Lightning App Builder in Salesforce

Salesforce’s Lightning App Builder emerges as a pivotal tool in this landscape, providing unparalleled flexibility and innovation in app development. This comprehensive guide delves into the essence of Lightning App Builder, exploring its features, capabilities, and transformative potential for organizations striving to optimize their Salesforce applications.

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In this blog, you will learn:

• Lightning App Builder Overview
• Lightning Page and its Types
• Lightning Components and its Types 
• Dynamic Lightning Pages, Actions, and Forms
• Lightning Page Performance Analysis

Lightning App Builder Overview

Lightning App Builder is a point-and-click tool that makes it easy to build and modify custom pages and responsive apps for Lightning Experience and Salesforce mobile app. It enables organizations to put key information at users’ fingertips by providing an easy interface to create and update records in Salesforce.

Lightning App Builder can be used to build:

• Single-page apps that load a single page and dynamically update the page as the user interacts.
• Dashboard-style apps, such as apps to track prospects or leads in Salesforce.
• Point apps to perform a particular task, such as an employee expense app, to enter and monitor employee claims.
• Custom Record Pages for Salesforce objects based on the end-user needs.
• Custom Home Pages contains the most-used components and features. 

Lightning Page and Types

A Lightning Page is a custom layout designed in Salesforce Lightning Experience or the Salesforce mobile app. Lightning pages comprise Lightning components that provide more flexibility to end-users and adapt to the device they are viewed on.

Here are different types of Lightning pages that can be created with the Lightning App Builder:

• Home Page – Supported in Lightning Experience only, this page gives the end-users the flexibility to manage their day and perform specific tasks directly from the home page. Example – A home page for Sales Reps to show their quarterly performance, key deals, insights & recent tasks. 
• App Page – Supported in both the Salesforce mobile app and Lightning Experience, this page creates a home page for an app that can be added directly to the Salesforce mobile app and Lightning Experience app navigation bars. Example – An app page with Today’s New Cases by Agents and the Current Month’ Customer Satisfaction Score for the Support Supervisor.
• Record Page – Supported in both the Salesforce mobile app and Lightning Experience, this page gives the end-users the flexibility to create a customized version of an object’s record page based on the users’ needs. 

Lightning Components

A Lightning Component is a configurable and reusable unit that can be added to a Lightning page via Lightning App Builder. 

Here are different types of Lightning Components which are supported by Lightning Pages:

Dynamic Lightning Types

Standard Components are the pre-built Lightning components created by Salesforce. Some standard components examples include Accordion, Activities, Actions and Recommendations, Chatter, Chatter Feed, etc. These are under the Standard Components section in the Lightning App Builder. 

Custom Components are the Lightning components created by end-users to cater to a specific use case or functionality that cannot be catered to via standard components. These can be found under the custom components section in Lightning App Builder. Creating a custom Lightning component requires programming skills or can be installed as a package from the AppExchange. 

AppExchange (Third-Party) Components are the Lightning Components part of an AppExchange package. You can find ready-to-use plug-and-play components on the AppExchange as per industry and use case. Once the components are installed, these can be found under the Custom-Managed Section in the Lightning App Builder.

Dynamic Lightning Page

With Dynamic Lightning Pages, users can control the visibility of a component on a Lightning page based on the defined filter conditions and logic in the Lightning App Builder. This behavior applies to standard, custom, and AppExchange components. Example – Users can configure a filter criterion that causes a Rich Text Component on an opportunity page to appear when the opportunity is marked as Closed Lost.

For Component visibility on Record Pages, end users can configure criteria on the Lightning components based on the following filter types: Record Fields, Form Factor (Phone, Desktop), and Advanced Fields such as fields from a related object or user/permissions-related details.

For Component visibility on the App and Home Page, as these pages aren’t associated with an object in Salesforce, users can use filters limited to User Details, Permissions, or Form Factor (Phone, Desktop).

Note: If you don’t define a filter, the component displays on the Lightning page as usual.

Dynamic Actions

With Dynamic Actions, users can control the visibility of actions on a Lightning record page based on the defined filters in the Lightning App Builder. Once the Dynamic Actions are enabled, it applies only to the specific record page configured for the actions. 

Dynamic Forms

With Dynamic Forms, users can migrate the Fields and Sections from the page layout as individual components into the Lightning App Builder. 

Once done, each field and section behave as a separate component. The users can configure them just like any other component on the page, which gives the flexibility to show/hide specific fields and sections to the end-users based on the defined filter criteria. 

This will improve page load times and eliminate the need to create multiple page layouts.

Update from Winter ‘23

• Dynamic Forms are supported for custom objects, Accounts (including person accounts), Contacts and Opportunities.
• Dynamic Forms are not supported on record pages that use pinned-region or custom page templates.

Lightning Page Performance Analysis

The Analyze button in the Lightning App Builder for both standard and custom objects will provide a predicted desktop page load time and a mobile page performance index. It will also recommend best practices and suggestions for improving page load time for a better end-user experience.

From the Winter ’22 release, page analysis will run automatically without pressing the Analyze button. The analysis will be provided for the default tab, and the page load time will be broken down at a component level.

In addition, the analysis also provides org-specific metrics like browser speed, network latency, and the number of cores collected from the last 90 days of use of the user’s infrastructure that may negatively impact the page performance.

Use Cases

The development team at Auto Car has created a custom Lightning component that shows the account’s location. It is meant for the mobile app and should be accessed only by the sales team. How can the administrator fulfill this requirement?

Solution

Add component visibility based on Advanced Fields – User.Profile.Name=‘Sales’ & Form Factor as Mobile on the Account Record Lightning Page

Reason

Control the visibility of the custom Lightning component by using component visibility properties of the account record Lightning page to ensure that the component is visible only on the mobile and accessed by the sales team. 

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Conclusion

Embracing the future of app customization and user experience in Salesforce requires a thorough understanding of the tools at our disposal. The Lightning App Builder stands out as a beacon of innovation, providing a user-friendly, dynamic platform for creating responsive and tailored applications. 

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