Exercise: Lead Management

Exercises are a set of instructions to follow in your practice org (see Getting Started – Free if you do not have a practice org).  The goal is to quickly introduce how to complete tasks or perform configuration.

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74 Responses to “Exercise: Lead Management”

  1. canderson333 October 17, 2017 at 2:41 am #

    Hi John –

    for Step 8. Create a Web-to-Lead Form

    My Dev is showing something different and is asking me for the API Key “reCAPTCHA API Key Pair” I don’t see anything like this on your set of instructions. I can’t “Generate” or move forward without the API key.

    • rajik October 22, 2017 at 4:37 am #

      Uncheck Enable spam filtering. This will work..

  2. DonnaR October 5, 2017 at 11:30 pm #

    In Step 5. Configure a Lead Auto-Response Rule, You say to check “Set this as the active Web-to-Lead Auto-Response rule. Now the only choice is to check “Active.” Same thing, just shorter text.

  3. stuter12 September 15, 2017 at 3:34 pm #

    In step 7, part 3, I noticed that the lead assignment rule screen has a field to choose an email template. Since we’re configuring which emails to send in the auto-response rules, what purpose does this field serve in the lead assignment rule screen?

    • JohnCoppedge September 15, 2017 at 6:07 pm #

      Assignment rule = internal (to assigned)
      Auto-response = external (to the lead)

  4. vfathers August 9, 2017 at 5:46 pm #

    Wow! It worked beautifully.

  5. Bettina July 31, 2017 at 10:06 am #

    Just for info, I could not generate the web-to-lead form, unless I unchecked “enable spam filter”.

  6. ag3991 June 1, 2017 at 3:12 pm #

    Hi John

    1. Rather than Field = Lead:Type, I believe it should be Field = Lead: Product Interest.
    2. How do you set-up an e-mail address to use when creating a Lead Auto-Response rule? I added an Org-wide e-mail address and the form failed, I entered a user’s and the form failed, why is it so tricky?

    KR

    Ag3991

    • JohnCoppedge June 1, 2017 at 8:23 pm #

      Re#1 You could use product interest, sure.
      Re#2 That’s likely due to anti-spam measures that were added after the fact (setup in two places as a result)

      • nsherman13 June 20, 2017 at 8:07 pm #

        Hey John,

        I think it’s a little confusing that the title of step 1 is Create “Product Interest” field instead of “type”. I only caught my mistake later when I noticed that there is only a custom field for Lead already created (could’ve been from trailhead) and I couldn’t add “Type” field to Web to Lead form.

  7. adanlawoleke April 17, 2017 at 3:37 am #

    Hello John,
    Thank for this piece you put together, I followed this exercise but I don’t get the email notification,
    I have tried these troubleshooting steps (Below) recommended by others but still, i don’t get any email, any ideas on what I’m doing wrong?

    Check your email settings:
    Setup —> Deliverability —> Under “Access to Send Email (All Email Services)” choose All email.
    Also, make sure that the email that you are using is correctly spelled and check you spam/junk folder as well.

    Did the lead get created with the correct email address? Did you check your spam folder? Those are the common ones

  8. Jessicawaldon@hotmail.com March 26, 2017 at 9:20 pm #

    I followed the instructions, but I’m not having any luck getting any email generated. Any steps I should look over?

    Thank you,

    • CarlosSiqueira March 26, 2017 at 11:30 pm #

      @Jessica:

      Check your email settings:

      Setup —> Deliverability —> Under “Access to Send Email (All Email Services)” choose All email.
      Also, make sure that the email that you are using is correctly spelled and check you spam/junk folder as well.

      • Jessicawaldon@hotmail.com March 27, 2017 at 1:53 pm #

        Thank you! I logged in with a different computer at a different location, and checked those settings. My org was already set to All Email, but I saved it again. Everything then worked. Not sure if it was related to my org or some external factor.

  9. vigildestiny February 16, 2017 at 8:34 pm #

    Hello John,

    Thank you for putting this class together, this has been tremendously helpful! Question… when setting up the rule entry I do not see an option for Field “Lead: Type”. Maybe SF changed this list recently? Am I missing something?

