To Record Type or Not to Record Type

Question

Here's my issue:

We have a customer object that we sell. we call it "License".

There are 2 types of these licenses: Network and Single.

Each of these, have it's own record type today. (that's 2 record types)

Now, Sales want to apply another mechanism (which the hardware license supports) - calling it: Timer and Perpetual License.

So in Theory, we can have: 4 type of keys, 2 of each (Timer Regular, Perpetual Regular, Timer Network, Perpetual Network) - but only with 2 types of physical hardware licenses.

The issue that sales want to prevent, is that when a customer, views his Licenses data on the site (we use portals), they will NOT see the word: Timer.

My question (and it's a general - not to make it too specific to my case)

• How can I change the page layout of an object, without creating a new Record Type?
• How to display a different page layout, according to a field value (Check box in my issue) for the same object, with the same record type

Answer 1

The record type drives the page layout. If you want to just have two record types, you cannot separate the layouts using the standard UI.

The alternative is a Visualforce page; this means you'd have to code four layouts, and use controller logic to determine how it should appear.

Personally, I'd go with the four record types. You could use a workflow rule to choose a record type in order to avoid the "label" of the record type giving too much information to the client.

Alternatively, you could hide the record type field entirely, and use a formula to display the record type to hide the distinction from your clients.

Answer 2

While its true as @sfdcfox says that the record type drives the page layout in general terms, there's no reason you can't have the Perpetual Option on both pages as an option. You could also create custom Publisher Actions based on the two Record Types, one that adds the Perpetual Licence Option for each of the record types and one that doesn't. What they have in common is that they're based around whether the license is Network or Single license, which seems to be the key thing that's important to you.

With that having been said, if you want to be able to easily send out reminders to renew non-perpetual licenses, then I'd highly recommend you add additional record types for the two new license types. What you call the license would seem to be entirely up to you as would how you choose to display them to your customers. So, I'd think that issue would be something you could find a number of ways to work-around just as we regularly do with other data.