Lookup Filters
Improve user productivity and data quality with lookup filters. Lookup filters are administrator settings that restrict the valid values and lookup dialog results for lookup, master-detail, and hierarchical relationship fields.
Required Editions
Important Where possible, we changed noninclusive terms to align with
our company value of Equality. We maintained certain terms to avoid any effect on
customer implementations.
| Available in: both Salesforce Classic and Lightning Experience |
| Available in: All Editions except for Database.com. |
| User Permissions Needed | |
|---|---|
| To manage lookup filters: | Customize Application |
Administrators specify the restrictions by configuring filter criteria that compare fields and values on:
- The current record (source)
- The lookup object (target)
- The user's record, permissions, and role
- Records directly related to the target object
For example, you can:
- Restrict the Account Name field on opportunities to allow only accounts with a record type of Customer, filtering out Partner and Competitor.
- Restrict the Account Name field on opportunities to allow only active accounts.
- Restrict the Contact field on cases to allow only contacts associated with the account specified in the Account Name field on the case record.
- Restrict the Account Name field on cases to allow only users with the International Sales profile to create or edit cases for accounts outside the United States.
Tip When you define a lookup filter, you can choose from a list of filter criteria
that Salesforce suggests. The list is based on the relationships between objects in your org. To
see the suggested criteria, select Insert Suggested Criteria.
In Salesforce Classic, administrators can make lookup filters required or optional. In Lightning Experience, all lookup filters are required, even if admins specify them as optional in Setup.
- For fields with required lookup filters, values that match the lookup filter criteria appear in the lookup dialog. When editing the record, users can't save invalid values that they type in the field. If a user tries to save an invalid value, Salesforce displays an error message, which administrators can customize.
- For fields with optional lookup filters (Salesforce Classic only), values that match the lookup filter criteria appear in the lookup dialog. To remove the filter and view all search results for the lookup field, users can select Show all results in the lookup dialog. Also, optional lookup filters let users save values that don't match the lookup filter criteria without Salesforce displaying any error message.
Lookup filter criteria can compare fields on the source object with different types of fields on the target object as long as the fields are compatible.
| Source Object Field Type | Compatible Target Object Field Types |
| Currency | Currency, Roll-Up Summary |
| Date | Date, Date/Time, Roll-Up Summary |
| Date/Time | Date, Date/Time, Roll-Up Summary |
| Hierarchy | Hierarchy, Lookup, Master-Detail |
| Lookup | Hierarchy, Lookup, Master-Detail |
| Master-Detail | Lookup, Hierarchy, Master-Detail |
| Number | Number, Percent, Roll-Up Summary |
| Percent | Number, Percent, Roll-Up Summary |
| Picklist | Text, Text Area, Email, URL |
| Roll-Up Summary | Currency, Number, Date, Date/Time, Roll-Up Summary |
Supported Objects
Salesforce supports lookup filters on relationship fields that point to:
- Accounts
- Assets
- Badges
- Badges Received
- Campaigns
- Cases
- Contacts
- Content Folders
- Contracts
- Endorsements
- Entitlements
- Ideas
- Leads
- Opportunities
- Order Products
- Orders
- Products
- Quotes
- Service contracts
- Skill Users
- Skills
- Social Personas
- Thanks
- User Provisioning Accounts
- User Provisioning Logs
- User Provisioning Requests
- Users
- Work Order Line Items
- Work Orders
- Zones
- Custom objects
- Define Lookup Filters
Create and define lookup filters. Lookup filter criteria can compare fields of different types as long as they are compatible. Value-based filters are supported in Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic. - Delete or Deactivate Lookup Filters
Deleting a lookup filter permanently removes it. You can’t recover deleted lookup filters. - View a List of Lookup Filters for a Target Object
You can quickly see a list of all of the lookup filters that restrict the values of each target object. This is useful when creating similar filters for a target object. Also, lookup filters that reference fields on related objects count against the cross-object reference limit, which is the number of unique relationships allowed for a target object. The Related Lookup Filters list lets you see which lookup filters might impact that limit. - Dependent Lookups
A dependent lookup is a relationship field with a lookup filter that references fields on the source object. For example, you can configure the case Contact field to only show contacts associated with the account selected in the case Account Name field. - Considerations for Lookup Filters
Follow these guidelines when creating lookup filters. - Notes on Using Lookup Filters with Person Accounts
If your organization uses person accounts, keep these considerations in mind. - Lookup Filters Best Practices
Use these best practices when you create your lookup filter. - Lookup Filter Examples
Various examples for record types, record status, roles, and complex configurations in lookup filters. - Limitations on Lookup Filters
Keep these limitations in mind when working with lookup filters.
See Also
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