Contact preferences your users can’t ignore!

GDPR + users that don’t check contact preferences, does not a happy prospect make (and could have some pretty serious consequences).

Salesforce natively provide us with the standard fields ‘Do Not Call’ and ‘Email Opt Out’ but if your org is anything like mine, these fields tend to end up at the bottom of the Lead or Contact page, lost in a ‘Marketing Preferences’ section that the sales team definitely forget to check before making calls…

‘Email Opt Out’ is especially cool as it stops you from sending mass emails to a Lead or Contact when this option is ticked. However, it does not prevent users from sending individual emails from Salesforce. There is an idea you can vote on to change this and it suggests this functionality is coming really soon!

👉 Make sure the fields ‘Do Not Call’ and ‘Email Opt Out’ are visible on the page layout!

If you cannot see these fields please follow these instructions (you should do this for both Leads and Contacts):

1. Go to Setup > Object Manager > {Object} > Fields & Relationships
2. Click on the ‘Do Not Call’ field
3. Click on the ‘Set Field-Level Security’ button and check the ‘Visible’ box for any profiles that should see the field (including your own!)
4. Click ‘Save’
5. Repeat for ‘Email Opt Out’
6. Go to Setup > Object Manager > {Object} > Page Layouts
7. Click on the name of the page layout you wish to edit
8. Go to the Fields section and locate the ‘Do Not Call’ and ‘Email Opt Out’ fields
9. Drag and drop on to desired location on the page layout and click ‘Save’

👉 Upload four images that you will use to visually display that your Lead or Contact has opted out of emails and/or calls – check out the resources section at the bottom for the images I’ve used!

You can upload and save your image as a static resource, a document in Classic or a file in Lightning. Copy and put aside your image locations. Not sure how? Check out this guide on how to identify your image location (you’ll need this info later).

We’ll combine two image formula fields and a component on the Lightning record page to visually display whether or not our user can contact a Lead or Contact. For my tutorial I’m going to use the Contact object but I recommend doing this for Leads as well.

First we’ll create two new custom fields.

1. Navigate to Setup > Object Manager > {Object} > Fields & Relationships
2. Select ‘New’
   • Date Type = Formula
   • Field Label = Call? (or similar)
   • Formula Return Type = Text
   • Enter a description and help text
   • Enter the formula below but replace the image location (in red) with your unique location (hint – check the prerequisites section for where to find it!)
   • The first image location is your RED PHONE, the second image location is your GREEN PHONE

IF ( DoNotCall = TRUE, IMAGE("/servlet/servlet.FileDownload?file=0151o000005dxg5", "Do Not Call"),
IMAGE("/servlet/servlet.FileDownload?file=0151o000005dxgF", "Call"))

3. Your field should look something like this:

4. Click ‘Save’
5. Make visible for all profiles
6. Do not add to the page layout
7. Click ‘Save & New’
   • Date Type = Formula
   • Field Label = Email? (or similar)
   • Formula Return Type = Text
   • Enter a description and help text
   • Enter the formula below but replace the image location (in red) with your unique location (hint – check the prerequisites section for where to find it!)
   • The first image location is your RED ENVELOPE, the second image location is your GREEN ENVELOPE

IF ( HasOptedOutOfEmail = TRUE, IMAGE("/servlet/servlet.FileDownload?file=0151o000005dxbP", "Do Not Email"),
IMAGE("/servlet/servlet.FileDownload?file=0151o000005dxgA","Email"))

8. Your field should look something like this:

9. Click ‘Save’
10. Make visible for all profiles
11. Do not add to the page layout
12. Click ‘Save’
13. Navigate to Setup > Object Manager > {Object} > Buttons, Links and Actions
14. Click ‘New Action’

15. Choose action type ‘Update a Record’, give it a name, a description and save

16. Remove any fields you do not want to see
17. Drag and drop your two formula fields (‘Call?’ and ‘Email?’) onto the layout
18. Click ‘Save’

19. An error message will appear – click ‘Yes’

20. Navigate to Setup > Object Manager > {Object} > Lightning Record Pages
21. Click on the name of the page you would like to edit
22. Select ‘Edit’

23. Drag and drop a Related Record component (left) onto the component canvas (somewhere highly visible)
24. Select the component by clicking on it and set the component attributes:
    • Header Label = Contact Preferences (or similar)
    • Lookup Field = Use This Contact
    • Update Action = Contact Preferences (or whatever you named the action you created in the previous steps)

25. Click ‘Save’, and if required, activate the page

An extremely eye catching way to make sure our users have no excuse not to be aware of contact preferences!