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Creating a Personal Setup link using the standard Custom Links on the sidebar

All users need to change their personal settings, from time to time, in the Salesforce CRM application. They may, for example, wish to edit their user information, change their password, or you may need them to grant login access to administrators, plus many other reasons.

Accessing the Personal Setup area is done by users clicking on their name, looking for the Setup link in the drop-down list, clicking on the Setup link, and then finally clicking on the Personal Setup link in the sidebar.

All this takes time and can often be a challenge for less-experienced users of the application. By providing a direct shortcut link in the sidebar, all users will be able to access their Personal Setup area with a single click, and save their time and efforts.

How to do it…

Carry out the following steps to create a Personal Setup link in the sidebar:

  1. Navigate to the home page components’ setup page by going to Your Name | Setup | Customize | Home | Home Page Components.

    Locate the Custom Links row within the Standard Components section.

  2. Click on Edit.

    Within the Custom Links page you can enter a maximum of 15 links.

  3. Enter Personal Setup in the 1. Bookmark field.

  4. Enter /ui/setup/Setup?setupid=PersonalSetup in the corresponding URL field, as shown in the following screenshot:

  5. Click on Save.

    We now need to add the standard Custom Links component to a home page layout (if it has not been already added).

  6. Navigate to the home page components setup page by going to Your Name | Setup | Customize | Home | Home Page Layouts.

  7. Determine which home page layout to place the component on and click on Edit. Here we are editing the home page layout named DE Default, as shown in the following screenshot:

    We will be presented with the Step 1. Select the components to show page.

  8. Check the Custom Links checkbox in the Select Narrow Components to Show section, as shown in the following screenshot:

  9. Click on Next.

  10. Move Custom Links to the top position in the Narrow (Left) Column using the Arrange the component on your home page section, as shown in the following screenshot:

  11. Click on Save.

How it works…

The link appears in the sidebar within the standard Custom Links section, as shown in the following screenshot:

When the link is clicked, the user is immediately presented with their Personal Setup page.

There’s more…

Clicking on the link displays the Personal Setup page in the same window and is useful when there is no requirement for the link to open up in a new browser window. The following screenshot shows the result of clicking on the Personal Setup Custom Link:

See also

The Using Custom Links to open Training in a new window from the sidebar recipe in this article.

Using Custom Links to open Training in a new window from the sidebar

In the Salesforce CRM application, there are various options for help and training.

Accessing the training area is done by the users by clicking on the Help link at the top of the page (which then opens in a new browser window). Users then need to look for the Training tab within the new page and then click on the tab.

All this takes a little time and can often be a challenge for less-experienced users of the application. By providing a direct shortcut link in the sidebar, all users will be able to open Training automatically in a new window with a single click, thus saving time and effort.

How to do it…

Carry out the following steps to create a link in the sidebar to open Training in a new window:

  1. Navigate to the Custom Links home page by going to Your Name | Setup | Customize | Home | Custom Links.

  2. Click on New.

  3. Enter the label of the Custom Link in the Label field. Here, type the text Training.

  4. Accept the default name of the Custom Link in the Name field, Training.

  5. Leave the Protected Component checkbox unchecked.

    The Protected Component option is used by developers to mark the Custom Link as protected in managed packages. This then allows the developer to delete the link in any future releases of the managed package without worrying about causing package installations to fail.

  6. Enter the following description in the Description field: This a link to Salesforce Training.

  7. Choose the Display in new window option from the Behavior picklist. Choose the URL option from the Content Source picklist.

  8. Enter /help/doc/user_ed.jsp?loc=training into the source section as shown in the following screenshot:

  9. Ensure the selection Unicode (UTF-8) is set in the Link Encoding picklist.

  10. Click on Save.

    We now need to create a custom home page component to house this custom link. The alert displayed in the following screenshot reminds us of that:

  11. Click on OK.

  12. Now navigate to the home page components setup page by going to Your Name | Setup | Customize | Home | Home Page Components.

  13. Click on New.

  14. Click on Next (on the Understanding Custom Components splash screen, if shown).

    The Next button is found on the Understanding Custom Components splash screen (this page is only shown if the Don’t show this page again checkbox has not previously been checked) as in the following screenshot:

    Here, we will be presented with the Step 1. New Custom Components page.

  15. Enter the name of the Custom Component in the Name field. Enter the text Custom Links (in New Window).

  16. Select the Links option from the Type options list as shown in the following screenshot:

  17. Click on Next.

  18. Now add the Training link to the list of Custom Links to show as shown in the following screenshot:

  19. Click on Save

    We have created our Training link’s custom home page component but we are not finished yet. We now need to add the custom home page component to a home page layout.

  20. Navigate to the home page components setup page by going to Your Name | Setup | Customize | Home | Home Page Layouts.

  21. Determine which home page layout to place the component on and click on Edit. Here we are editing the home page layout named DE Default, as shown in the following screenshot:

    We will be presented with the Step 1. Select the components to show page.

  22. Check the Custom Links (in New Window) checkbox in the Select Narrow Components to Show section as shown in the following screenshot:

  23. Click on Next.

  24. Move Custom Links (in New Window) to the top position in Narrow (Left) Column using the Arrange the component on your home page. section, as shown in the following screenshot:

  25. Click on Save.

How it works…

Clicking on the Training link opens a new smaller browser window with the Salesforce Training page directly accessed and loaded alongside the main Salesforce CRM application windows. Users can switch back to the main application when they want and simply close the Training window when they are finished viewing it.

You can see what this looks like in the following screenshot:

See also

The Creating a Personal Setup link using the standard Custom Links on the sidebar recipe in this article.

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