Evolve Forms

This is a quick look at Evolve Forms, a new “dynamic forms” app from developers at Google.

At the time of writing, this is a proof of concept only, and is only available for install from the Github repo.

Look at the YouTube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-gZUKZIgsc for some key details.

Setup

Steps:

Remove the page layout on the Lightning Record Page
Add the Evolve Forms page layout.
Add the Evolve Forms Cancel and Save button at the bottom of the page (if you add it to the top it takes up blank space).
Set up and add the Evolve Forms Edit button https://github.com/google/sf-evolve-forms/blob/main/docs/setup.md (it’s an Action rather than a button).
Override the Edit button on the standard Page Layout.
- Does that mean No Dynamic Actions anymore?
I do NOT understand the setup bit about creating new records.

First impressions are:

The dark lines around the fields in edit mode is standard SLDS but is not standard Salesforce. Why oh why does Salesforce do this. So your users are going to say “why is this object different to others” to which you will have no reply except “because”.

Things you don’t get because this is a custom Page. These are not something Evolve Forms can control, just something you lose with going custom.

Owner field doesn’t have the inbuilt action button. Use the Owner field on the Highlights Panel if you want that.
No Google Map on display mode.
- Actually I don’t know this for sure, as Maps are not available in Developer or Scratch Orgs, but due to the way the address fields are rendering, I’m sure it will not work.
No Lookup address - built in Google Addresses.
No create new on Lookups - not even the new Lookup LWC Base Component has that functionality yet.
The Name and Address fields don’t show as a consolidated field in display mode. This could be disconcerting to users - why is it different.

Weird Things are:

Name field renders across the page rather than down the page. So First Name and Last Name are not on the same line or even in line. So very weird.
- The only way around it is to put the Pronouns or Title field next to the Name field so it doesn’t look so weird.
- Or build that section of the page layout yourself so that you can order the fields in the way that makes some sense to you. But that involves keeping two page layouts or a page layout and a field set up to date.
- If you use the Full Name field in a Field set with Pronouns next to it it looks somewhat OK, but you can’t do that with a standard page layout. Or Use each field in a two column Field Section with spaces between each field. But then it is going to take up a lot of space on the display form.

Account says Account ID on the view page, but Account Name on the Edit page.
Again, addresses go LEFT to RIGHT - so the City is next to the Address. This is just not right.
- And two addresses just meld into each other.

Created By and Last Modified by look different, and include the date field separately but also within the Created By field - it looks weird.
Field Section renders slightly differently than regular sections, so looks a little off.
- But set Include Boundary to true and it looks much better.

Great things are:

Still control the pages via page layouts - not having to set them up in two places like you have to do with Dynamic Forms.
- But you can still override them with field sections.
- And changing the Page Layout just works.
Multiple Page Layouts on the one Lightning Page
When editing a field in a field section, if it is in another section, the edits change in real time and the colour of the field changes to show it’s been edited. Very helpful (if for some reason you have the same field on the layout twice).
BLANK SPACES! Wooohoo!
- Caveat, you can only do them with regular Page Layouts and Dynamic Forms - Field Section, not Dynamic Forms - Field Section via Fieldset.
Loving the help text and field overrides. But remember, as soon as people start to use Reports and List Views they are going to get confused, so use sparingly, like in a data entry form, with the real field also on the page layout maybe.
- Remember the tip that if the standard field doesn’t already have Help Text, you need to override the name also.
- The realtime field updates in Setup is amazingly good!

Issues are:

Not available for Mobile. We have only just got Dynamic Forms for Mobile so it must be difficult.
- With all the overrides you have to make, I think you might even have to have a completely separate Lightning Page for mobile.
Still makes the Lightning Page that extra second slow to save like Dynamic Forms does.
No Compact Mode is a big drawback. I suppose the answer is you should not need so many fields on a page to need to scroll that long, but Compact Mode is still better.
I had a problem getting the Save button to function. I think it was because I overwrote the Edit Button as per the Setup page. When I removed that the Save button worked fine.
The Save functionality disappeared again at some point, and nothing I did would make it return. Not even removing all Evolve Forms details off the page, saving the page, and then re-adding them one by one. Not even opening in a different browser made it come back. Not even deleting the Lighting Page and rebuilding it would make it come back. Not even starting on a new object would make it come back.