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Adding Metadata Descriptions in Elements

Salesforce metadata descriptions, Org documentation, metadata, ElementsGPT recommendations, character limit, sync

Updated this week

This article will help you discover how to add and edit Salesforce metadata. descriptions, understand syncing behaviour of descriptions from Salesforce to Elements, and harness the benefits of longer, more informative metadata descriptions.

Prerequisites

Syncing Metadata Descriptions from Salesforce to Elements

This feature ensures that metadata descriptions in Salesforce, such as those for fields, objects, validation rules, and more, are automatically synced to their respective fields in Elements during the next sync cycle.

How It Works:

  • During a metadata sync, Elements pulls the description field for supported metadata types from Salesforce.

  • The retrieved description is displayed in the connected Elements org model.

  • This ensures the latest descriptions from Salesforce are accurately reflected in Elements.

Editing Metadata Descriptions in Elements

To edit metadata descriptions in Elements, simply locate the specific metadata item and click the "Edit information" button. In the modal window, click "Edit" to make your changes—these updates will be automatically applied to both the Elements node and Salesforce metadata. This process is known as two-way sync.

Here is the list of the supported metadata types where we support the update to Salesforce:

  • Apex Class

  • Apex Trigger

  • Custom Object

  • Custom Metadata

  • External Object

  • Field

  • Flow

  • Permission Set

  • Permission Set Group

  • Profile

  • Platform Event

  • Record type

  • Validation rule

Benefits of Longer and Enhanced Descriptions

By adding longer and enhanced descriptions to your metadata items in Elements, you can enjoy the following benefits:

Limitations and Exceptions

Please note the following limitations and exceptions regarding metadata descriptions in Elements:

  • The limit of characters that can be added to metadata is 1000 characters. This is the same as the limit in salesforce.

  • When description on a metadata is empty in salesforce but not empty in Elements we will not overwrite the description in Elements with the empty description in Salesforce with subsequent sync.

  • Two-way sync is not supported for the following metadata because of the absence of a corresponding, editable description field in Salesforce that can be updated.

    • Apex Class

    • Apex Trigger

  • Updating the Flow description is for the flow itself and not the flow's version description

  • Metadata that we do not support two-way sync because of limitations in Salesforce are below:

    • Field (standard)

    • Object (standard)

    • Profile (standard)

    • Permission set (standard)

    • Permission set group (standard)

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us at support@elements.cloud and we will be happy to help.

Remember, by leveraging metadata descriptions in Elements, you can enhance your Org documentation, gain valuable insights, and fully leverage Elements as a Change Intelligence platform for your Salesforce Org.

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