How Do I Navigate in Salesforce Lightning?

Author: Peggy Schael | Salesforce Trainer | WeLearnSalesforce

While the Salesforce user interface is very intuitive, there are a few not-so-obvious navigation features you do want to be familiar with. Salesforce contains a lot of data in a lot of different places, a.k.a. Salesforce records. Therefore, the more effective you can navigate through the system, the faster you will find the information you are looking for or you want to update. Imagine the smile on your co-workers face when you can show them at least one trick you learned about in this video tutorial. Sounds good? Let’s go then.

The Difference Between Salesforce Classic and Lightning Experience

Did you know that Salesforce has two different user interfaces? An old one and a new one. The old one is called Salesforce Classic and the new one is called Lightning Experience, though it’s not so new anymore. End of 2016 Salesforce had been making significant changes to the way you work to be even more efficient and productive. That’s why they introduced the new modern user interface that is much more dynamic and interactive.

Why do we even need to talk about this when the new interface has been around for so long? Isn’t everyone using Lightning Experience? Yes and No.

Yes, in most cases, you will find and use the Lightning Experience user interface. This includes your Trailhead Playgrounds, Developer Orgs, Production Orgs, and others. And No, in real life, there are still some organizations using Salesforce Classic. Moving from an existing Salesforce Classic Org to Lightning Experience can require more extensive configurations which can take longer to undergo for some.

This means you will need to be familiar with both user interfaces. The good news is that many features you will be learning about work very similarly in both interfaces. However, there are a few differences you should be aware of.

Below is an example of the Accounts and Contacts Pages. You’ll notice quickly that the Lightning Experience user interface can do a lot more. Therefore, make sure to review the full comparison list too!

Due to these differences, it is sometimes necessary to switch between the two user interfaces. There is a so-called switcher which is easy to access. In Lightning, you’ll access the switcher from your profile menu, and in Classic, you’ll find it at the top of your screen.

Navigate Lightning Experience With Ease

Since Lightning Experience is the one everyone should be using, you will learn the most essential navigation paths and best practices around this user interface. And whenever there is a need to switch to Classic, I will tell you so. 🤓

In this preview video tutorial, we will dive right into the tabs along the navigation bar. You can follow along in your own Trailhead Playground, so you can practice your hands-on skills already.

VIDEO TUTORIAL WALK-THROUGH SCRIPT

1. Now let’s have a look at one of the tabs. Let’s start with the Accounts tab.
2. By default you will be taken to the Recently Viewed Accounts which may however be empty if you haven’t used it before. 
3. When you click the little drop down arrow to the right of the heading, you will find more options to view your list of records. This is what we call List Views. You can choose from All Accounts or My Accounts or other filter options. Some of them are provided to you out-of-the-box, and others can be added as needed, such as this one Platinum and Gold SLA Customers which is a custom list view.
4. Let’s select All Accounts for now. Notice the pin icon to the right? You can pin the selected list view instead of the Recently Viewed one.
5. The list view can be sorted by clicking on the column heading. For example clicking on the Account Name column heading. You’ll notice a tiny arrow which indicates how the list is sorted and in which direction. You can click the arrow to switch the direction, like so.
6. Now let’s select one of the Accounts, for example Edge Communications. This will take you to the full Account record. This record contains a number of information which are broken down into tabs. At the top, you’ll find a Highlights Panel to view key details about this Account. 
7. Underneath you will have a Details tab which contains the key details plus other important information about the Account.
8. You will also have an Activities tab where you will see to dos that are coming up as Next Steps or Activities from the past. 
9. Under the Chatter tab you will see updates and questions related to this Account. 
10. And under the Related tab you will find the related Contacts, Opportunities, Cases and more. 
11. Remember the relationships between objects we talked about in the previous unit. This is what they look like.
12. To view the details of one of these related records, for example Sean Forbes, you have two options: You can either click on the hyperlink which will overwrite your current page, or use the right mouse click to open the record in a new window. 
13. Either way will take you to Sean’s contact record where you can see all his details. You notice the way the page is set up is quite similar to the Account page we have just gone through. Now, to view the Account details from Sean’s record, you can either switch windows depending on how you opened it or use the Account Name hyperlink to look up the page. 
14. And this is how the Related lists and Lookups work that we discussed in the previous unit.
15. Let’s jump to the Opportunities tab. From the dropdown at the top let’s select All Opportunities.
16. The list views you have seen so far, look like a table. However you can change the view. Go to the top right corner and click on this little table icon and select Kanban. 
17. This is now giving you a really nice summary type of view which is great to monitor and manage multiple opportunities from one page.  You can drag and drop, you can view subtotals and you make changes. 
18. The Kanban view is available for other tabs as well. For now, let’s change the view back to Table.
19. At the very top of your screen you will find the Global Search bar. It works quite like a Google search. Simply type in a name or phone number or other search term of a record you are looking for. 
20. Once you click into the search you may see recent records. If nothing comes up or they don’t contain what you are looking for, start typing your search term, for example “Sean“. You may see suggestions coming up. If they don’t show what you are looking for, run a full search and click on the magnifying glass. 
21. You will see a page with all search results containing this keyword
22. You can use the dropdown arrow to the left of the global search bar or the menu items on the left to filter your search results for specific record types, for example Contacts. 
23. When you do this, you can add even more filter options. 
24. And to go back to the full search results, you can click Expand List .
25. In case you can’t remember the spelling when you search, you can use the asterisk as a wildcard. However, you need at least two characters. 
26. For example you want to look for John but you’re not sure if it’s John or Johnathan or Jonny. You can type in “jo” and then add the asterisk and then run the full search.

This is how you navigate through the front end user interface and find the records you or your co-workers are working on.

What trick did you learn in this video tutorial that you can’t wait to show your colleague or friend? Let me know in the comments.

WHAT ELSE…

The full video is part of our Complete Salesforce Certification Courses. They cover everything from Salesforce Basics to advanced Salesforce features and functionalities every Salesforce professional should know about.

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