The encrypted field in salesforce is a great field for holding sensitive information and disallowing users to be able to see some or all of the information.
This field is also fantastic because you can choose what type of information you will be receiving and be able to choose the format that is right for your use case.
In practice, I have seen the encrypted field used for credit card numbers and social security numbers.
Youtube Video
One thing to note before we get too far into this tutorial, we do have a video on how to create this field over on the salesforce emily youtube channel.
Sometimes it is easier to watch someone perform a task rather than to try and follow along with a blog post.
Step by Step
The first thing you will need to do is go to setup.
To get here click on the gear icon in the top right corner and select setup.
From there go to the object manager.
This will bring up a list of the current objects in your salesforce org.
Click which ever object you want to create the encrypted field for.
From that new object click on fields and relationships.
This will bring up a full list of current fields on the selected object.
Click new to create a new field.
This will bring you to a list of field types you can use.
Select ‘Text (Encrypted)’ and click next.
From there you will need to enter in the metadata. Which will mostly be the naming conventions.
From there click next and set the field level security. To allow or disallow certian functions on this field.
Click next and select which pagelayouts this field will be on.
Click save and you have created your very own encrypted field in salesforce!
Conclusion
A big congrats to you for making it through this tutorial! We hope you found it useful!
Check out the salesforce Emily youtube channel here.
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