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Our client wants to use the standard Contact List View functionality to display Lists of Contacts.

Let's say that there needs to be a List View called 'My Special Contacts'. The way to determine a 'Special Contact' is through a Custom Object, UserSpecialContacts__c which has a lookup to a user and a lookup to a Contact.

The logic for the My Special Contacts should therefore something like

List<Contact> c = Select Contact__c from UserSpecialContacts where User__c = (current running user).

Now, it looks as though I cannot achieve this through Salesforce filter logic etc. I understand that it may be possible as a report, but is there any way I can make this happen so that it appears as a list view? I can use Visualforce Pages if necessary, but rewriting the whole List View page is probably not an option so I would need to extend an existing component.

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  • Just thinking aloud, a formula field on Contact - UserSpecialContact__c, which does a VLOOKUP on the UserSpecialContacts Object based on the $User. It will evaluate to true based on User. Add that to List view and then filter on this field. – techtrekker Nov 6 '12 at 14:26
  • VLOOKUP has to match against Name only :] And even if we'd populate Name with user's name - it can be used only in Val. Rules. Awesome question :D – eyescream Nov 6 '12 at 14:30
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I'm afraid you have to create a VF page and use it as a custom VF tab (since you can't even override the Contacts Tab).

Sir, it's an awesome question cracks me up that we can't do such a simple thing :) Does it really have to be a related object that drives the logic? Won't a (multiselect) picklist on Contact do, as nasty as it sounds in terms of maintenance?

EDIT: 3 more ideas:

  1. You can build listview filter on contacts using a Campaign (I won't be surprised if it works for only when you have "Marketing User" ticked) - would that work?
  2. Would it work for you to enable tags (maybe only personal tags)? They're still fairly easy to search from sidebar/global search and look like working with them is less hassle than inserting new entries on a related list. Maybe even combine it with a list view button for mass add/remove tags...
  3. Similar one about following them with Chatter?
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  • You could always write (the Username) to a field on the Contact record via a trigger, if the user is okay to filter by their own name (contains) ! – techtrekker Nov 6 '12 at 14:44
  • Initially I thought the comment above would solve the problem, then I read in the docs "You can't use standard or custom long text area fields for filter criteria in list views." I'm imagining this field would get a lot bigger than 255 characters :| – George S. Nov 6 '12 at 14:57
  • Maybe you could put user Ids or make sure aliases will be always unique? Up to 16 values: 16 * 15 IDs + 15 spaces = 255 – eyescream Nov 6 '12 at 14:58
  • Its just a matter of how many Users a Contact is 'Special' too ! ;) If you've got Account Relationship Managers, then prolly not that many per Contact. Or maybe not. Depends on your organisation. – techtrekker Nov 6 '12 at 15:56
  • There's probably going to be a lot but I can't know for sure. Of course, I can create multiple TextAreas to contain more than 16 IDs and do an OR in the filter logic, but it's a pretty disgusting solution. – George S. Nov 6 '12 at 16:38
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One thing you could do is make the lookup to Contact from UserSpecialContacts Master-Detail, That way you can create a Roll-Up-Summary field on Contact for example:

  • Create Roll Up Summary Field: count_special_contacts__c (which just counts the amount of special contacts)

  • then in your filter of the list view you can create where count_special_contacts__c greater than 0

This way your view will only show contacts which has at least 1 special contact as child record

Your other option is writing the visualforce page or use a report

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  • I think it won't work. It has to be dynamically based on current user and you can't put anything dynamic into rollups ($User, TODAY etc) because they recalculate only insert/update happens. – eyescream Nov 6 '12 at 14:16
  • Oh right, I didn't read well, it's based on the current logged in user. What you could do is, create the list view as "MY Contacts" since you are using master-detail, the owner of the specialcontact record is the same as the contact record. This way only the logged in user's contacts are shown in the list view – pjcarly Nov 6 '12 at 14:19
  • But it clearly shows he already has a lookup on the child obj, User__c ;] Sorry if I sound negative, interesting one but I doubt it can be done. It would have to be listview of UserSpecialContacts, not of Contacts (and even then there would be no catch-all simple view "My UserSpecialContacts" because of the M-D. – eyescream Nov 6 '12 at 14:23
  • If he want's to use the User__c on SpecialContact than it won't be possible, (no problem about the negativeness, I can handle it ;)) I was hoping perhaps the roll-up would somehow match his need, if it doesn't than Report/Visualforce will be the way – pjcarly Nov 6 '12 at 14:28

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