How to automate the process to Update Pagelayouts in Salesforce?

Question

I need to follow few specific steps which involves modifying pagelayouts by adding new field, making few fields read-only/required, adding related lists etc.

I have to follow the same steps for all my customers. There are hundred of such customers and each time following the fix steps to adjust pagelayout takes a lot of time as well as it is boring :(.

Is there any way I can automate this process of modifying my pagelayouts? I did some research about using Metadata API to perform this automation but the answers are not satisfying.

Please help me with this.

Answer 1

Is there a specific field or field update that determines when to change the page layout? If there is, you should be able to do this through record types and workflows.

Create a record type for each layout that you need to use. Then, assign the page layout to that record type for all users.

On the workflow rule, enter your conditions on when the layout needs to change. Then, make an immediate field update to update the record type to the one you need.

After that, whenever the record is updated to meet the criteria, the workflow will immediately update the record type, which will also update the page layout.

Answer 2

When I have had a need to do this, this what I did to lessen the pain. But it never was automated as I would have liked.

What you can do is install eclipse and download the relevant meta data. You can do a full search (cntrl-h) for a tag that you know precedes or immediately follows where you need to add a new field. You will get a list of objects where this is relevant. You click on the search result links and insert the meta data field code and save to server. To be honest, if I had a slow connection, the save to server offset the gain in time using meta data.

If you need to make things read-only or required, that can be a bit easier as it entails a search and replace for the right meta tag.

Overall, I usually used the meta data route.

I hope that this helped.