If you are familiar with CRMs that are based on SQL, then you may have heard of a feature known as keywords or ticklers. Salesforce tags are something like that – these are words that you can associate to records (i.e. putting a tag on them).
Tags help in record categorization and in searches. Customers, employees, and others can use them to search for records using a word or group of words instead of certain fields.
For instance, one of your employees can create a tag called “mid-year sale invites” for customers who have been around for 1 year or more. You can also use the same tag to search for customers who reached their one year mark.
The Pros of Using Salesforce Tags
- Reduces the number of custom fields
- Tags are maintained by users not administrators
- They can be used to search across every record you have
Downsides
- You can use them to create a Report or View (note: someone has already submitted an Idea for using Tags in Campaigns, Reports, and Views so you may not have this limitation in the not so distant future.
Limitations
Limits have been set on Salesforce Tags. For instance, every User can have no more than 500 Personal Tags. These personal tags can be used on only 5,000 records.
Each Instance in Salesforce (i.e. your organization) can only apply 5 million tags. That may sound like a lot but for now but you will be surprised how fast you run out of Tags if you have hundreds of users who just love to use them.
How to Setup Tags
Go to setup option > App Setup > Customizes > Tag > Tag Settings. Here you can enable Public or Personal tags.
- Add tags to your Page Layouts.
- Click the Add Tags button to add tags.
- Remember to separate each tag using commas.
- Click Save.
You can also add tags to your Home Page layout so you can search for tags whenever you need to. Remember to regularly update your tags.