By connecting your Salesforce Org to Elements and creating the Metadata Dictionary you not only gain an automatic, up-to-date visibility into your Salesforce configuration - you also gain the ability to add and store human-generated knowledge (planned changes, design documentation, process information policies, etc.) in context of the metadata.
In order to make the Metadata Dictionary the foundation of your Org knowledge, plan import of your existing information and documentation into the Metadata Dictionary.
Example of using our browser extension to expose both automated and human generated knowledge in context in Salesforce Setup. You can read about our extension here.
Prerequisites
Salesforce Metadata Dictionary license
Synced Org Model (import is not supported on Reference models)
What kind of documentation can I import?
Chances are that your organization already has some of the following documents:
Technical specifications or requirement documents in:
Confluence (Atlassian)
Google Docs
Microsoft Docs (online)
others...
Design diagrams in:
Lucidchart
Visio
others...
Whilst you can try to migrate your historical knowledge into Elements diagrams or notes, it might be easier and more comfortable to simply import your existing documentation as URL links attached to relevant metadata components - and then continue creating new documentation using Elements.
Generate a template file
To make the import experience easier, start by generating an import template for your Salesforce metadata dictionary.
Click 'Import' button in the list of your Salesforce Metadata Dictionaries. Select 'Import data from CSV'
Select the "Generate CSV template for import" tab in the window, then the name of your implementation and import type "URL Links". You can then select which types of metadata you want to include in your template file. Click 'Generate'.
The system will generate a template file with the list of all metadata matching selected types and with the right columns. Simply download the CSV file from the notification icon in the top right corner of the screen.
Then upload it into a google sheets or excel file for amending.
Template / import format
The CSV file for URL links import uses this format:
Metadata information:
Column 1: Metadata type (e.g. Apex Class, Object, Validation rule etc.)
Column 2: Managed package API name (only required if the metadata component belongs to a managed package)
Column 3: Object API name (only required if the metadata if the metadata component belongs to the object, like field, validation rule etc.)
Column 4: API name (the API name of the target component)
The metadata information is generated automatically for you, don't change it.
Documentation information
Column 5: URL (The link you want to attach)
Column 6: Title (What you want the link / document to be called)
Column 7: Visible to (You can specify the Elements user groups you want to be able to view this URL attachment. We recommend, for starters, to put in 'All' for all users with access to Metadata Dictionary to be able to see it).
In the template file, each metadata component is listed once in a single row. But you might have multiple links you want to attach to the same metadata component.
In that case, copy the row multiple times, and in each row specify different URL and title.
In-app help settings
Column 8: Help in lightning (Specify yes/no if you want this URL to be visible as in-app help in SF Lightning mode)
Column 9: Help in classic (Specify yes/no if you want this URL to be visible as in-app help in SF Classic mode)
Column 10: Open in new tab (Specify yes or no if you want the link to open in a new tab when clicked)
Only fill out columns 8-10 if you plan to use our in-app help capability for Salesforce users.
Limitation
Using this import method you can add new URLs, but you cannot update or remove existing ones. To remove an existing URL you will need to navigate to the metadata component in the metadata dictionary and remove it from the right panel.
Import documentation
First, in your excel / google sheets download your amended file in CSV format.
In the list of Salesforce metadata dictionaries, click on the import button in the upper right corner of the screen. Then click "Import data from CSV".
This will open a window where you can select the target implementation and the type of data you want to import. Choose URL file type and then upload your amended CSV file.
Optional: import tags
Optional: import tags
The CSV file for tags import uses the following format:
Column 1: Metadata Type (e.g. Apex Class, Object, Validation rule etc.)
Column 2: Managed Package API name (only required if the metadata you want to add stakeholder for belongs to a managed package)
Column 3: Object API name (only required if the metadata you want to add stakeholder for belongs to an object, e.g. field, validation rule etc.)
Column 4: API name (the API name of the target component)
Column 5: Tags (Cannot have spaces or any special characters like ! £ # $ % < > etc.). To add more than one tag you can separate each tag by comma, without leaving any space between each new tag. e.g:
Using this import method you can only add new tags, but you cannot update or remove existing tags. To remove an existing tag you will need to navigate to the node in the Org model and remove it from the right panel.
