Construct Effective Custom URL Buttons and Links
Use these methods to construct effective custom URL buttons and links.
Required Editions
| Available in: Salesforce Classic |
Custom buttons and links are available in: All Editions Visualforce pages and s-controls are available in: Contact Manager, Group, Professional, Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, and Developer Editions |
Use Merge Fields to Pass Salesforce Data
For example, you can create custom links that search Google for an account name or look up an address on a map.
http://google.com/search?q={!Account.Name}http://maps.google.com?q={!Account.ShippingStreet} {!Account.ShippingCity} {!Account.ShippingState} {!Account.ShippingPostalCode}
Substitute Symbols for Certain Characters
Substitute symbols for certain characters or use URLENCODE().
Due to the World Wide Web Consortium’s URL encoding standards (W3C), certain unsafe characters, such as spaces and punctuation marks, can’t be passed through a URL. Custom buttons and links escape these characters, so you don’t have to URL-encode them.
If you must encode your URL, use the URLENCODE()
function in the merge field like so: {!URLENCODE(text)} and replace
text with the merge field or text string that you want to
encode.
For example: If the merge field foo__c contains
<B>Mark's page<b>, {!URLENCODE(foo_c)} results in: %3CB%3EMark%27s%20page%3C%2Fb%3E.
Link to Visualforce Pages
To link to a Visualforce page, use URLFOR() with
the relative path to the page, which is /apex/PageName. For
example, to link to a Visualforce page called MissionList that isn’t associated with
a record, use the following
syntax.
{! URLFOR( “/apex/MissionList” ) }When you use URLFOR() with a Visualforce page,
and you want to pass a record ID into the page, you must pass the ID in as a
parameter.
{! URLFOR( “/apex/Mission”, null, [id=Mission__c.Id] ) }Point to Salesforce Pages
Use the $Action global variable and URLFOR() to point to Salesforce pages.
When creating a custom button or link that points to a page in Salesforce, use the
$Action global variable to construct the
link, instead of pasting in the path to the page. Then, if your organization is
moved to another server or the URL to the page changes, the link still points to the
right place.
To construct the link, use the URLFOR() formula
function with the $Action
variable.
{!URLFOR( $Action.Case.NewCase, Account.Id )}This
custom link on the Account object opens the New Case form, creating the case as a
child of the account record. You can use this process for any object that has a
lookup to the Account object. To create a record that isn’t a child of another
record, or if two objects have no relationship, use $ObjectType.ObjectName as the second argument.
For
example:
{!URLFOR( $Action.Case.NewCase, $ObjectType.Case )}$Action global variables expect either a record ID
or the $ObjectType. For example, these formulas
create links to the tab and detail page for an account,
respectively.
{!URLFOR( $Action.Account.Tab, $ObjectType.Account )}{!URLFOR( $Action.Account.View, Some_Account_Lookup__c.Id )}The
URLFOR() function takes additional optional
arguments that get passed into the destination as query string parameters. You can
use these arguments when overriding a standard action with a Visualforce page to
pass in the additional parameters needed by the Visualforce page or its controller.
For example, if when closing a case you want to change the value of a custom field
on the case called Actual Delivery Date to today, you could
use:
{!URLFOR($Action.Case.CloseCase, Case.Id, [ actualDeliveryDate=TODAY()] )}You can then override the Close Case action with a Visualforce page and handle setting the value of the Actual Delivery Date field either in that Visualforce page or its controller. See Using Query String Parameters in a Visualforce Page for more information.
Point to Other Pages in Lightning Experience
Use these Lightning-friendly URL button and link methods to point to other pages in Lightning Experience.
| Custom URL Button or Link | Lightning Experience Behavior |
|---|---|
External URL |
URL opens in new tab |
Relative Salesforce URL, View |
Record home page opens in existing tab |
Relative Salesforce URL, Edit |
Edit overlay pops up on the existing page |
Relative Salesforce URL, List |
Object home page opens in existing tab |
$Action URL, View |
Record home page opens in existing tab |
$Action URL, Edit |
Edit overlay pops up on the existing page |
