When i tried adding 1 vf page in primary tab and 1 vf page in subtab in custom console component , it threw error "You can only select a component once for a layout." . Is this salesforce default behaviour or can we customize this?

  • 2
    When you're on a page layout, you can click on the console layout link at top of page and add components to different locations in console. It sounds like that's what you may need to be doing. Otherwise, I suggest you add more details with a screen shot of what you're seeing or code for your components. – crmprogdev Aug 5 '16 at 12:07

This is the standard behavior and cannot be changed. You can only use the same VF page as a custom console component in one location. It usually doesn't make sense having the same component in multiple places as you end up with duplicate information taking up space.

You can have multiple different VF pages as components however. This means one option to get around this is to clone the VF page you want to use twice, and use the cloned page in the second spot.


While this limitation makes sense for adding a VF page as a custom console component, it does not make sense for other items you may want to add to one of the sidebars. For example, you can add a quick action as a custom console component that applies to "This Record" or to a related record. However, you are limited to one update action and/or one create action for whichever field you select for the lookup.

So if you had 2 or more different quick actions, that are update actions for the record (e.g. Case) you are on, you would select the type of Lookup, then "This Case" for the field, but you can only add one action, not all.

I was quite hopeful when I saw you could add quick actions as console components, especially since quick actions can only be added to the feed view and not the detail view (where they are often needed). Not sure why custom buttons show up on both the detail and feed views, but quick actions are not. I thought the console components would be a viable solution for a simple and consistent user experience between the detail and feed views.

The ability to add quick actions as console components seems extremely limited if you can't include more than one. Also, the quick actions in the console look pretty ugly. If there is a form as part of the quick action there is no control over spacing and the form is always open. We would prefer a list of actions in one of the sidebars, and when you click that action the applicable form would expand.

Has anyone found a way around adding multiple quick actions as a console component that all apply to the same lookup/field?

Better yet, does anyone know how to make a quick action available on both the feed and detail views? Or add a custom button that would redirect them to the feed view with the specific quick action expanded?

We basically have x situations where we want to provide our call center users to quickly close certain cases. In these situations, we would like to auto-populate key case fields, close the case, and preferably close the applicable tab/subtab. A javascript works great when all of the required field values are known, but in some cases there are 1-2 additional required fields that the user would have to update. The quick action in theory great, as we can create a form specific to the situation/scenario, pre-populate the known field values, and include the 1-2 fields for the user to update. But it really needs to be accessible from the detail view/tab for ease of use, which is where the user would be the vast majority of time. If we added closing the tab/subtab, we would have a perfect solution.

Any thoughts/suggestions would be appreciated.


  • I think you might be better off raising this as a new question rather than raising these issues in an answer. – Dave Humm Sep 7 '16 at 19:05

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