Enabling State and Country/Territory Picklists in Salesforce is a great way to standardize address information across your Salesforce org. This feature helps ensure data consistency, improves data quality, and facilitates easier reporting. Here's how to enable State and Country/Territory Picklists:
Prepare Your Org
Backup Your Data: Before making significant changes like enabling State and Country/Territory Picklists, it's crucial to back up your data. This includes accounts, contacts, leads, and any other custom objects that contain address fields.
Review Existing Data: Ensure your existing address data matches the format and values expected by Salesforce's standard picklists. This might involve data cleansing or normalization.
Enable State and Country/Territory Picklists
Navigate to Setup: In your Salesforce org, click on the gear icon in the upper right corner and select "Setup."
Access the State and Country/Territory Picklists Setting**: In the Quick Find box, type "State and Country/Territory Picklists" and select it from the options that appear.
Click “Configure state and country/territory picklists”: You'll be taken to a page that outlines the steps and considerations for enabling this feature.
Review the Considerations: Carefully read through the considerations listed on this page. These include impacts on existing data, integrations, and customizations.
Begin the Setup Process: Click on the “Continue” button to start configuring the State and Country/Territory Picklists for your org.
Scan Your Org’s Data: Salesforce will offer to scan your org’s data to identify potential compatibility issues with existing address data. It's recommended to run this scan to help identify and address any issues before proceeding.
Configure Settings: After the scan, you can configure the picklists to match your org's requirements. This includes setting the default country, determining which address fields to enable the picklists for, and mapping existing data to the new picklist values.
Activate Picklists: Once you've configured the settings and are satisfied with the setup, you can activate the State and Country/Territory Picklists. Note that this step will make the change organization-wide and is not easily reversible.
Post-Activation Steps
Update Page Layouts: Ensure that the new State and Country/Territory Picklists are added to your page layouts as needed.
Train Your Team: Inform your team about the change and provide training if necessary. This might include how to select states and countries from the new picklists and how to enter address data going forward.
Monitor and Clean Data: After activation, monitor your data quality and address any issues that arise. You may need to clean and update records to ensure they comply with the new picklist values.
Important Considerations
Impact on Integrations and Customizations: Enabling State and Country/Territory Picklists can affect existing integrations, Apex code, and Visualforce pages that reference address fields. Be sure to review and update these as necessary.
Irreversibility: Once enabled and activated, you cannot easily disable State and Country/Territory Picklists. Carefully plan and prepare before making this change.
Enabling State and Country/Territory Picklists is a significant change that can improve your org's data quality and consistency. Ensure you follow these steps carefully to avoid disruption and to make the most of this feature.