Force Platform Fundamentals: An Introduction to Custom Application Development in the Cloud

Introducing Fields

We’re ready to add more fields to our Position custom object, but first, let’s talk briefly about what a field is and how it fits into the world of the Force Platform.

As you might remember from the last chapter, a field is like a database column. The primary characteristic of a field is its data type—some fields hold text values, while others hold currency values, percentages, phone numbers, email addresses, or dates. Some fields look like checkboxes, while still others are drop-down lists or record lookups from which a user makes a selection.

The data type of a field controls the way the field is ultimately displayed in the user interface and how data entered into the field is stored in the platform. To get a better feel ...