    Thanks again,
    Destiny

    • JohnCoppedge February 18, 2017 at 3:32 pm #

      Type is a field that is added in the first step – make sure you’ve created the field on the lead object

  10. jaydelaune January 26, 2017 at 11:57 pm #

    Thanks for taking the time to build this exercise – definitely shows us how all of the work steps fit together!

  11. mcpacific August 23, 2016 at 3:58 am #

    Step 5. Configure a Lead Auto-Response Rule
    1. Navigate to Setup –> Customize –> Leads –> Lead Auto-Response Rules.
    3. Enter Rule Name “Default”.
    Check “Active”.

    Step 7. Create Lead Assignment Rule
    Click New.
    Enter a name (e.g. “Default”).
    Check “Active”.

    Everything worked fine except the formula in the email body doesn’t seem to work, {!NullValue(Lead.Company, “your company”)}. Instead it inserts “[not provided]”.

    • JohnCoppedge August 23, 2016 at 2:46 pm #

      Yeah the nullvalue check on company name is a bad example, as SFDC will auto populate [not provided] for company name as it is a required field. I’ll update the materials next go around.

  12. RomanPer July 27, 2016 at 3:25 am #

    You might want to change the information on the From email address in the Auto-Response rule definition. You can’t put just any email there: “Error: noreply@gmail.com is an invalid From email address. The sender email address must be either one of your verified organization-wide email addresses or the email address in your Salesforce user profile.”. This is actually quite unfortunate since in these auto-replies companies often would want to put a dummy email address so people can’t actually reply to them.

  13. rajkumar July 8, 2016 at 9:08 am #

    Hi John,

    I am new to SFDC. In this example, after submitting lead, is there a way to show a message “Your information is submitted” like that in SFDC itself?

  14. bilabongster July 7, 2016 at 6:15 am #

    Hey John ,other experts

    So I created an auto response rule and also assigned different email templates to my assignment rules. Basically created a clash to find which email template is used in this situation. Figured out that the auto response rule wins. The email template used was that of the auto response rule and not the one directly assigned in the assignment rule. Hope that’s correct?

    • JohnCoppedge August 19, 2016 at 2:01 pm #

      Goes like this:

      First ACTIVE web-to-lead rule entry (based on order #) with criteria met.

      If no criteria met, use general response template (configured in web-to-lead in setup)

  15. Kim Snyder May 30, 2016 at 5:34 pm #

    This is a great training resource.

    One question, it worked for 2 of the 3. I got a response for Product Inquiry and Service Inquiry, but not the General Inquiry. Where do we specify the email template for the Default?

    Thanks,
    Kim

  16. molad April 28, 2016 at 2:11 am #

    John,
    I am stumped on this one. I have tried everything and my leads get assigned to the default owner and not to the queue. I followed your steps exactly. I checked the debug logs and it appears the assignment rule is not assigning the lead to a queue – The owner is shown as blank and its reassigned to the default owner.

    I’m not sure why this is occurring – any ideas?

    • JohnCoppedge April 29, 2016 at 1:21 am #

      How are you creating the lead? If it is through the user interface then you need to select the checkbox to initiate lead assignment (there is an option on the page layout to expose it)

  17. QViews February 4, 2016 at 11:17 pm #

    Dear John,

    Your training system is so valuable. I’ve been using it for over a month, but today when my exercise worked on the first try, I broke into a big smile for the first time during training. Just wanted to share a little joy.

    Thank you,

    Theresa

  18. crystalq December 28, 2015 at 12:30 am #

    Hi John, everything looks right ( email templates, auto responses rules, lead assignment rules and web to lead form ). However, I did not receive any email. Any thoughts? Many thanks, -Crystal

    • JohnCoppedge January 9, 2016 at 3:04 am #

      Did the lead get created with the correct email address? Did you check your spam folder? Those are the common ones 🙂

    • CarlosSiqueira June 7, 2016 at 9:15 pm #

      Check your “Deliverability” setup.

      Go to Setup, Deliverability and chose All email at “Access level”.

