Published at: 2025-10-30
Creating or Editing Custom Objects
1. Overview of Custom Objects
Besides the system-provided standard objects, organizations can create custom objects to meet their specific business needs and establish relationships between those objects and others. Custom objects increase flexibility for personalized workflows and improve customization capabilities.
Custom object management includes two parts: the management list and creation:
| Feature | Description | Use case |
|---|---|---|
| Management List | The custom object management list lets administrators manage and query all custom objects in the organization. Actions include enable/disable, delete, copy, and viewing basic object information. | When viewing or editing custom objects |
| Create | 1) Create directly: configure the custom object’s basic info and layout. 2) Create from spreadsheet (currently in grayscale roll-out): download an Excel template, fill in field definitions, then import to create the object; after import, configure basic info and layout. | When standard objects do not meet business needs and a new custom object is required (for example: creating custom objects such as Delivery Order, Competitor, etc.) |
2. Creating a Custom Object
Example scenario: In an e-commerce context, courier information needs digitization, so create a Delivery Order object to manage deliveries. The following describes creating a Delivery Order as an example.
2.1 Create
Entry: Admin Console -> Object Management -> Custom Object Management -> Create or Create from Spreadsheet
Figure: Custom Object Management list and Create entry
2.2 Basic Information Configuration
2.2.1 Object Basic Information
Object Name: Customizable; must be unique among objects.
API Name: Auto-generated by the system; can be customized. Primarily used by developers—do not change unless necessary.
Naming rules: - Must start with an English letter - May contain letters, numbers, and underscores - Custom objects must end with __c - Underscores cannot appear consecutively, except for the trailing __c - Maximum length: 38 characters
Status: When disabled the object is not visible on the front end. You can disable an object during configuration and enable it later.
Description: Add a description to explain the object’s purpose.
Object Icon: Choose an icon to represent the object.
Figure: Create Custom Object — Basic Information
2.2.2 Optional Features (currently in grayscale roll-out)
Figure: Create Custom Object — Optional Features
Related Teams: 1. Checked: The object supports Related Teams. 2. Unchecked: The object will not record Related Teams; owners will not be automatically synced to Related Teams. - The object will not have a “Related Teams Data Permissions” tab. - The details page will not include a “Related Teams” component; preset buttons [Add Related Team Member], [Edit Related Team Member], [Delete Related Team Member] (single and bulk) will not appear. - Tenant-level views “Participated by Me” and “Downstream” will not be displayed. - Functions that call Related Teams preset buttons or attempt to modify Related Teams will return errors. - Import: templates will not include Related Teams; Export: no “Export Related Teams fields” option. - All downstream features related to Related Teams will be hidden or disabled. 3. Toggle logic: - Can be turned on and off; if on, can be turned off and on again. - Cannot be turned off if historical data exists.
Global Search: 1. Checked: Grants the following capabilities: - The top search box can find this object (see figure).
Figure: Global Search — Top search box
- The object’s list page supports full-field search.
Figure: Global Search — Full-field
- When creating Sales Records, Reports, or Calendar events, the “Related Business Data” selector can search this object’s records.
Figure: Global Search — Related Business Data
- Unchecked:
- The global search box will not list or find this object.
- List page full-field search is not supported; mobile defaults to searching the primary attribute field.
- The pick-list for selecting objects will default to primary attribute search only.
- When creating Sales Records, Reports, or Calendar events (any process using dynamic lookup fields), the “Related Business Data” selector cannot find this object’s records.
- Toggle logic: Can be turned on/off; enabling after disabling is permitted.
- Special: Sub-objects do not support global search.
Follow-Up Activity: 1. Checked: The object will support Follow-Up Activity. 2. Unchecked: - The details page will not include a Follow-Up Activity component. - Mobile will not show a “Create Sales Record” button. - The Web interface will not allow creating Sales Records for this object. - When creating Sales Records, Reports, or Calendar events, this object will not be available in the related-business selector (neither autocomplete nor dialog list).
- Toggle logic:
- Can be turned on and off; if re-enabled and the component does not appear on the front end, check the details page layout configuration to ensure the component is not hidden.
Edit History (Change Log): 1. Checked: The object supports viewing change history. 2. Unchecked: - No “Change History” component on the details page. - Cannot view change history. - No operation logs will be recorded for the object. - Disabling this will remove stored audit/change history.
Figure: Enterprise Library Object — Change History
- Toggle logic: Can be turned on and off; re-enabling is allowed.
2.2.3 Primary Attribute Setup
Primary Attribute definition: The key field used to represent a record—think of it as the record’s title.
Type 1: Auto-increment number - Supports prefix and suffix text and concatenation with time or other fields. - Number length setting is advisory: if the sequence exceeds the digit limit, numbers continue to increase (not constrained by digit setting). - Supports a starting value. Recalculation rules: no recalculation, or yearly reset (restarts on Jan 1 each year).
Type 2: Text - Configure whether duplicates are allowed and input methods: Manual, Scan-and-populate, or Manual & Scan.
Figure: Create Custom Object — Primary Attribute (Text)
2.2.4 Object Display Field Settings
Definition: Replace the primary attribute displayed in certain UI places with other information to use as the “title”.
Entry: Admin Console -> Object Management -> Custom Object Management -> Products -> Basic Information -> Edit -> Object Display Field Settings
Notes: - Once enabled this cannot be disabled. - Enabling display fields replaces the primary attribute display in all fixed title locations (for example: lookup field displays and the details page title). - For objects with historical data, consider using computed fields.
Figure: Admin Console -> Object Management -> Custom Object Management -> Products
Figure: Products -> Basic Information -> Edit
Figure: Object Display Field Settings
2.3 Custom Object Management
- Disabling an object: An object that has relationships with other objects cannot be disabled.
- Deleting an object: Disable it first, then delete it.
2.4 Front-end Presentation of Custom Objects
Figure: Front-end presentation of a custom object