Platform User Experience Designer Free Lesson: Page Layouts and Dynamic Forms

Free sample lesson from the Platform User Experience Designer Cert Lab. The full course has 24 lessons and 4 full practice exams.

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Declarative Design · DD2 · part of the 27% section · about 20 min with practice

DD2: Page layouts, compact layouts, Lightning pages and Dynamic Forms

You’ll be able to: decide which tool controls each part of a record page and use Dynamic Forms and visibility rules to show people only what they need.

Who controls what on a record page

Most pages in Lightning Experience, such as the Home page and record pages, are Lightning pages: collections of components arranged in regions. Two tools shape a record page, and each owns different parts of it.

Tools for record pages

Tool	It controls
Lightning App Builder	Which components appear, custom pages for different apps and users, and which fields appear on record pages
Page layout editor	Related lists and custom links, standard and custom buttons, and quick actions
Compact layout	The fields in the highlights panel at the top of a record, the hover lookup card and mobile record display

The highlights panel is the only part of a record page that you can’t customize with the page layout editor. In Lightning Experience up to the first seven fields of a compact layout appear in it, fewer on smaller screens, and the first field is shown at the top in an accented font. Put the object’s Name field first for context. A new custom object starts with a system default compact layout that has only one field, the object name.

Related list types

Type	What users get
Basic List	Only the first four fields
Enhanced List	Up to 10 fields, resizable and sortable columns, mass actions and text wrapping

Dynamic Forms

Without Dynamic Forms, the Record Detail component is one block of fields. Dynamic Forms breaks it into individual field and section components that you can put anywhere on the page, including separate tabs and accordion sections. Use the migration wizard (Upgrade Now) to convert an existing page layout, then remove the old Record Detail component, because having both causes redundancy and can cause errors.

Place fields and sections wherever you want them.
Use visibility rules to show and hide fields and sections.
Reduce the number of page layouts and record types you need.
Assign a Lightning page without assigning a page layout too.

When you migrate from a layout, universally required fields that weren’t on that layout are not added automatically, so check for them before saving or users can’t save records.

Visibility rules

Applies to	How it behaves
Components	Hidden until the filter conditions are met, based on field values, user profile or permissions, or form factor
Fields	Evaluated dynamically while someone edits a record
Field sections	Not dynamic. Evaluated only after a record is saved

A rule that hides every component in a region leaves that region empty. On a phone the Tabs component is stacked, and components that a phone doesn’t support are dropped.

Making the page live

Activation has four options: org default for the object, default for specific apps, a combination of apps, record types and profiles, or a form factor such as desktop or phone.

Exam trap

Don’t look for related lists in the Lightning App Builder alone. Buttons, links, actions and related lists are controlled in the page layout editor, and highlights fields come from the compact layout.

Predict, then reveal

A support lead wants key fields visible at the top of every case. Which tool?

Show the answer

The compact layout, because it controls the highlights panel.

Try it 5 min · a Developer Edition org or a sketch pad

List the fields people need at a glance on one object and order them for a compact layout.
Decide which fields should be hidden until another field has a value and write the rule.
Check what a phone user would see for your page.