Salesforce Inline Editing: Hype vs. Reality

Salesforce has been lagging in inline-editing capabilities for a while.  When Clari burst onto the scene, that was one of the earlier features that sellers loved - the ability to edit records without having to open them one by one.  Even a free version of Scratchpad had better inline-editing abilities.

Salesforce enabled inline-editing in list views, but it is limited to a single record type.  That means either an admin created list views for users, or a trainer taught them how to create list views that had a record type filter.  Both are not scalable, and the latter is a bit more complicated for a user whose primary job is to sell, not to be Salesforce experts.

Beyond the single record type limitation, not all fields are supported.  This Salesforce help page details them out.  The standard Next Step would've been supported, except many companies feel 255 characters are not enough, so they have a custom "Next Steps" field that is a long text area.  Long text areas are not supported.  Sales Stage would've been supported, but most companies create a dependent "Reason" field when something is lost or won, and fields with dependent picklists are also not supported.

Salesforce has since released inline-editing capabilities in reports.  Since the Summer '21 release, they have been making improvements to the capability.  Unfortunately, apart from the record type and the dependent picklist limitations, the others still exist.  You still can't edit Probability directly, nor can you edit long text areas.

And this is causing frustration from the users.  Now, should you try to move to the standard Next Step with 255 characters and argue that Next Step should be short and sweet?  Probably.  But what about other things like Customer Success Notes?

It's a step in the right direction but it's not a full-fledged feature that will make your users jump up and down and be happy about Salesforce Lightning unfortunately.  It is a journey, and we're all in it.

Am I asking too much?

 I am writing this as an Apple shareholder and customer.

Much has been said about planned obsolescence, how we no longer build things to last, how the manufacture and disposal of electronics and appliances are harmful to the environment.  I came from the generation where refrigerators last 20+ years and computers that doubled in speed every 18 months until having multiple cores became more mainstream.  So I have seen both sides.

And so to some extent, I expect computers to last longer than five years.  I've had a 2009 Macbook which I kept until 2018.  Granted, it was relegated to light duties like surfing the web or playing music for my then 4 year old.

I have a 2011 Macbook Pro, which works to this day, except for the battery that doesn't hold a charge (I accept the lifespan of NiMH batteries) and consequently, a mouse pad that doesn't work because the battery has expanded and is pushing the trackpad mechanism.  But the camera works flawlessly.

Which brings me to my 2016 Macbook Pro.  The camera has stopped working, and after my own troubleshooting, two trips to the Apple Store for various resets, OS reinstall, as well as reseating the cables that presumably connect the display to the main board, the geniuses at Apple have deemed my laptop broken.  

The option given to me was to buy a new display for $478 plus tax.  Why a new display, and not just the camera?  I presume these are integrated units, or built as a single replaceable part, which brings us back to the e-waste problem.  The display is working, so why replace the whole thing for just the camera?

What's frustrating is that the software-based diagnostic test revealed that the camera is perfectly fine.  So I thought it was just a software issue.  But if it was, an OS reinstall would've fixed it.  And if the cable was loose, why can the diagnostics software detect the camera?

My wife uses this 2016 Macbook Pro.  It works fine otherwise, except for the camera, which she needs to occasionally join a video call.  It's just not worth spending $478 for it.  It certainly isn't worth getting a new one, since I am typing this on a 2020 Macbook Pro.  These aren't business laptops that are on a three year refresh cycle.  

For a thousand dollar laptop, is it too much to ask for the camera to last more than 5 years?