightning App Builder, and test your knowledge by completing a hands-on challenge.
Resources
- Salesforce Help: Configure Record Highlights in Lightning App Builder
- Salesforce Help: Create or Update Records Efficiently with the Create Records Element
- Salesforce Help: Restrict User Input on Screen Components with the Disabled and Read Only Fields
- Salesforce Help: Disable More Screen Component Fields at Run Time
- Salesforce Help: Manage Details About a User in One Place
- Salesforce Help: View a User’s Access Summary