Action Categories

Actions fall into several different categories. What you see depends on the age and configuration of your org.

Standard Chatter actions

Standard Chatter actions are actions that are included automatically when Chatter is enabled: Post, File, Link, Poll, and, in orgs that use work.com, Thanks. Standard actions can also include any actions that you created for your org using point-and-click methods, such as create or Log A Call actions.

Default actions

Default actions are sets of predefined actions to get you and your users started using actions in your org. Add default actions to publisher layouts to make them available to your users in the full Salesforce site and the action bar in the Salesforce mobile app. Default actions are sets of predefined actions to get you and your users started using actions in your org.

Because our Development org is new, it contains a set of default actions. You can check out the default global actions: From Setup, enter Global Actions in the Quick Find box, then select Global Actions.

For a list of which default actions appear on which object, see “Default Actions” in the Salesforce Help.

Mobile smart actions

Mobile smart actions are a set of preconfigured actions and are supported on the same list of objects as default actions. However, they appear in orgs created before Winter ’14 and are displayed only in the Salesforce app.

Mobile smart actions appear as a single action element in the page layout editor. In the Salesforce mobile app, the Mobile Smart Actions element expands to distinct create actions that enable users to create records directly from the action bar.

Mobile smart actions are populated with all your org’s required fields on the relevant object, regardless of how many fields there are. For example, the New Case action in the mobile smart action bundle includes all required case fields. You can’t edit the fields on mobile smart actions. The fields that appear change only if you change which fields on an object are required.

Mobile smart actions don’t appear in the full Salesforce site, regardless of which page layouts you add them to. They appear only to users in the Salesforce mobile app.

For a list of what the mobile smart action element on each supported object expands to include, see “Mobile Smart Actions” in the Salesforce Help.

Custom quick actions

Custom quick actions are actions that you create and customize, such as Create a Record, Send Email, or Log a Call actions. Quick actions can also invoke Lightning components, flows, Visualforce pages, or canvas apps with functionality that you define. For example, you can create an action so that users can write comments that are longer than 5,000 characters. Or, you can create an action that integrates a video-conferencing application so that support agents can communicate visually with customers.

We’ll touch briefly on custom actions later in About Custom Actions, but you can find out much more about them in the Adding Functionality with Visualforce Custom Actions chapter.

Productivity Actions

Productivity actions are predefined and attached to a limited set of objects. Productivity actions include Send Email, Call, Map, View Website, and Read News. Except for the Call action, you can’t edit or delete productivity actions.