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Writer's pictureMichael Kolodner

Free Things I Always Install: Unofficial SF


Freebie handing out free puppies

This is the final installment of my summer series of posts about free utilities I always install in a new Salesforce instance or that I install into existing instances once I come along to support them. I love free things! (These, by the way, are all free-like-a-beer.)


It's the last post in this series, so I'm not limiting myself to one tool, I'm pointing you toward a site with hundreds of them.


The homepage of UnofficialSF.com

UnofficialSF is "a loose collaboration of bloggers, mvp’s, and the occasional Salesforce employee" that put out "Guides, Installable Actions and Components for Salesforce’s Automation Products."


If you haven't browsed the amazing things people have built, I won't be offended if you switch tabs right now! The Flow Components library alone is a treasure trove! Look also at the Lightning Page Components if you want to customize your user experience.


(You might even find something familiar looking on Applications and Utilities... 😉)


What I Install

As I said, there are a ton of great tools here that just might be exactly what you're looking for, even if you don't know you're looking. Several of them have been exactly that for me at one time or another!


But I don't want to clutter up client orgs with more installed packages than I'm going to use. So when it comes to the ones I always install, I limit myself to the USF components that I need right away or am pretty confident I'll be using in the near future:

  • Flow Action and Screen Components BasePacks - These are a required prerequisite for several USF tools so you might as well install them early. (Otherwise you're just slowing yourself down when you try to install something later.) With these in place other USF components can install and even have configuration tools within the Flow Builder.

  • Navigate Everywhere - We've all been frustrated when building a screen flow and want to redirect the user to the record we just created. Navigate Everywhere gives you that power and more. Might not be used right away, but it's likely on the menu as soon as you I build a screen flow that creates records.

  • Send Better Email - I used to use this all the time, if only for the ability to log an email as a task on the contact once it's sent. But that's now part of the standard SendEmail flow component, so SBE might not be as critical anymore. But SBE still gives other functionality that can be handy, so I like to keep it around.

  • Datatable - The Salesforce standard Data Table component is getting more useful, but it still can't do all the things you're going to want and need. USF's Datatable sets the real standard for displaying and interacting with records in a table in a screen flow.

Gratitude

While I'm mentioning USF, I want to give a couple of special thank you:

Alex Edelstein - I don't think I've ever met Alex. But I, like many, owe him thanks for starting and maintaining UnofficialSF.

Eric Smith - There are many people that publish and maintain components on USF, but Eric seems to be the author of ones I use most often. I've been fortunate to hang out with Eric in person and also fortunate to get fast responses and help when trying to make one component or another do my bidding.


Thank you, as well, to everyone that creates, publishes, and maintains the tools on UnofficialSF. Whether you've made one or many, you've helped me and many others do our jobs better.

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