---
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title: Considerations for Universally Required Fields
collection: admin
version: current
locale: en-us
portal_url: https://docs.salesforce.com/admin/current/en-us/platform/264-0-0/fields_universally_required_field_considerations.md
canonical_url: https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.fields_universally_required_field_considerations.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5
source_site: help.salesforce.com
content_type: documentation
content_hash: 2ca40133d1e5f35fe23908dd669d1c3bf9fb0c249263d1052980e53fd867d1b6
description: A universally required field is a custom field. It must have a value whenever a record is saved within Salesforce, the Lightning Platform API, Connect Offline, Salesforce for Outlook, the Self-Service portal, or automated processes such as Web-to-Lead and Web-to-Case. Review the following considerations before making your custom fields universally required.
products:
  - Salesforce Platform
  - Security
release: "264"
---
# Considerations for Universally Required Fields

A universally required field is a custom field. It must have a value whenever a record is saved within Salesforce, the Lightning Platform API, Connect Offline, Salesforce for Outlook, the Self-Service portal, or automated processes such as Web-to-Lead and Web-to-Case. Review the following considerations before making your custom fields universally required.

### Required Editions

<table class="slds-table slds-table_bordered slds-max-medium-table_stacked slds-m-bottom_small edition">
        <colgroup>
          <col>
        </colgroup>
        <tbody>
          <tr class="">
            <td class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;">Available in: both Salesforce Classic
              and Lightning Experience</td>

          </tr>
          <tr class="">
            <td class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;">
              <p>Available in: <strong>Contact Manager</strong>, <strong>Group</strong>, <strong>Professional</strong>,
                <strong>Enterprise</strong>, <strong>Performance</strong>, <strong>Unlimited</strong>, <strong>Developer</strong>, and
                <strong>Database.com</strong> Editions
              </p>
              <p style="margin-bottom:0;">Standard Objects, Page Layouts, Connect Offline,
                Salesforce&nbsp;for&nbsp;Outlook, the Self-Service portal, Web-to-Lead, and
                Web-to-Cases are not available in <strong>Database.com</strong></p>
            </td>

          </tr>
        </tbody>
      </table>

- Standard fields cannot be universally required.
- Universally required fields are required across all record types.
- Edit pages always display universally required fields, regardless of field-level security.
- When designing your page layouts, universally required fields:
    - Cannot be removed from a page layout
    - Are automatically added to the end of the first section of a page layout if not already on it
    - Cannot be read only or optional
    - Display in bold, indicating they are always visible
    - Are disabled on the field properties page because you cannot remove the required setting
- Universally required fields are only enforced during lead conversion if validation and triggers for lead conversion are enabled in your organization.
- Quick Create does not enforce universally required fields.
- If you make an activity custom field universally required, you must also provide a default value.
- You must include universally required fields in your import files or the import will fail.
- Don’t assign default values to fields that are both required and unique, because uniqueness errors can result.
- You cannot make a field universally required if it is used by a field update that sets the field to a blank value.
- Required fields may be blank on records that existed before making the field required. When a user updates a record with a blank required field, the user must enter a value in the required field before saving the record.
- Web-to-Lead and Web-to-Case request data is not validated by Salesforce. Invalid data isn’t saved when requests are submitted. For example, if your custom field is a currency field and a user enters alphabetic characters such as “Abc” instead of numbers, the request is still submitted but with no value saved in the custom currency field.

#### See Also

- [Require Field Input to Ensure Data Quality](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.fields_about_universally_required_fields.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Improve the quality of data that users enter in Salesforce by creating universally required fields.")