Skip to content
All articles
Setup

Page layouts · organizing the detail screen

Build each object's detail screen out of sections: create blocks with a title, spread the fields among them and set the order inside each block. New fields show up on their own in an Other section, so nothing disappears as your data model grows.

An object with forty fields in one long list is unreadable. The Page layout fixes that by grouping fields into titled sections, such as Identification, Address and Commercial, in the order that makes sense to the people who use the screen every day.

How to build one

  1. Open Settings and, in the Personalization group, click Page layouts.
  2. In the Pick the object selector, choose the object you want to organize.
  3. Click Add section to create a block and write the Section title.
  4. On each listed field, use the up and down arrows to change its order within the section.
  5. Use the picker next to a field to move it to another section.
  6. Click Save. To go back to the factory arrangement, click Restore default.

While a section is empty, it shows the notice No fields in this section. You can remove a section with Remove section, as long as at least one remains: the fields that were in it are not lost, they go back to the first section.

Example: On the Companies object, you create three sections. Identification gets Name, Tax ID and Website. Address gets the eight fields from the address component. Commercial gets Segment, Annual revenue and Owner. Once the layout is saved, any company record opens in that order, and the rep finds the phone number without scrolling the whole screen.

The Other section and new fields

Every field that exists on the object and was not placed in any section appears automatically in a section called Other, at the end of the page. That is why creating a new field never makes it disappear from the screen: it is born in Other and you move it whenever you like. Auto-number fields are pinned to the beginning of the first section, so the record number does not end up in Other because somebody forgot about it.

How it relates to the Canvas

Page layouts organizes fields into sections, and that is enough in most cases. When you need more than fields, for example related lists, comments, attachments, tabs and widgets, or different screens per role, use the Canvas, the page designer, which sits right next to it in the same Settings category. The Canvas can start from the layout you already built here and carry on from there.

Who can do this

Saving or restoring the layout requires permission to administer settings. The layout applies across the organization and to every user who sees that object, respecting what each role is allowed to see: a field the role cannot read stays invisible, even when it is placed in a section.

Common questions

  • A field disappeared after I saved: it either moved to Other or it is out of your role's reach. Check the bottom of the detail page.
  • Can I repeat the same field in two sections? No. Each field appears exactly once; the first section that contains it wins.
  • Is there a limit? The layout accepts up to thirty sections and up to two hundred fields per section, which in practice is never reached.
  • Does Restore default delete fields? No. It only discards the grouping and goes back to showing every field in a single section, in the order they were created.
  • Does the layout change the order in the create form? It organizes the record's detail screen. For what appears in lists and on the board, use the object's own settings.

Open this article inside the system

Read it and want to see it working?

The account is free and the whole manual is available inside the system, with an assistant that answers from this very content.

Create free account
Page layouts · organizing the detail screen · Sellio