Glossary

A |B |C |D |E |F |G |H |I |J |K |L |M |N |O |P |Q |R |S |T |U |V |W |X |Y |Z

A

Account
An account is an organization, company, or consumer that you want to track—for example, a customer, partner, or competitor.
Activity (Calendar Events/Tasks)
Planned task or event, optionally related to another type of record such as an account, contact, lead, opportunity, or case.
Administrator (System Administrator)
One or more individuals in your organization who can configure and customize the application. Users assigned to the System Administrator profile have administrator privileges.
Apex
Apex is a strongly typed, object-oriented programming language that allows developers to execute flow and transaction control statements on the Force.com platform server in conjunction with calls to the Force.comAPI. Using syntax that looks like Java and acts like database stored procedures, Apex enables developers to add business logic to most system events, including button clicks, related record updates, and Visualforce pages. Apex code can be initiated by Web service requests and from triggers on objects.
Apex Controller
See Controller, Visualforce.
Apex Page
See Visualforce Page.
API Version
See Version.
App
Short for “application.” A collection of components such as tabs, reports, dashboards, and Visualforce pages that address a specific business need. Salesforce provides standard apps such as Sales and Call Center. You can customize the standard apps to match the way you work. In addition, you can package an app and upload it to the AppExchange along with related components such as custom fields, custom tabs, and custom objects. Then, you can make the app available to other Salesforce users from the AppExchange.

B

Boolean Operators
You can use Boolean operators in report filters to specify the logical relationship between two values. For example, the AND operator between two values yields search results that include both values. Likewise, the OR operator between two values yields search results that include either value.

C

Campaign
A marketing initiative, such as an advertisement, direct mail, or conference, that you conduct in order to generate prospects and build brand awareness.
Case
Detailed description of a customer’s feedback, problem, or question. Used to track and solve your customers’ issues.
Clone
Clone is the name of a button or link that allows you to create a new item by copying the information from an existing item, for example, a contact or opportunity.
Collapsible Section
Sections on detail pages that users can hide or show.
Contact
Contacts are the individuals associated with your accounts.
Contract
A contract is an agreement defining the terms of business between parties.
Controller, Visualforce
An Apex class that provides a Visualforce page with the data and business logic it needs to run. Visualforce pages can use the standard controllers that come by default with every standard or custom object, or they can use custom controllers.
Controller Extension
A controller extension is an Apex class that extends the functionality of a standard or custom controller.
Component, Visualforce
Something that can be added to a Visualforce page with a set of tags, for example, <apex:detail>. Visualforce includes a number of standard components, or you can create your own custom components.
Component Reference, Visualforce
A description of the standard and custom Visualforce components that are available in your organization. You can access the component library from the development footer of any Visualforce page or the Visualforce Developer's Guide.
Cookie
Client-specific data used by some Web applications to store user and session-specific information. Salesforce issues a session “cookie” only to record encrypted authentication information for the duration of a specific session.
Custom Controller
A custom controller is an Apex class that implements all of the logic for a page without leveraging a standard controller. Use custom controllers when you want your Visualforce page to run entirely in system mode, which does not enforce the permissions and field-level security of the current user.
Custom Field
A field that can be added in addition to the standard fields to customize Salesforce for your organization’s needs.
Custom Help
Custom text administrators create to provide users with on-screen information specific to a standard field, custom field, or custom object.
Custom Links
Custom links are URLs defined by administrators to integrate your Salesforce data with external websites and back-office systems. Formerly known as Web links.
Custom Object
Custom records that allow you to store information unique to your organization.
Custom S-Control
Note

Note

S-controls have been superseded by Visualforce pages. After March 2010 organizations that have never created s-controls, as well as new organizations, won't be allowed to create them. Existing s-controls will remain unaffected, and can still be edited.

Custom Web content for use in custom links. Custom s-controls can contain any type of content that you can display in a browser, for example a Java applet, an Active-X control, an Excel file, or a custom HTML Web form.
Custom App
See App.

