By Kristin Zaharias
It’s no secret that Google Chrome is an incredibly powerful web browser (and my personal favorite), but for anyone working with Salesforce.com, one of the best things is its massive library of Salesforce extensions. These are add-ons to Chrome that enhance its functionality for Salesforce admins and developers with built-in tool applications that can make routine tasks simpler. These can all be found in the Chrome Web Store. Here are several of my favorites that you might want to try:
Salesforce Navigator
This extension helps you navigate to any Salesforce page quickly - just type in what you need to do after hitting a configurable keyboard shortcut. All objects list views and create new pages are available, even for objects that don’t have tabs (e.g. type in “New <object name>”). All setup links are available (e.g. type in “setup <custom object name>”).
Salesforce Inspector
Ranked as a close second to Salesforce Navigator, this extension adds a metadata layout on top of the standard Salesforce UI to let you get API names on detail pages and get all of a field’s data for a selected record. It also lets you perform quick one-off data import and exports without logging into a different app.
Salesforce API Fieldnames
This is a small but valuable extension to toggle between standard field labels and API field names on Salesforce detail pages. This is especially helpful in older orgs where field labels may be vastly different from the originally created API name, and saves having to search fields in setup > object > fields.
Salesforce Sandbox Favicon
This is a simple app that superimposes an “S” on the Salesforce cloud favicon for any open sandbox tabs. In no time, you’ll train your mind to verify that you are indeed in a sandbox and not a production org. And after-all, we’ve all probably accidently made a change in Production that was intended for a sandbox, right?
Salesforce Colored Favicons
This extension takes it one step further by displaying a colored cloud icon based on the current instance (as well as including a separate icon with an “S” to indicate sandbox instances). If you work in various Salesforce orgs, and can remember the color assigned to an instance, this is the extension for you. And if either of these two extensions isn’t enough, do try the Salesforce Sandbox/Logged in as Banner extension that enables a banner to display (that scrolls with the page) whenever you are in a sandbox.
Salesforce Admin Check All
Have you ever been frustrated as an admin when having to check individual boxes on object and field permission pages (such as profile > object settings > object name) and Set Field History Tracking pages? This extension adds a “check all” checkbox to various checkbox lists to make setup takes more efficient. I’m sure Salesforce will address this in time, but in the meantime, this app can save you valuable time.
Salesforce.com Enhanced Formula Editor
If you write formulas, this is a must-have app. This app enhances the formula edit page to include syntax highlighting, tabbing, parenthesis matching (my nemesis), find and replace, editor resizing, full screen mode, and no code wrapping – all that make writing formulas more intuitive. There is also a new button called “Load Field Details” that loads details about the fields found in the formula including field type, field edit links, object name, field label, field help text, picklist values, and formulas (for formula fields).
Salesforce.com Quick Login As
Though we all know how to login as another user from their user detail page or user list view, this extension makes it super easy to do so by giving a popup of the users so you can select to login as a different user from any page in fewer keystrokes.
Profile Comparator for Salesforce
This extension compares any two Salesforce profiles (from the same or different) orgs and highlights the differences. This can be helpful when determining why different users are having a different Salesforce experience, or to see what might be different between a production org and a sandbox at the profile level. The only drawback is that this extension needs the Enable Enhanced Profile User setting unchecked during use.
SF Quick metadata Lookup
This is an advanced metadata search tool that lets you search all Salesforce metadata (managed and unmanaged) using a lookup selection box. It allows searching of apex classes, apex pages, static resources, apex components triggers, custom settings, users, and custom and standard object metadata. Additionally you have Starts With and Contains functions.
Salesforce Change Set Assistant
Do you use change sets to push items from org to org, but hate having to scroll through long lists to find the item you want to add to the change set? Then this extension is for you! This adds a search bar and type filter to the change set interface. Eventually, I assume Salesforce will do this, but in the meantime …
Force.com Utility Belt (including ID Convertor)
For those that develop on the Force platform, this extension allows developers a simple way to reference Force.com’s reference materials and grab code snippets while in the development environment. As a nice to have, there is a converter that translates 15-digit Salesforce record ID’s into their 18-digit equivalent.
Salesforce1 Simulator
Are you doing a presentation and want to display how a detail page would look using a mobile device? This extension shows both iPad and iPhone visuals of any Salesforce page. Note, you’ll probably also want Salesforce1 Sandbox Simulator.
You may want to consider adding some of these Chrome extensions to your Salesforce admin’s tool belt, and be sure to browse the Chrome Web Store for other Salesforce Chrome extensions that will help your sales and marketing teams as well.
Though applications from Salesforce AppExchange are still important for enhancing your Salesforce environment, I hope you’ll find that using Chrome along with Chrome extensions will make your Salesforce experience even better. As always, please contact your Buan consultant with any questions.