Force.com REST API Developer's Guide

Introducing Force.com REST API
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FOR VIEW

Salesforce stores information about record views in the interface and uses the information to generate a list of recently viewed and referenced records, such as a list of records in a sidebar and for a list of records as auto-complete options in search. You can update objects with information about when they were last viewed by using the FOR VIEW clause in a SOQL query.

Salesforce stores information about record views in the interface and uses it to generate a list of recently viewed and referenced records, such as in the sidebar and for the auto-complete options in search. You can use the FOR VIEW clause to notify Salesforce when a record is viewed from a custom interface, such as in a mobile application or from a custom page, so that the recently viewed data is always current. Consider using the FOR VIEW clause in conjunction with the FOR REFERENCE clause to update recent usage data for retrieved objects.

When this clause is used with a query, two things happen:
  • The LastViewedDate field for the retrieved record is updated.
  • A record is added to the RecentlyViewed object to reflect the recently viewed data for the retrieved record.
  • Use this clause only when you are sure that the retrieved records will definitely be viewed by the logged-in user, else the clause falsely updates the usage information for the records. Also, the user won’t recognize any falsely updated records when they display in the Recent Items and the global search auto-complete lists.
  • The RecentlyViewed object is updated every time the logged-in user views or references a record. It is also updated when records are retrieved using the FOR VIEW or FOR REFERENCE clause in a SOQL query. To ensure that the most recent data is available, RecentlyViewed data is periodically truncated down to 200 records per object.

Note

This is an example of a SOQL query that retrieves one contact to show to the current user and uses FOR VIEW to update the last viewed date of the retrieved contact. The same statement both retrieves the record and updates its last viewed date.

1SELECT Name, ID FROM Contact  LIMIT 1 FOR VIEW