D

Data State
The structure of data in an object at a particular point in time.
Dependent Field
Any custom picklist or multi-select picklist field that displays available values based on the value selected in its corresponding controlling field.
Detail
A page that displays information about a single object record. The detail page of a record allows you to view the information, whereas the edit page allows you to modify it.
A term used in reports to distinguish between summary information and inclusion of all column data for all information in a report. You can toggle the Show Details/Hide Details button to view and hide report detail information.
Detail View
The Agent console's center frame, which is the detail page view of any record selected from any of the console’s other frames. The detail view displays the same page layouts defined for the object’s detail pages. When a record is displayed in the detail view, it is highlighted in the list view.
Developer Edition
A free, fully-functional Salesforce organization designed for developers to extend, integrate, and develop with the Force.com platform. Developer Edition accounts are available on developer.salesforce.com.

E

Email Template
A form email that communicates a standard message, such as a welcome letter to new employees or an acknowledgement that a customer service request has been received. Email templates can be personalized with merge fields, and can be written in text, HTML, or custom format.
Event
An event is an activity that has a scheduled time. For example, a meeting, or a scheduled phone call.

F

Facet
A child of another Visualforce component that allows you to override an area of the rendered parent with the contents of the facet.
Field-Level Help
Custom help text that you can provide for any standard or custom field. It displays when users hover a mouse over the help icon adjacent to that field.
Force.com App Menu
A menu that enables users to switch between customizable applications (or “apps”) with a single click. The Force.com app menu displays at the top of every page in the user interface.
Formula Field
A type of custom field. Formula fields automatically calculate their values based on the values of merge fields, expressions, or other values.
Function
Built-in formulas that you can customize with input parameters. For example, the DATE function creates a date field type from a given year, month, and day.

G

Get Request
A get request is made when a user initially requests a Visualforce page, either by entering a URL or clicking a link or button.
Getter Methods
Methods that enable developers to display database and other computed values in page markup.
Methods that return values. See also Setter Methods.

H

No Glossary items for this entry.

I

No Glossary items for this entry.

J

Junction Object
A custom object with two master-detail relationships. Using a custom junction object, you can model a “many-to-many” relationship between two objects. For example, you may have a custom object called “Bug” that relates to the standard case object such that a bug could be related to multiple cases and a case could also be related to multiple bugs.

K

No Glossary items for this entry.

L

Lead
A lead is a sales prospect who has expressed interest in your product or company.
Length
Parameter for custom text fields that specifies the maximum number of characters (up to 255) that a user can enter in the field.
Parameter for number, currency, and percent fields that specifies the number of digits you can enter to the left of the decimal point, for example, 123.98 for an entry of 3.

M

Master-Detail Relationship
A relationship between two different types of records that associates the records with each other. For example, accounts have a master-detail relationship with opportunities. This type of relationship affects record deletion, security, and makes the lookup relationship field required on the page layout.
Merge Field
A merge field is a field you can put in an email template, mail merge template, custom link, or formula to incorporate values from a record. For example, Dear {!Contact.FirstName}, uses a contact merge field to obtain the value of a contact record's First Name field to address an email recipient by his or her first name.
Mobile Configuration
A set of parameters that determines the data Salesforce transmits to users' mobile devices, and which users receive that data on their mobile devices. Organizations can create multiple mobile configurations to simultaneously suit the needs of different types of mobile users.

N

Notes
Miscellaneous information pertaining to a specific record.

O

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 example, the case object allow you to store information regarding customer inquiries. For each object, your organization will have multiple records that store the information about specific instances of that type of data. For example, you might have a case record to store the information about Joe Smith's training inquiry and another case record to store the information about Mary Johnson's configuration issue.
Object-Level Help
Custom help text that you can provide for any custom object. It displays on custom object record home (overview), detail, and edit pages, as well as list views and related lists.
Opportunities
Opportunities track your sales and pending deals.
Organization
A deployment of Salesforce with a defined set of licensed users. An organization is the virtual space provided to an individual customer of Salesforce. Your organization includes all of your data and applications, and is separate from all other organizations.
Outbound Message
An outbound message is a workflow, approval, or milestone action that sends the information you specify to an endpoint you designate, such as an external service. Outbound messaging is configured in the Salesforce setup menu. Then you must configure the external endpoint. You can create a listener for the messages using the SOAP API.
Owner
Individual user to which a record (for example, a contact or case) is assigned.

