Objects, Records, Fields & Relationships
The heart of the data model: objects as tables, records as rows, fields as columns, and the relationships that connect them.
Objects, records, fields & relationships
Everything in Salesforce is data, and the data model is simpler than it first looks. An object is like a database table — Account, Contact, Opportunity, Case are all standard objects. A record is a single row in that table, such as one specific account named "Acme Corp". A field is a column, like the account's Phone or Industry. You can create your own custom objects and custom fields whenever the standard ones don't fit; custom items get a __c suffix in their API name.
Fields come in types that control what they store and how they behave: Text, Number, Currency, Date, Picklist (a fixed dropdown), Checkbox, Formula (a calculated read-only value), and more. Choosing the right type matters because it affects validation, reporting, and automation later. Every object also has a system Name field and a unique Id that Salesforce assigns automatically.
Relationships connect objects. A lookup is a loose link — a Contact looks up to an Account, but each can exist independently. A master-detail is a tight parent-child link where the child can't exist without the parent, inherits its sharing, and is deleted with it. A many-to-many relationship uses a junction object in the middle. These relationships are what let you navigate from an account to all its contacts and opportunities on the record page.
You can inspect any object in Setup under the Object Manager, where you'll see its fields, page layouts, and relationships. Try creating a custom object called "Project" with a lookup to Account, add a couple of fields, and create a record. That single exercise — object, fields, relationship, record — is the foundation everything else builds on. Next we'll turn this data into insight with reports and dashboards.
