Salesforce Quick Tips: How to Set Up and Display Field History Tracking
As a Salesforce Admin, it’s not a matter of if you’ll be asked to track field changes, but when. Whether it’s for auditing purposes, data integrity, or simply to answer the age-old question, “Who changed this value?”, Field History Tracking is a vital tool in your admin toolkit.
In this guide, we’ll walk through the quick steps to enable tracking and, more importantly, make sure it’s actually visible to your users.
Why Field History Tracking Matters
Without tracking enabled, Salesforce records only show you the current state of data. You lose the “story” of how that data evolved. By enabling Field History Tracking, you can see:
- What field was changed.
- Who made the change.
- When the change occurred.
- Original vs. New values.
Step 1: Enable Tracking for Your Object
The first step happens in the Setup menu. You need to tell Salesforce which object you want to monitor.
- Navigate to Setup.
- In the Quick Find box, type “Field History” and select Field History Tracking under Feature Settings [00:52].
- Find your desired object (e.g., the Account object) and click Enable Account History [01:04].
- Select your fields: You can’t track everything at once, so choose the most critical fields (like Name, Email, or Stage).
- Click Save.
Step 2: Make it Visible (The Related List)
Enabling tracking is only half the battle. If you don’t add the history log to the user interface, your stakeholders won’t be able to see the data you’re collecting.
- Go to the Object Manager and select your object (e.g., Account).
- Click on Page Layouts and select the layout your users use [01:47].
- In the palette at the top, click on Related Lists.
- Find Account History (or your specific object’s history) and drag it into the Related List section of the page [01:54].
- Click Quick Save or Save.
Step 3: Verify the Results
Once you’ve saved the layout, head back to a record on that object and refresh the page [02:04].
Now, whenever a user updates one of the tracked fields, a new entry will automatically appear in the Account History related list, showing the user’s name and the exact change made [02:19].
A Note on Limitations
While Field History Tracking is powerful, it does have limitations regarding the number of fields you can track per object (usually up to 20) and how long the data is retained. Always check the official Salesforce documentation to ensure your tracking strategy aligns with your organization’s data retention policies [01:31].
Final Thoughts
Setting up Field History Tracking is a “quick win” that provides immediate value to your stakeholders. It builds accountability and helps maintain a clean, transparent database.
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