Gotchas If Users Switch Between Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic
Switching between Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic affects the underlying URL routing logic and can lead to some unexpected results when links are resolved. There can be snags with bookmarks and sharing links in emails or Chatter posts—especially if only a subset of your users are working in Lightning Experience.
Required Editions
| Available in: Group, Professional, Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, and Developer Editions |
The Lightning Experience User permission and a user’s default interface affect the way links resolve for each user in your org. A user’s default interface isn’t static.
- A user’s initial default interface is determined by when they were added to Salesforce.
- All users who existed at the time Lightning Experience was enabled in your org keep Salesforce Classic as their default interface. This is true whether an existing user already had the Lightning Experience User permission or is assigned the user permission at a later date.
- Users who are added to your org after Lightning Experience was enabled get Lightning Experience as their default interface at the time they’re assigned the Lightning Experience User permission.
- If you switch a user to Lightning Experience, their default interface resets to Lightning Experience.
- Any time someone uses the Switcher, that user’s default interface resets to the current environment.
- When switching from Classic to Lightning Experience, if the URL contains
nooverride=1in Classic, it changes tonooverride=truein Lightning, and you don’t see overrides for the record you’re navigating to. - Running Classic and Lightning Experience in different browser tabs or windows is not supported and can cause unexpected behavior in the look and feel of your org and the values returned by the $User.UITheme and $User.UIThemeDisplayed fields. For example, if your org is using Lightning Experience, but you switch to Classic in a different browser tab, these fields return a Classic theme in both tabs.
Here are the typical link routing interactions your users can encounter.
| User Has the “Lightning Experience User” Permission? | User’s Default Interface | Where Links Open |
|---|---|---|
| Yes | Lightning Experience | For pages supported in Lightning Experience, links open in the new interface (even for links generated in Salesforce Classic). Links to unsupported pages are directed to Salesforce Classic, which opens in a new tab. This temporary redirection doesn’t change the user’s default interface to Salesforce Classic. The next time the user selects a link that is supported in the new interface, the Salesforce Classic tab is reloaded to open the link in Lightning Experience. To share a Lightning Experience link with other users, make sure that they are logged in to Salesforce first. Otherwise, the link prompts them to log in and then directs them to the home page. |
| Yes | Salesforce Classic | Links usually open in Salesforce Classic. If a link was generated in Lightning Experience, the link opens in Lightning Experience. The user’s default interface doesn’t change to Lightning Experience. |
| No | Salesforce Classic | Links open in Salesforce Classic only. If a link was generated in Lightning Experience, the link doesn’t open, because the user can’t access Lightning Experience. |
Given these routing behaviors, you can see the potential for confusion when users share Lightning Experience links with Salesforce Classic users. To minimize link issues, give Lightning Experience access to all users who work closely together. And train your Lightning Experience users to understand how links and bookmarks work across the two experiences.
To avoid link issues altogether, move your entire org to Lightning Experience and turn off access to Salesforce Classic for everyone.
