Get that “360 view” from any Salesforce object 🌍

The Problem:

Here’s the problem with related lists: they’re a list of records that are directly related to the record you are viewing. For example, when you look at a Contact record, you can see all of the Opportunities and Cases for that Contact at a glance. 

But what happens when someone is viewing or editing a Case for a Contact, let’s call him John, and there are other Cases open for John? When viewing the Case, you won’t automatically be presented with a list of all other Cases linked to him, and won’t know to attempt to help with those other Cases or at least acknowledge them. Most of the time those other Cases are missed and our customer, John, is left feeling like he’s not a priority. Worse still, what happens when a salesperson phones John about an Opportunity and doesn’t see those open Cases? John is highly unlikely to want to purchase anything from us when he’s experiencing issues with our products or services that we’ve not yet resolved. Wouldn’t it be better if the salesperson were pre-warned and prepared so the conversation went smoother and felt more personalised? 

So, we know that if you want to see all of the Cases for a Contact you can navigate back to the Contact record, but that’s a bit clunky and users in a hurry just don’t do it. If you want to make sure your users see a list of Cases in the Opportunity or Case screens you could write some custom code, in fact, that used to be your only option. Now, with Lightning single related lists you can take care of all these scenarios and more. All with a few clicks and NO CODE! 

---

The Solution:

Let’s start with ensuring our users can see a list of Cases for a customer from any Case record page: 

From a Lightning Case record page, click the cog on the top, right hand side of the screen and click “Edit Page”.

Drag the “Related List – Single” component onto the page. 

Next, configure what is displayed on the related list. Let’s start with the Parent Object. We want to see other Cases for the same Contact, so let’s change the Parent Record to the Contact (Contact Name). 

Then, select Cases from the “Related List” picklist. 

Save the page and click “Back” to see your results. 

Just like that, we have a list of Cases for that Contact! I’m using Enhanced Related Lists; this will let our users sort the records and put the open Cases at the top. 

---

What about our 2nd scenario, view all Cases from any Opportunity record? To achieve this we follow exactly the same steps.

From a Lightning Opportunity record page, click the cog on the top, right side of the screen and click “Edit Page”.

Drag the “Related List – Single” component onto the page. 

Next, configure what is displayed on the related list. Let’s start with the Parent Object. We want to see other Cases for the same Account related to the Opportunity we are viewing, so let’s change the Parent Record to Account (Account Name). 

Then, select Cases from the “Related List” picklist. 

Save the page and click “Back” to see your results. 

---

The Result:

✔ How well do you know your customer? Are there other Cases that an agent can solve? A list of Cases will help agents be more aware and mindful of other Cases they can support with.

✔ Avoid embarrassment! Check the Cases before progressing the Opportunity.

---

Gotchas & hints:

*If you want to really make those lists super useful, consider filtering them so they only show open Cases. Douglas Ayers blog has an excellent post on doing this without code.

---

Resources:

Salesforce Help: Related List – Single

Douglas C Ayers: Filter Related Lists without Code

---