Affinities
- Phu Nguyen (Unlicensed)
Introduction
Affinities allow you to tag any objects in your Salesforce instance. Possible use cases are the subject areas of a publication or the areas of interest of a contact in order to assign them to the appropriate campaigns. By using affinities across objects, you can improve the 360° view in your CRM.
Settings for Affinities
Affinities initially consist of the "Affinities" object, in which the individual keywords are created as data records. With the help of so-called "Junction objects" you create the basis for affinities to be assigned to other objects.
The object Affinities
Only a few details are required to create an affinity:
Object name | Label |
|---|---|
| Affinity |
Field name | Label | Field type | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
Name | Affinity Name | Text(80) | The name of the affinity |
f42_dispo__Description__c | Description | Long Text Area(32768) | Optional. For internal usage |
f42_dispo__ParentAffinity__c | Parent Affinity | Lookup(Affinity) | The parent affinity is used to group and structure different affinities. |
f42_dispo__SLDSIconName__c | Icon Name | Text(255) | Optional. Please enter the symbol name from the Salesforce Lightning Design System. Found here: https://www.lightningdesignsystem.com/icons. Example: custom:custom48. If the field is empty, a default icon will be used. |
f42_dispo__AffinityFilter__c | Affinity Filter | Picklist (Multi-Select) | Use the Affinities filter to select the objects for which the affinity should be available for selection. The existing affinity objects are available for selection. If you create additional affinity objects, please complete the filter by adding the API name of the new objects as a selection list value. |
Affinity Filter
You have the option to filter affinities on specific objects, and thus, for example, to have different affinities for publications than for contacts and campaigns to choose from.
Controlled is the visibility via the multiple selection list "Affinity Filter" f42_dispo__AffinityFilter__c.
All objects for which a link object with affinities exists are available for selection here. If you do not want to restrict the selection of affinities, simply assign all objects available for selection to the affinity.
If a pick list value is removed from the assignment again, all data records at the associated link object are deleted.
Important note about the update to MediaVelox Spring 22
First, add the "Affinities Filter" f42_dispo__AffinityFilter__c field to the Page Layout affinity.
If you have already created your own affinity objects, e.g. affinities for leads or issues, please add the API names of these objects as select list values for the filter.
When updating your Salesforce instance to version 22.100 (MediaVelox Spring 22), please still make sure to apply the values of the "Affinities Filter" selection list to your existing affinities. You will find a button "Update Affinities Filter" in the list view for this purpose:
If the button is not visible on your list view, please add it in the setup on the Affinity object under "Search Layouts for Salesforce Classic" at the layout for the list views:
By pressing the button, all the records in your instance that do not have an entry in the Affinities Filter field will be assigned all the values available for selection.
This is a one-time action. Afterwards you can remove the button from your list view.
The junction objects
In order to be able to assign the affinities to an object, two requirements must be met: First, there must be the Junction Object that creates the link between the affinity and the desired object, and second, the name of this Junction Object must be assigned to the Affinities Filter drop-down list.
Junction objects are custom objects with two master-detail relationships, one to the affinity and one to the object to which the affinity is to be assigned.
Included in the MediaVelox package are the junction objects to Account, Contact, Publication and Campaign:
Junction Object | Object name | Label |
|---|---|---|
Account | f42_dispo__MVX_AccountAffinity__c | Account-Affinity |
Contact | f42_dispo__MVX_ContactAffinity__c | Contact-Affinity |
Campaign | f42_dispo__MVX_CampaignAffinityFilter__c | Campaign-Filter |
Publication | f42_dispo__MVX_PublicationAffinity__c | Publication-Affinity |
The structure of such a link object is quite simple. It contains one master-detail relationship to the affinity and one to the respective object. Here at the example of the account affinity:
Field name | Label | Field type | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
Name | Account Affinität Nummer | Automatic number | The name is automatically assigned as a number |
f42_dispo__Account__c | Account | Master-Detail(Account) | Master in the master-detail relationship to the account |
f42_dispo__Affinity__c | Affinity | Master-Detail(Affinity) | Master in the master-detail relationship to affinity |
f42_dispo__Description__c | Description | Long Text Area(32000) | Optional. For internal purposes |
Following this scheme, you can create additional shortcuts yourself to any other objects in your Salesforce instance.
Please remember to add the API name of your custom shortcut object to the "Affinities Filter" drop-down list as well.
Use of Affinities
To be able to manage the affinities on an object, e.g. on the account, first add the Affinities component to the Lightning Page Layout and enter the corresponding field names from the Link object:
Then the user can assign the desired affinities from the displayed list by clicking on them:
Recruit campaign members from affinities
Wenn Sie Ihren Kontakten Affinitäten zugewiesen haben, können Sie genau nach diesen auch die Mitglieder einer Kampagne in Salesforce selektieren.
Blenden Sie dazu zunächst die Komponente Campaign: Filter and Add Members by Affinity auf der Lightning Page des Objekts Kampagne ein:
Mit Klick auf die Schaltfläche “Kontakte nach Affinitäten” öffnet sich die Filtermaske:
Here, by clicking on the pencil icon, you have the option to select those affinities that you want to include in your campaign and those that you want to exclude:
Your selection will be displayed again clearly before confirming:
From this selection, all contacts are selected that have an assignment to the named affinities and are immediately created as campaign members in the desired status by clicking on "Save":
The affinity filter also applies to campaign selection. Therefore, make sure that the affinities for contacts and campaigns match if you want to generate campaign members from them.