  19. soraya.attia@papilioconsulting.be November 4, 2015 at 6:22 pm #

    Hi John,

    I created a WTL form as well as 3 email templates (general (default) /product / service inquiry) + an auto-response rule with 2 rule entries for product and service inquiries based on your exercise above.
    However when I leave the company field blank on the web form, in my auto-response email I receive company as not provided, see below:
    “We look forward to working with [not provided].”
    Whereas if I leave first name and last name blank I receive it correctly:
    “Dear Sir or Madam,”

    Here is the Email Template text.

    Dear {!NullValue(Lead.FirstName, “Sir or Madam”)},

    Thank you for your interest in {!Organization.Name}. We look forward to working with {!NullValue(Lead.Company, “your company”)}.
    You will be receiving a product brochure in the mail shortly.

    Sincerely,

    {!User.Name}
    {!Organization.Name}
    {!User.Email}

    Any thoughts? Thanks a lot, Soraya.

  20. racerxx1969@hotmail.com October 30, 2015 at 6:49 pm #

    Yes, I retested from another computer.

  21. racerxx1969@hotmail.com October 16, 2015 at 9:05 pm #

    I have tested the web to lead page as described but the response from the system is as follow:
    Salesforce.com Lead Capture Interface

    Reason: Your Lead could not be processed.
    null
    Lead Capture Page: Not available.

    Record Information:

    00N1a000006ecb4 = Service
    city = San Jose
    company = People at work
    debug = 1
    debugEmail =
    email = jason.peoples@hotmail.com
    encoding = UTF-8
    first_name = Jason
    last_name = Peoples
    oid = 00D1a000000JnGg
    retURL = http://
    state = Ca
    submit = Submit Query

    If you have any questions, please click on Help & Training at the
    top right of any page within salesforce.com

    The Capture page is not available?

    • racerxx1969@hotmail.com October 16, 2015 at 9:12 pm #

      I was able to find the answer to the question from a blog I found on the web. It indicated to add the instance name to the html. Instead of entering https:/test.salesforce.com I changed the value to https:/na24.salesforce.com which resulted in a successful record processed.

    • racerxx1969@hotmail.com October 16, 2015 at 9:27 pm #

      Your request has been queued.

      Record Information:

      00N1a000006ecb4: Service
      city: Cupertino
      company: Hunter Industries
      debug: 1
      debugEmail:
      email: larry.hunter@yahoo.com
      encoding: UTF-8
      first_name: Larry
      last_name: Hunter
      oid: 00D1a000000JnGg
      retURL: http://
      state: California
      submit: Submit Query

      The shows as queued, Is there still a problem with the code? I am working from a developer org. I understand there is a limit of 500 record per day max.

      • JohnCoppedge October 22, 2015 at 3:32 am #

        Did the request get processed?

        • racerxx1969@hotmail.com October 28, 2015 at 5:56 am #

          John, I have checked both Product and Service. I will turn on the debug then next try and see if I can find anything via the debug logs. I will keep you posted.

          Fred

  22. Vishnuvardhan Reddy January 13, 2015 at 5:45 am #

    Hi John,

    What would be the {!User.Name} populated with in the auto response email if the lead is assigned to a Queue ?

    • JohnCoppedge January 15, 2015 at 9:57 pm #

      I would have to test that out, feel free to try it and post to let us know. I think it would be blank (although it may be the name of the queue).

      • Aakash Patel May 5, 2015 at 2:46 am #

        If the lead is assigned to a queue, the {!User.Name} populated with the auto response rule mentions the Default Lead Creator’s name.

  23. Amrish Kaushik December 31, 2014 at 4:00 am #

    Hi John
    I created the web to lead form and Auto response email. I can see the lead in Salesforce and the activity history shows that an email was sent to the email id specified in the form. But I have not received any email at that email id. Am I missing something?

    • JohnCoppedge January 6, 2015 at 8:36 pm #

      There is a settings that would prevent the email from being sent (sandboxes can turn off outbound email for example, check email deliverability in setup) – any chance spam filter could have been the issue?

  24. Jai Patel November 30, 2014 at 11:28 am #

    Hi John. I have the following questions related to the above exercise:
    1. In the email template, from where does the system take the User Name mentioned in the signature of the email?
    2. When the lead is created, from where does the system take the “created by” and “modified by” names?

