What is Field History Tracking?
Do you ever need to know when a field on a record was changed and what the field contained before the change? Now system administrators can enable field history tracking to track changes that are made in Elements on most standard and custom objects. Field History Tracking allows you to see changes that are made for up to 20 fields per object, for up to 18 months. Once enabled, your firm can track changes made to fields on the Related List Quick Links on a record or holistically through Reporting.
Enabling Field History Tracking
To use Field History Tracking, you need to enable it for the specific object and fields you want to track. You must be logged in as a System Administrator.
1. Click the gear icon and select Setup.
2. Select the Object Manager tab and using the Quick Find search box, search for the object. In this example, we will edit the Relationship object.
3. Select Fields & Relationships and click the Set History Tracking button.
Note: For Custom Objects, ensure that the Object Properties have Track Field History enabled under Details.
4. Check the box for the fields you want to track history, up to 20 per object, and click Save.
Viewing Field History Tracking
You can add the object History as a Related List Quick Link for everyone to see on a record.
1. In Setup> Object Manager> select the Object.
2. Select Page Layouts.
3. Select the Page Layout you want to edit.
4. Select Related Lists and drag and drop the History Related List onto the form. Save.
You will now see the History object on the Relationship's Related List Quick Links section. It may take a few moments to see the history update.
You will also now see a new Report type for the object's History that will allow you to track changes holistically.
You can run the Report to see details on the field history.
Note: Not all objects will be tracked by a report. If the custom object is a detail of a Master-Detail Relationship, the history tracking report will not be available. In these cases, you should be able to export a CSV file via http://Dataloader.io as shown below.
Field History Tracking Considerations
Tracking Is Limited
- By default, only a maximum of 20 fields can be tracked
- You can track up to 6 fields for Events or Tasks
- Not all changes to recurring and child events are tracked
Not Available for Tracking
- Not all standard objects can be tracked, but you can track fields on Relationships, Contacts, Events, and Tasks. This is a Salesforce limitation, and if there are other Standard Objects you would like to track history on, check to see if the Set History Tracking button is available on the Object.
- Custom Objects generally are available for Field History Tracking.
- Changes to time fields aren’t tracked in the field history-related list.
- For Text Area (Long), Text Area (Rich), and Picklist (Multi-Select) types of fields, you cannot track the original and new value.
- Not all fields can be tracked; i.e. formula, roll-up summary, and auto-number, Created By and Last Modified By fields cannot be tracked. Fields displaying decimal values, such as currency and percent field types, aren’t supported.
Tracking Timing
- Field History Tracking is not real-time. It takes some time to update
- The Field History Tracking timestamp is precise to a second in time. In other words, if two users update the same tracked field on the same record in the same second, both updates have the same timestamp. Salesforce can’t guarantee the commit order of these changes to the database. As a result, the display values can look out of order
- The parent record of an activity is locked when the activity history updates. For example, if an activity is linked to thousands of accounts, each account is locked while the history updates. If processes fail because of parent-child row locking, consider turning off activity field history tracking
- History only lasts for 18 months and is available through Related Lists and Reports
Field History Tracking Security
- You can’t delete specific field history records
- Field History honors the permissions of the current user
