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A random page of the ORGanizer documentation, so you pick up something new without reading all of it at once.
Field History Helper 2.0 rebuilt in 1.0
Salesforce lets you track a limited number of fields per object, and then tells you nothing about which ones are worth tracking. The Field History Helper attaches to Object Manager → <Object> → Set History Tracking and answers the three questions you actually have in front of those checkboxes:
- Is this field used at all? — on how many records it is filled in, and how many different values it holds;
- Does it actually change? — how many history entries it recorded in the period you pick, by how many people, and when the last one was;
- Is there room for another one? — how much of the per-object tracking limit is already spent.
The panel
The helper adds a page block of its own above the tracking page, so the native Save and Cancel flow is untouched. Nothing is queried when the page loads: the slot meter renders immediately and follows the checkboxes live, and the ORG is asked only when you press Analyze fields. Refresh analysis runs it again without reloading the page.
- Tracking slots — how many fields are ticked against the per-object limit, and how many slots are left. No API this extension can reach reports the real limit, so the default of 20 is an assumption: the meter says so in its tooltip, and raises itself if the object turns out to allow more.
- Search matches the label and the API name.
- Filters — tracked, not tracked, no changes in the period, coverage below 25%, analysis unavailable. Search and filters hide fields on the Salesforce page itself, without shifting the columns around them.
- A sortable results table inside the panel, which never reorders the Salesforce page: filter to the tracked fields, sort by changes ascending and read the quiet ones off the top of the table, while the configuration page you are about to save stays exactly as it was.
- History period — the last 30, 90 or 365 days.
Every field on the page also carries its API name and its own metrics next to the checkbox. The period, the filter and the sort you leave the panel in are remembered for the next time.
What it measures
| Metric | What it says |
|---|---|
| Coverage | the share of records where the field is filled in, counted over the whole object you can see — not over a sample |
| Distinct | how many different values the field holds. One distinct value across a million records is a field nobody edits |
| Changes | how many entries the object's history table recorded for that field in the selected period, and how many different users made them |
| Last change | when the most recent of those entries was written |
An untracked field that still has history rows is shown with its count and a not tracked now chip — a fact read off the history table, not a guess about what happened before.
What changed in 2.0
The previous helper downloaded the most recent 1,000 records of the object and derived two percentages from them, and it never looked at the field history at all — so it could not answer the one question that page is about. 2.0 asks the ORG for exact numbers instead, and downloads no record:
| Before | 2.0 | |
|---|---|---|
| Coverage | share of the last 1,000 records | counted over the whole object |
| Diversity | a percentage labelled “Variance”, which was neither a variance nor a frequency | the number of distinct values |
| Change activity | not measured at all | the object's history table, grouped by field, over 30 / 90 / 365 days |
| Cost | a full page of records per ~40 fields | about a dozen aggregate queries for a 200-field object, whatever its size |
| Running it again | needed a page reload | Refresh analysis |
| When a field is refused | a pop-up, and the analysis was over | that one field is marked, every other field keeps its numbers |
What it costs, and what it keeps
One run is roughly a dozen aggregate queries for a 200-field object, and the number does not grow with the size of the object: no record is ever downloaded. The queries run against the Salesforce session you are already logged in with, everything is computed in the browser, and nothing is sent anywhere. Only the shape of the view — the period, the filter, the sort — is stored locally; no metric and no record value is.
Reading the numbers
The helper reports, it does not advise: it will not tell you to stop tracking a field. The numbers are facts about the ORG, the decision is yours. Colour carries a meaning only on the slot meter, where the text says the same thing anyway.
- Zero changes reads as no history changes found in the selected period, and it means exactly that: the window you picked, your ORG's history retention, the date tracking was switched on and your own permissions all feed that number.
- An object with no records shows an em dash rather than
0%— nothing to measure is not the same as everything empty. - A field your permissions hide, or one the ORG cannot aggregate (compound, encrypted, and the like), is reported as analysis unavailable with the reason, instead of being counted as zero. The rest of the analysis carries on around it.
- An object without a history table gets no change activity, while coverage and distinct values are still reported.
- Person Account fields (
__pc) are deliberately left out: whether each of them can be aggregated on every ORG has never been verified, and counting them as zero would be worse than saying nothing.
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