    Do both of the above come from the “Default Lead Creator” field on the Web-to-lead page?

  25. Berglind Heath-Smith September 10, 2014 at 8:35 pm #

    I am using windows 8 with notepad but when I try to open the HTML file it simply leads back to this page – any ideas where I may be going wrong?

    • JohnCoppedge September 10, 2014 at 9:53 pm #

      Are you copy/pasting code from Salesforce generated from your salesforce org web-to-lead into notepad?

      • Berglind Heath-Smith September 10, 2014 at 10:34 pm #

        Yes I am.

        • JohnCoppedge September 17, 2014 at 7:49 pm #

          I would check your file associations on your computer to ensure that the html file is being opened by a web browser- I would then try to open as with another web browser (e.g. chrome).

  26. Aishwarya thilip August 12, 2014 at 9:12 am #

    Hi John,
    I have a question. You have mentioned that (Leads that are not Type “Product” or “Service” will be assigned to the default lead creator.) Will they be assigned to the default lead creator mentioned in the web-to-lead settings or the default lead owner in the lead settings ? Isnt ‘default lead creator’ the one who will be mentioned only in the ‘Created by’ field of the lead and not in the ‘Lead owner’ field? Thanks .

    • JohnCoppedge August 13, 2014 at 2:49 am #

      Default is this context refers to the web to lead default lead creator setting in web to lead configuration, and would only apply to web to lead created leads.

      If a lead was created manually (with no other workflow rules, triggers, etc. present), then the lead creator would also become the lead owner.

    • Rosalin Charath October 15, 2014 at 4:36 pm #

      I had this same question and the answer John gave below still made me confused. So I tested this and here is what I experienced. Let’s say a new lead is created via Web-to-Lead and did not match one of the existing assignment rules. The new lead will be created in SF.com and the “Created By” field will have the “Default Lead Creator” (which is specified under ‘Web-to-Lead Settings) and the “Lead Owner” field will have the “Default Lead Owner” (which is specified under Leads > Settings.

  27. Thripura Venkataramani July 29, 2014 at 5:55 pm #

    John,

    I think it will be helpful to include a couple of tweaks if testing on a sandbox:

    1) On the sample HTML that gets pasted on the notepad, please make sure to change the “www.salesforce.com” to “test.salesforce.com” on form tag

    2) Make sure to point the Org Id to the sandbox (on the next line in the HTML)

    Though they seem to be evident, sometimes we tend to overlook these minor changes.

  28. Kevin Gee March 10, 2014 at 11:44 am #

    The text versions of the e-mail templates are not correct. The versions shown in the images are correct. The correct merge field for the signature is {!User.Name}, not {!User.FullName}. Also, should the e-mail template be entered when creating the lead assignment rule?

    • JohnCoppedge March 16, 2014 at 8:58 pm #

      Thanks Kevin – not sure how that got mixed up. Updated.

      Specifying the email template in the assignment rule is what is sent to the lead owner – the auto-response rule sets the email sent to the submitter of the lead form.

  29. Cooper Miller March 6, 2014 at 10:56 pm #

    Troubleshooting tip for Macs:
    You have to use TextEdit in lieu of Notepad. When you open TextEdit, go to ‘Format’ > ‘Make Plain Text’. Next, copy in the code provided by SF. When you save, manually add the .html extension. Rather than opening the file in the web browser you can open it through Finder and it will open the file through your default browser.

  30. Ann November 10, 2013 at 5:59 pm #

    I can’t seem to get the web to lead form to generate in my browser. Here is exactly what I took out of my auto-generated html:

    https://www.salesforce.com/servlet/servlet.WebToLead?encoding=UTF-8” method=”POST”

    Any thoughts? I also tried https://www.salesforce.com/servlet/servlet.WebToLead?encoding=UTF-8 just in case but that went nowhere either. Thank you!!

    • JohnCoppedge November 14, 2013 at 1:33 am #

      Hi Ann- I would try it again, and make sure to use notepad (Word and other editors will add formatting to the file, corrupting it) to paste in the code contents.

      Did you try multiple browsers?

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