Construct Effective Custom URL Buttons and Links

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}

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] ) }

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()] )}