P

Package Version
A package version is a number that identifies the set of components uploaded in a package. The version number has the format majorNumber.minorNumber.patchNumber (for example, 2.1.3). The major and minor numbers increase to a chosen value during every major release. The patchNumber is generated and updated only for a patch release.
Unmanaged packages are not upgradeable, so each package version is simply a set of components for distribution. A package version has more significance for managed packages. Packages can exhibit different behavior for different versions. Publishers can use package versions to evolve the components in their managed packages gracefully by releasing subsequent package versions without breaking existing customer integrations using the package. See also Patch and Patch Development Organization.
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. In Enterprise, Unlimited, Performance, and Developer Editions, use field-level security to restrict users’ access to specific fields.
Partial Page
An AJAX behavior where only a specific portion of a page is updated following some user action, rather than a reload of the entire page.
Postback Request
A postback request is made when user interaction requires a Visualforce page update, such as when a user clicks on a Save button and triggers a save action.
Primary Contact
Field in company information that lists the primary contact for your organization.
Also indicates the primary contact associated with an account, contract, or opportunity. Specified as a checkbox in the Contact Roles related list of an account, contract, or opportunity.
Product
A product is any item or service your organization sells. Products are defined in a price book, and can be added to opportunities. Available in Professional, Enterprise, Unlimited, Performance, and Developer Editions only.
Prototype object
This is a single sObject contained within the Visualforce StandardSetController class. If the prototype object's fields are set, those values are used during the save action, meaning that the values are applied to every record in the set controller's collection.

Q

No Glossary items for this entry.

R

Read Only
One of the standard profiles to which a user can be assigned. Read Only users can view and report on information based on their role in the organization. (That is, if the Read Only user is the CEO, they can view all data in the system. If the Read Only user has the role of Western Rep, they can view all data for their role and any role below them in the hierarchy.)
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.
Related List
A section of a record or other detail page that lists items related to that record. For example, the Stage History related list of an opportunity or the Open Activities related list of a case.
Related Object
Objects chosen by an administrator to display in the Agent console's mini view when records of a particular type are shown in the console's detail view. For example, when a case is in the detail view, an administrator can choose to display an associated account, contact, or asset in the mini view.
Relationship
A connection between two objects, used to create related lists in page layouts and detail levels in reports. Matching values in a specified field in both objects are used to link related data; for example, if one object stores data about companies and another object stores data about people, a relationship allows you to find out which people work at the company.
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. See Tabular Report, Summary Report, and Matrix Report.

S

S-Control
Note

Note

S-controls have been superseded by Visualforce pages. After March 2010 organizations that have never created s-controls, as well as new organizations, won't be allowed to create them. Existing s-controls will remain unaffected, and can still be edited.

Custom Web content for use in custom links. Custom s-controls can contain any type of content that you can display in a browser, for example a Java applet, an Active-X control, an Excel file, or a custom HTML Web form.
Salesforce API Version
See Version.
Sites
Force.com Sites enables you to create public websites and applications that are directly integrated with your Salesforce organization—without requiring users to log in with a username and password.
Skeleton Template
A type of Visualforce template that uses the <apex:composition> tag. Skeleton templates define a standard structure that requires implementation from subsequent pages.
Solution
A solution is a detailed description of the resolution to a customer issue.

T

Text
Data type of a custom field that allows entry of any combination of letters, numbers, or symbols, up to a maximum length of 255 characters.
Text Area
A custom field data type that allows entry of up to 255 characters on separate lines.
Text Area (Long)
See Long Text Area.

U

User Interface
The layouts that specify how a data model should be displayed.

V

Version
A number value that indicates the release of an item. Items that can have a version include API objects, fields and calls; Apex classes and triggers; and Visualforce pages and components.
View
The user interface in the Model-View-Controller model, defined by Visualforce.
View State
Where the information necessary to maintain the state of the database between requests is saved.
Visualforce
A simple, tag-based markup language that allows developers to easily define custom pages and components for apps built on the platform. Each tag corresponds to a coarse or fine-grained component, such as a section of a page, a related list, or a field. The components can either be controlled by the same logic that is used in standard Salesforce pages, or developers can associate their own logic with a controller written in Apex.
Visualforce Lifecycle
The stages of execution of a Visualforce page, including how the page is created and destroyed during the course of a user session.
Visualforce Page
A web page created using Visualforce. Typically, Visualforce pages present information relevant to your organization, but they can also modify or capture data. They can be rendered in several ways, such as a PDF document or an email attachment, and can be associated with a CSS style.

W

No Glossary items for this entry.

X

No Glossary items for this entry.

Y

No Glossary items for this entry.

Z

No Glossary items for this entry.

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