Field-level help lets you provide help text detailing the purpose and function of any standard or custom field. Before defining field-level help, review these implementation tips and best practices.
Implementation Tips
- Field-level help is enabled by default for all editions.
- Field-level help isn’t available for some standard fields, including fields on the User object, system read-only fields, auto-number fields, multi-currency fields, Ideas fields, and Experience Cloud site fields.
- The help text for a field is automatically added to a package when you add the associated field to any AppExchange package.
- In a managed package, the help text is locked to the developer, giving installers full capabilities to change it.
- Field-level help isn’t available for Visualforce pages in Lightning Experience.
- Field-level help is available for Visualforce pages in Salesforce Classic only if the
page’s
showHeaderattribute is set totrue. - Field-level help on dependent fields appears in Salesforce Classic but not in Lightning Experience.
Best Practices
- Because your custom help text displays on both edit and detail pages, avoid instructions
for entering data. Instead, construct help text that defines the field's purpose, such
as:
The maximum discount allowed for this account.
- Provide information in your help text about the attributes of the field, such
as:
A detailed description of the purpose for the expense report. Up to 32 KB of data are allowed. Only the first 255 characters display in reports.
- Provide examples in your help text that help users understand the field's meaning
clearly, such as:
The four-digit promotional code used to determine the amount charged to the customer, for example, 4PLT (for level-four platinum pricing).
- If your org uses more than one language, provide translations for your Help Text using the Translation Workbench.