Buttons and Actions in the Salesforce Lightning Experience

Over the years, Salesforce CRM has established a standing that matches none other. It’s changed the way companies used to manage the customer relationship. Its large customer base has created a need for a much finer and smoother user experience. With this in mind, Salesforce launched Lightning Experience, a completely new CRM experience to accelerate adoption and generate more value for Salesforce clients.

Moving beyond simple alterations of fonts, colors, icons and user interface, Lightning Experience delivers a better platform to maximize the productivity of sales representatives, better analytics, and inline intelligence to ensure sales precision. Salesforce Lightning Experience is not only going to change user experience; its power-packed features will help companies to sell faster and make better decisions.

Salesforce is really a highly customizable platform. You can easily extend Salesforce capabilities by employing the most suited Salesforce AppExchange apps.

Key Features of Salesforce Lightning Experience

Salesforce Classic displays actions in the Chatter publisher while buttons are displayed on a record’s details page. On the contrary, actions and buttons are amalgamated in Lightning Experience located in different areas based on function.

Post and Poll standard Chatter actions appear in the composer on the Chatter tab in Lightning Experience. However, standard actions like Thanks and Links are not available in the new interface.
Log a Call, New Task, and New Event Actions from object’s page layout appear in the composer on the Activity And if the Send an Email button is included on the object’s page layout, the Email action shows up in this composer too. Such actions create records related to what the user is viewing. Else Global Actions menu in the header can be used to take actions not related to the current record.
Standard and supported custom buttons on object’s page layout including the Edit button appear in the action menu. Other Global and object-specific actions on the page layout, including Visualforce and Force.com Canvas actions appear in the menu as well.

Key Differences and Considerations

Choosing the right button or action in Lightning Experience involves more than just picking a feature—it impacts your team’s efficiency, error rate, and user satisfaction. Before implementing, consider how each option aligns with your workflows, security policies, and UI conventions.

Below are the main points to guide your decision-making process.

Placement

Deciding where to place buttons and actions is a strategic choice that shapes user workflows. Good placement balances visibility with context, ensuring users find the right tool at the right time without overwhelming the interface. Thoughtful placement reduces clicks, accelerates task completion, and prevents training fatigue.

Header vs. Record Page: Header actions stay fixed across pages; record page actions surface only when relevant.
List Views: Bulk-process multiple records—ideal for mass updates or exports.
Related Lists: Tie actions to sub-records like contacts or activities for targeted operations.
Screen Flows: Embed in flows to guide users through multi-step tasks without page changes.
Utility Bar: Offer quick-launch tools in the console for support or ERP lookups.
Lightning Pages: Use app-specific pages to group actions by function or department.
Component Visibility: Control placement via dynamic filters based on record data or user profile.

Functionality

Buttons and actions serve distinct roles—select the right type to match your process needs. Understanding each function’s scope prevents feature bloat and aligns your UI with real business tasks. Consider scalability, error handling, and integration points when choosing functionality.

Quick Actions: Streamline record creation and updates without full page reloads.
List View Buttons: Support batched operations like mass delete, export, or custom Apex calls.
Screen Flow Buttons: Drive guided processes—show success banners or navigate steps programmatically.
Global Actions: Provide universal tools that are accessible anywhere in Lightning Experience.
Custom Components: Leverage Lightning Components for highly tailored UIs and logic.
Mass Quick Actions: Use the bulk quick action pattern for group edits directly on list views.
Utility Actions: Trigger background processes like PDF generation or external API calls.

Customization

Customize action layouts and visibility to match your unique data model and user roles. Over-customization can lead to clutter, so focus on high-value fields and logical grouping. Leverage dynamic layouts and record type assignments to tailor experiences across diverse teams.

Add only essential fields to action layouts to avoid cognitive overload.
Group related actions into logical sections or menus for faster scanning.
Use custom icons and colors to differentiate critical actions.
Control visibility with profile, permission set, or record-type filters.
Implement conditional component visibility based on field values.
Create multiple action layouts per record type for segmented workflows.
Leverage dynamic forms to make field-level visibility rules instead of static layouts.

List View Buttons

List view buttons empower users to act on multiple records in one step, bolstering productivity for batch tasks. Properly designed list view buttons can eliminate repetitive clicks and reduce manual data entry errors. These tools shine in data cleanup, bulk communications, and mass approvals.

Bulk-update selected records’ status or owner.
Download filtered data as CSV or Excel files for offline analysis.
Launch a Screen Flow to process complex multi-record logic.
Execute a custom Apex method for heavy-lifting operations.
Send SMS or email blasts to contacts associated with selected accounts.
Invoke batchable Apex jobs for large-scale data transformations.
Queue up records for external system sync via middleware.

Quick Actions

Quick Actions offer users rapid context-aware shortcuts, reducing navigation and load times. They appear right where users need them—either on record pages or in the global publisher for universal access. Below are expanded action types and best uses.

Object-Specific: Surfaces on the record detail page for create/update tied to that object.
Global: Lives in the header or publisher menu for free-standing tasks.
Create Record: Opens a preconfigured form to kick off a new record.
Update Record: Lets users quickly edit key fields on the current record.
Log a Call / Send Email: Captures activity fast with minimal clicks.
Invoke Lightning Component: Renders a custom UI for tailored workflows.
Invoke Visualforce Page: Bridges legacy pages or complex UIs into Lightning.

Action Buttons in Screen Flows

Embedding action buttons inside Screen Flows crafts fully guided experiences, perfect for onboarding, approvals, or guided selling. With these buttons, users navigate, submit data, or trigger services without ever leaving the flow.

