PatronManager Help

Actions in Lightning

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Actions in Lightning: https://help.pm.leapevent.tech/a/988862

In PatronManager, custom actions let you create new records faster than you can mutter the phrase "What's a Lightning action?"

Actions let you quickly complete tasks such as create records, log calls, send emails, and more. Custom actions facilitate an incredibly smooth workday by standardizing specific fields as you create new records in PatronManager.  

Excited yet? Here's what we'll cover:

  1. What actions are in general, and the two kinds of customizable actions - global and object-specific
  2. Use-cases for custom actions via our imaginary organizations, the Yellow Umbrella Museum and Out of the Box Productions
  3. Where to learn how to create actions
  4. How to create an object-specific action
  5. How to update the names your object-specific actions create
  6. Some resources on customizing existing actions

This action creates a new Contact record

1. What's an action?

Actions help you and your coworkers accomplish specific tasks quickly - such as logging a call, or creating a new Contact, Donation, or Account record.

Custom actions can have specific pre-filled fields associated with them. For example, you could configure a "New Board Member" action that automatically checks a custom "Board Member" checkbox on every new Contact created using that action.

Consider what you and your coworkers wish they could do more quickly and efficiently, or your day-to-day manual data entry tasks.  Creating actions that save you and your coworkers time can drive PatronManager adoption in your organization and make you a hero in your office!

Customizable actions come in two flavors - global actions and object-specific actions.

What's a global action?

Global actions let your users create a new record from anywhere in PatronManager, except the PatronManager Box Office ticket selling screens. These new records stand alone, meaning they aren't immediately related to any other records in your PatronManager account.

You can find global actions in the drop down menu that appears once you click the plus sign (+) icon.

If you don't have any global actions when you click the plus sign (+) icon, or if that icon is greyed out and unclickable, you will need to enable global actions using these steps.

How is an object-specific action different than a global action?

Object-specific actions have automatic relationships to other records. For example, you can add an object-specific action on the Account object that creates Contacts. If a user creates a Contact with that action on the detail page for the Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory account, that new Contact is associated with Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. Object-specific actions live on the page layout for the object.

The New Donation button is an object-specific quick action; in the above example, this action is on the Account and will link a Donation to the Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory & Stores Account.

2. How can I use an action?

Actions are entirely customizable to your organization and its needs. Use actions to save time on manual data entry!

Using actions in Development

The Yellow Umbrella Museum development committee wants to identify potential business partnerships in New York this year. You, as the Development Manager, regularly receive leads from the committee, and you put them into PatronManager as you receive them.

Let's assume none of these businesses have existing Accounts in PatronManager. Since you'll regularly create new Accounts and Contacts for these leads, as well as a new Donation record to track the progress of the sponsorship ask, create actions to save yourself time! These actions will allow you to, with the click of a specific button, set default values for the newly created Accounts, Contacts, and Donations.

Using actions in the Box Office

Your theatre company, Out of the Box Productions, is launching a new student matinee initiative. You've tasked your friends, organization staff, and board members with finding potential attendees at schools around your area. You need to input their contact information into PatronManager in an efficient manner as it comes in slowly over time, and ideally set up some default fields to mark them as student matinee prospects. An action with predefined hidden values can make that happen with fewer clicks than manually entering those predefined fields every time.

3. Learn how to create actions with these resources

Salesforce has written wonderful Trailhead modules about actions! We recommend the following modules:

4. Let's create an object-specific action together

Create the object-specific action here!

4.1. Click on the gear and go to Setup

4.2. Go to the Object Manager tab and click on Account

4.4. Fill in the action criteria

  1. Action Type: Create a Record
  2. Target Object: Opportunity
  3. Record Type: Ad Sales
  4. Standard Label Type: New [Record Type]
  5. Name: NewAdSale
  6. Description: What the action will be used for.  Our example says, "Creates a new Ad Sale from the Account"
  7. Create Feed Item:  Leave this checked
  8. Click "Save"

4.5. Now let's organize fields that will appear on the Action layout

Drag the fields you'd like to see on the action layout:

In our example, we included:

  • Opportunity Name
  • Amount
  • Ad Size
  • Close Date
  • Stage

4.6. Click "Save" when you've added the fields you'd like to the action layout

4.7. Now, let's configure a few pre-defined values - click "New" in the Predefined Field Values section

4.8. Fill in the information and click "Save"

  1. Field Name: Opportunity Name
  2. Formula Value: Account.Name + "Ad Sale"
  3. Click "Save"

4.9. Let's add another Predefined Value - click "New" again

4.10. Fill in the information and click "Save"

  1. Field Name: Close Date
  2. Formula Value: TODAY()
  3. Click "Save"

And that's how you make a New Ad Sale action!

