Relationships In Salesforce

 

1. Lookup relationship

Parent record is not required when creating a child record as parent and child objects are loosely coupled.

Lookup relationship does not support roll-up summary field.

Lookup fields are not required on the page layout of the detail record but if you make them a required field, it is advised!

Standard object record can be on the detail side of a custom object in a lookup relationship.

By default record ownership of child records is not controlled by the parent.

Can have a child record without a parent.

Can have a maximum of 40 lookups on an object.

No cascade delete.

2. Master-detail relationship

Parent record is always required when creating a child record. That means parent and child object are strongly coupled.

Master detail relationship support roll-up summary field.

Parent record is required in order to save a child record.

Master-detail field is always required on the page layout of the detail record.

Standard object record cannot be a child.

The parent controls the record ownership of child records. The owner field is not available on the detail record in master-detail relationship queues, sharing rules and manual sharing is not possible for detail records as it requires the owner field.

You cannot have a child record without a parent.

You can have a maximum of two master details on an object.

Cascade delete.

 

3. Many-to-Many Relationships: 

If there is need to create the many-to-many relation then we need to use the Junction object in Salesforce. A junction Object is a type of custom object which allows linking two custom objects.

A junction Object in simple terms can be called a custom object with two master details fields.

Records of a particular object can connect with various records of different objects and vice versa.

 

4. Self-Relationship:

It means an Object is creating a relationship with itself. 

It creates a tree diagram of the objects.

 

5. Indirect lookup relationship:

This allows a relationship to be formed between a SF object and an external object. If your Salesforce org was the family, then the objects would be related but not in the same family. A great example of such is relating payment records to an account from an ERP system–the ERP system is external to Salesforce but the records are important. The way they relate is via an external ID to match the payments to the account.

External lookup relationships- allow a relationship to be formed between two external objects. Your two friends from outside of your group are now in a relationship. Maybe that ERP system links the payment records to a bank account.

6. Hierarchical Relationships:

This unique relationship can only be used on the user object and is designed to create a hierarchy of users. For example, it could be used to create a lookup field for the user object, which can be used to list the user’s manager.