About Compact Layouts

In the last section, we learned how page layouts affect the look and content of records in the Salesforce1 app. But page layouts aren’t the only thing used to help customize how your Salesforce data appears in a mobile environment.

Compact layouts are used in Salesforce1 to display a record's key fields at a glance. Compact layouts are designed for viewing records on touchscreen mobile devices, where space is limited and quick recognition of records is important.

In the full Salesforce site, compact layouts determine which fields appear in the Chatter feed item that appears after a user creates a record with a publisher action.

The first four fields you assign to your compact layout populate the record highlights section at the top of each record view in Salesforce1, so we’ll put the fields we think our mobile technicians most want to see into the list.

Creating and customizing compact layouts for objects isn’t required for Salesforce1, because system defaults are provided out of the box. However, if you want to customize which fields show up on object record headers—and elsewhere—for your mobile users, it’s a good idea to go ahead and do it. Let’s give it a try.