Next / Finish: Move seamlessly between flow screens.
Pause: Save progress and exit; resume later from the same step.
Global Actions: Launch record create or log call mid-flow.
Local Actions: Execute Apex or external web services on the spot.
Toast Notifications: Provide instant feedback on each screen action.
Screen Validations: Run client-side checks before navigation.

Key Aspects of Buttons and Actions

Well-designed buttons and actions share common success factors. These principles ensure that users can work quickly, accurately, and with confidence.

Visibility: Position high-priority actions prominently for easy discovery.
Clarity: Use short, descriptive labels (e.g., “New Quote”).
Feedback: Employ spinners or toast messages to confirm processing.
Consistency: Maintain uniform style and placement across pages.
Security: Enforce permission rules so only authorized users see sensitive actions.
Accessibility: Ensure keyboard shortcuts and ARIA labels for WCAG compliance.
Performance: Optimize client-side logic to avoid slow load times.

Action Types

Salesforce action types cover the full spectrum of UI needs, from simple forms to complex transactions. Align your process with the right action type for best results.

Create Record: Gather minimal fields to initiate new records quickly.
Update Record: Expose only critical fields to speed up edits.
Log a Call / Send Email: Streamline activity logging into a single click.
Invoke Lightning Component: Tap into LWC or Aura components for custom screens.
Invoke Visualforce Page: Leverage legacy or feature-rich UIs within Lightning.
Custom Apex: Run bulk or external integrations under the hood securely.

Design Best Practices

A clutter-free interface accelerates adoption and reduces errors. Follow these design conventions to keep your Lightning UI lean and user-centric.

Limit each page to 3–5 primary actions to avoid overwhelm.
Group secondary actions under a “More” menu or utility bar.
Use icons only for universal actions like edit, delete, or refresh.
Conduct user testing to validate button placement and labeling.
Monitor usage metrics to retire actions that see low adoption.
Align button colors with your brand guidelines for visual harmony.
Provide in-app guidance or tooltips for new or complex actions.

Setting up Actions and Buttons in Lightning Experience

In Lightning Experience, you get a default list of tabs on the left side of the page, unlike Salesforce Classic where tabs were located on top of the page. Users need to create and customize navigation menu for each profile depending on what they need to access. Though users can access their applications through the new App Launcher, the tabs don’t become part of Navigation Menu by default.

Steps to create/customize Navigation Menu

After Lightning Experience is activated, click on the Gear icon on the upper right-hand corner of the page and click Setup Home.
Type Navigation in the Quick Find box and click Navigation Menus.
Create a new menu by clicking New in the upper-right corner of the page.
Provide a Name and Description and click Next.
Drag and drop items in the navigation menu and click Next.
After assigning the menu to the desired profile, click Save & Finish.

Dashboards

Lightning Experience adds aesthetic value to dashboards. Existing dashboards can be easily converted to the new design language with Salesforce. Despite that, you need to manually update some components to derive meaningful metrics. It is important to remember that modifications made to dashboards in Lightning Experience makes them read-only in Salesforce Classic. The best way round to deal with this is to clone and modify dashboard in Lightning Experience to avoid any functional issues in Salesforce Classic.

Now, Salesforce Lightning Experience is also available for Salesforce Pardot. Check out Marketing Automation with Salesforce Pardot!

Page Layouts

Page Layouts are essential elements impacting user productivity. Page Layouts in Lightning Experience can be customized with Lightning App Builder. It enables the admin to change the structure of the layout with three styles to choose from and denote the required components. Creation of custom page layout is fairly simple and almost similar to building a dashboard.Steps to make changes in Page Layout

Steps to make changes in Page Layout

Click on Gear icon located in the upper right-hand corner of the page after activating Lightning Experience. And then click Setup Home.
Type App Builder in the Quick Find box and click on Lightning App Builder.
Check Enable App Builder for Lightning Experience in case Lightning App Builder Pilot is not activated.
Click New in the Lightning Pages list.
Choose New Record Page.
After selecting the template style, click Next.
After naming the page layout, choose the object and click Finish.
Use available components to build the page Layout including Lightning-ready installed packages and Visualforce pages.
Save and Activate the layout.

Global Actions

Users are familiar with global actions in Salesforce 1 and Salesforce Classic. However, global actions are not displayed automatically when Lightning Experience is enabled. They need to be configured. Moreover, actions associated with objects that are not supported in Lightning Experience don’t display in the Global Actions menu. Also, the Global Actions menu doesn’t support the standard Chatter actions Post, File, Poll, Link, Question, and Thanks.

Step by step instructions for enabling global actions:

Activate Lightning Experience and click on Gear icon in the upper right-hand corner of the page. And then click Setup Home.
Type Publisher in the Quick Find box and then click Publisher Layouts from the menu.
Click Edit next to the Global Layout.
There are two types of layout in the Publisher Layout; one for Quick Actions in Salesforce Classic and the second for Salesforce1 and Lightning Experience. Edit the second layout by selecting Salesforce1 Actions in the field to check available Salesforce1 and Lightning Experience actions.
Select and add the fields like Log a Call, New Event, New Task, New Note to the Salesforce1 and Lightning Experience Actions section. Arrange the layout and click Save to save the new Publisher Layout.
After refreshing the browser page, you’ll see available Global Actions. These Global Actions will be available to all users and can be quickly accessed from whatever page they are viewing.

Lightning Experience is game-changing

Lightning experience is still developing and may take some time until its real potential is unfolded. It requires re-training of Salesforce users, and it is a considerable investment for businesses. Nonetheless, Lightning Experience holds a promising future and business owners must consider it to improve their sales.

Now, you can easily connect Salesforce CRM with your back-end ERP System and automate your business process!

Go live instantly!