Let's add the action to the Account Organization page layout so you can use it!

4.11. Go to the Page Layouts tab on the Account object, and click on Organization Layout

4.12. Select the Mobile & Lightning Actions section in the editing palette

4.13. Find the action you just created, drag-and-drop it in the Salesforce Mobile and Lightning Experience Actions section on the page layout, and click "Save"

The action will show up in the Highlights panel for our Organization accounts

In this section, we'll walk through how to create an object-specific action.  In this example, we've built a custom Record Type on the Donation called Ad Sale - we'll create a "New Ad Sale" action on the Account and add it to the Organization page layout.

As you learned from the resources above, object-specific actions can have the most automation, which will mean less work in the long-run for you and your colleagues.

5. How to update the Donation Names your object-specific actions create

Update object-specific action record naming here

5.1. Click on the gear and go to Setup

5.2. Go to the Object Manager tab - search for and select the object whose action you want to update

In this example, we'll update the predefined field value for the Donation Name on the New Grant Payment action. Since the New Grant Payment action lives on the Donation object, we'll search and select Donation.

5.4. In the Predefined Field Values section, click "Edit" next to Opportunity Name

5.5. Replace the current formula with this one:

Opportunity.Account.Name + " Grant Payment - " + TEXT( MONTH( TODAY() ) ) + "/" + TEXT( DAY( TODAY() ) ) + "/" + TEXT( YEAR( TODAY() ) )

5.6. Click "Save"

All your Grant Payment records moving forward will display the date in the Donation Name as "m/d/yyyy" instead of "yyyy-mm-dd".

Want to update all your standard actions with our recommended record naming format?

We've got the formulas to keep your nomenclature nice and tidy.

Packaged actions on the Donation object

New Grant Payment (demonstrated in our above example)

Opportunity.Account.Name + " Grant Payment - " + TEXT( MONTH( TODAY() ) ) + "/" + TEXT( DAY( TODAY() ) ) + "/" + TEXT( YEAR( TODAY() ) )

New Group Sale Payment

Opportunity.Account.Name + " Group Sale Payment - " + TEXT( MONTH( TODAY() ) ) + "/" + TEXT( DAY( TODAY() ) ) + "/" + TEXT( YEAR( TODAY() ) )

New Pledge Payment

Opportunity.Account.Name + " Pledge Payment - " + TEXT( MONTH( TODAY() ) ) + "/" + TEXT( DAY( TODAY() ) ) + "/" + TEXT( YEAR( TODAY() ) )
Packaged actions on the Contact object

 

New Donation

Contact.FirstName + " " + Contact.LastName + " Donation - " + TEXT( MONTH( Today() ) ) + "/" + TEXT( DAY( TODAY() ) ) + "/" + TEXT( YEAR( TODAY() ) )

New Grant

Contact.Account.Name + " Grant - " + TEXT( MONTH( TODAY() ) ) + "/" + TEXT( DAY( TODAY() ) ) + "/" + TEXT( YEAR( TODAY() ) )

New Group Sale

Contact.FirstName + " " + Contact.LastName + " Group Sale - " + TEXT( MONTH( TODAY() ) ) + "/" + TEXT( DAY( TODAY() ) ) + "/" + TEXT( YEAR( TODAY() ) )

New Pledge

Contact.FirstName + " " + Contact.LastName + " Pledge - " + TEXT( MONTH( TODAY() ) ) + "/" + TEXT( DAY( TODAY() ) ) + "/" + TEXT( YEAR( TODAY() ) )
Packaged actions on the Account object

 

New Donation

Account.Name + " Donation - " + TEXT( MONTH( TODAY() ) ) + "/" + TEXT( DAY( TODAY() ) ) + "/" + TEXT( YEAR( TODAY() ) )

New Grant

Account.Name + " Grant - " + TEXT( MONTH( TODAY() ) ) + "/" + TEXT( DAY( TODAY() ) ) + "/" + TEXT( YEAR( TODAY() ) )

New Pledge

Account.Name + " Pledge - " + TEXT( MONTH( TODAY() ) ) + "/" + TEXT( DAY( TODAY() ) ) + "/" + TEXT( YEAR( TODAY() ) )

If you're going to create Donation records automatically, you want those records to have good names! Below, we'll show you how to update your standard object-specific actions with our recommended record naming conventions.

As you can see, the date in the Donation Name field is formatted as "yyyy-mm-dd".

After updating the action, the date in the Donation Name for all new records will display as "m/d/yyyy" - much better!

6. Some resources on how to customize actions

If you're interested in customizing existing actions, Salesforce has some resources to help! We recommend the following resources:

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