Salesforce: Common Terms and Definitions

Below are terms and definitions commonly used with Salesforce at St. Thomas. More terms and definitions can be found online on the Salesforce Help Docs

Activity
An event, a task, a call you've logged, or an email you've sent. You can relate an activity to other records, such as an account, a lead, an opportunity, or a case. Tasks can also be generated by workflow rules and approval processes configured by a Salesforce admin.

App
Short for “application.” A collection of components such as tabs, reports, dashboards, and Visualforce pages that address a specific business need.

Approval Process
An approval process automates how records are approved in Salesforce. An approval process specifies each step of approval, including who to request approval from and what to do at each point of the process.

Campaign
A marketing initiative, such as an advertisement or direct mail, that you conduct in order to generate prospects and build brand awareness.

Campaign Member
Any lead or contact associated with a campaign.

Case
Detailed description of a Constituent’s feedback, problem, or question. Used to track and solve your Constituents’ issues.

Community
Communities are customizable public or private spaces for employees, end-Constituents, and partners to collaborate on best practices and business processes (for example: Application Portal, Alumni Directory, etc.)

Contact
Contacts are the individuals associated with your accounts.

Custom Field
A field that can be added in addition to the standard fields to customize Salesforce for your organization’s needs.

Custom Object
Custom records that allow you to store information unique to your organization.

Dashboard
A dashboard shows data from source reports as visual components, which can be charts, gauges, tables, metrics, or Visualforce pages. The components provide a snapshot of key metrics and performance indicators for your organization. Each dashboard can have up to 20 components.

Dependent Field
Any custom picklist or multi-select picklist field that displays available values based on the value selected in its corresponding controlling field.

Email Template
A form email that communicates a standard message. Email templates can be personalized with merge fields, and can be written in text, HTML, or custom format.

Field-Level Security
Settings that determine whether fields are hidden, visible, read only, or editable for users.

Full Sandbox
Full sandboxes copy your entire production organization and all its data, including standard and custom object records, documents, and attachments. Use the sandbox to code and test changes, and to train your team about the changes. St. Thomas will refresh it’s Full Sandbox 3 times a year.

Global Search
Search more records and fields in Salesforce from the header search box. Global search keeps track of which objects you use and how often you use them, and arranges the search results accordingly. Search results for the objects you use most frequently appear at the top of the list.

Lead
A lead is a record of a prospect who has expressed interest.

List View
A list display of items (for example, accounts or contacts) based on specific criteria. Salesforce provides some predefined views.

Lookup Field
A type of field that contains a linkable value to another record. You can display lookup fields on page layouts where the object has a lookup or master-detail relationship with another object.

Object
An object allows you to store information in your Salesforce organization. The object is the overall definition of the type of information you are storing. For each object, your organization will have multiple records that store the information about specific instances of that type of data. 

Org
An org is an abbreviation of organization as it pertains to a deployment of Salesforce with a defined set of licensed users. An org is the virtual space provided to an individual Constituent of Salesforce. Your org includes all of your data and applications, and is separate from all other orgs.

Owner
Individual user to which a record (for example, a contact or case) is assigned.

Page Layout
Page layout is the organization of fields, custom links, and related lists on a record detail or edit page. Use page layouts primarily for organizing pages for your users.

Permission Set
A collection of permissions and settings that gives users access to specific tools and functions.

Picklist
Selection list of options available for specific fields in a Salesforce object. Users can choose a single value from a list of options rather than make an entry directly in the field.

Picklist (Multi-Select)
Selection list of options available for specific fields in a Salesforce object. Multi-select picklists allow users to choose one or more values. Users can choose a value by double clicking on it, or choose additional values from a scrolling list by holding down the CTRL key while clicking a value and using the arrow icon to move them to the selected box.

Picklist Values
Selections displayed in drop-down lists for particular fields. Some values come predefined, and other values can be changed or defined by an administrator.

Profile
Defines a user’s permission to perform different functions within Salesforce.

Recent Items
List of links in the sidebar for most recently accessed records. Note that not all types of records are listed in the recent items.

Record
A single instance of a Salesforce object. For example, “John Jones” might be the name of a contact record.

Record Type
A record type is a field available for certain records that can include some or all of the standard and custom picklist values for that record. You can associate record types with profiles to make only the included picklist values available to users with that profile.

Report
A report returns a set of records that meets certain criteria, and displays it in organized rows and columns. Report data can be filtered, grouped, and displayed graphically as a chart. Reports are stored in folders, which control who has access. 

Report Type
A report type defines the set of records and fields available to a report based on the relationships between a primary object and its related objects. Reports display only records that meet the criteria defined in the report type. Salesforce provides a set of pre-defined standard report types; administrators can create custom report types as well.

Salesforce for Outlook
Salesforce for Outlook, a Microsoft® Outlook® integration application that you install, syncs contacts, events, and tasks between Outlook and Salesforce. In addition to syncing these items, you can add Outlook emails, attachments, events, and tasks to multiple Salesforce contacts, and view Salesforce records related to the contacts and leads in your emails and events—all directly in Outlook.

Workflow Rule
A workflow rule sets workflow actions into motion when its designated conditions are met. You can configure workflow actions to execute immediately when a record meets the conditions in your workflow rule, or set time triggers that execute the workflow actions on a specific day.