Salesforce Formula Fields

How to saveURL, cancelURL, retURL in custom Salesforce button and why.

saveURL, cancelURL and retURL important when you create custom buttons.

A Salesforce page renders with a specific URL that can look like this:

https://cs19.Salesforce.com/001L000000iNUCrIMO/e?retURL=%4F001L000000iNUCrIAX

https://cs19.salesforce.com/ — the salesforce domain name with the subdomain, cs19, being the specific server instance that your org's footprint is hosted on. If you have integrated SSO credentials then your subdomain can be custom named via the following context, https://customS

001L000000iNUCrIAO — the account record id

/e — the action for the record, e stands for edit in this case from salesforce

? … — everything after the ? is the query string, which begins with a ? and is & delimited with key = value pairs, e.g. ?a=b&c=d&e=f, we have 3 variables being set: a which is set to b, c which is set to d and e which is set to f

so here a is a key and b is a value.

retURL=%2F001L000000iNUCrIAO – the URL you want to redirect the user to when he clicks CANCEL Button. %2F denotes a ‘/’ and the merge field {!Account.Id} gives the Account to redirect to after clicked the Cancel Button

saveURL – similar to retURL except that it defines the URL to redirect to after the user clicks ‘SAVE Button’.

Save button is as follows:

Is there a saveURL URL parameter set? If so, redirect to that.

Is there a retURL URL parameter set? If so, redirect to that.

Redirect to /home/home.jsp

Note: The behavior is slightly different if we’re creating a new record.

Cancel button is as follows:

Is there a cancelURL URL parameter set? If so, redirect to that.

Is there a retURL URL parameter set? If so, redirect to that.

Redirect to /home/home.jsp

When saving a new record, you can use the saveURL parameter:

{!URLFOR($Action.Contact.NewContact, c.id, [‘saveURL’=’/home/home.jsp’])}

When editing an existing record, you can use the retURL parameter:

In writing Salesforce formulas, = vs. == are interchangable. However, if you’re looking for a NULL then do not use them. Instead use ISBLANK ().

Hyperlink formula fields are Text Type.

Always include the web protocol and the URL in quotes, followed by the its labeling text  HYPERLINK("http://www.salesforce.com", "salesforce").

When you’re hyperlinking to actual Salesforce pages, we call this the URI, or relative URL, simply because you are not writing out the full web protocol and URL. Instead, exclude your Salesforce’s instance’s value and the trailing .salesforce.com, instead input only what comes after the .com. For example, https://yourInstance.salesforce.com/00Z/a, then the URI to include is actually just “/00Z/a”. Relative links allow the hyperlink to work correctly on all Salesforce pages. Use the relative URL in a hyperlink formula to add it to a search layout. Make sure to include forward slash at the start of your URI.

Avoid using  LEN, LEFT, or RIGHT on HYPERLINK text functions results.

No JavaScript can be included for security reasons.

Use the $Api variable to reference API URLs.

Remove the brackets, [ ], from your formula before validating it.

The target parameter is optional. If you do not specify a target, the link opens in a new browser window.

HYPERLINK("/00U/e? retURL=%2F006x0000001T8Om&what_id=" & Id, "Create Event")

Sample Salesforce formula below shows lookup to validate that the last 4 digits to an inputted website are correctly matched to specific variations of domain extensions. Remember that formulas are case-sensitive so therefore we have to account for all of the variations. in this case we left out “.Com” vs. “.Org” vs. “.Net” variations so you can add them as needed. 

Salesforce Formula Sample below enforces specific formats for inputted numerical values. Example 1 Salesforce Sample Formula to enforce  social security number format.

NOT( OR( ISBLANK(Social_Security_Number__c), REGEX( Social_Security_Number__c , "[0-9]{3}-[0-9]{2}-[0-9]{4}") ) )

Logic: Three single digits (0-9):\\d{3} • A dash • Two single digits (0-9):\\d{2} • A dash • Four single digits (0-9):\\d{4} Example 2 Salesforce Formula Example to enforce credit card number format.