The Tools utilities are not a single page to configure; they are a set of capabilities to know about and reach quickly. The workflow below explains how to find each tool and the typical situations that send you to it. Most experienced builders develop muscle memory for the four or five tools they use weekly and reach the others through Quick Find when needed.
- Use Setup Quick Find to navigate quickly
The fastest way to reach any Tools utility is the Quick Find search box at the top of the Setup menu. Type Developer Console, Debug Logs, Apex Test Execution, Deployment Status, Email Logs, or Apex Jobs and the search returns the matching Setup pages. Bookmark the URLs of the pages you reach most often, because the search is fast but bookmarking removes the search step entirely for daily use.
- Configure debug logs before reproducing an issue
From Setup, open Debug Logs. Add the user whose transaction you want to capture (often the integration user, your test user, or yourself) to the Monitored Users list. Set the log level per category (FINER for Apex Code is the common starting point). Reproduce the issue. Return to Debug Logs and open the captured log. The Apex events, SOQL queries, and field updates are visible in chronological order. Most production issues become obvious from one well-captured log.
- Run Apex tests before every deployment
From Setup, open Apex Test Execution. Select All Tests (for a final pre-deploy check) or a specific class or suite (for iterative work). Click Run. The test results page shows passes, failures, code coverage by class, and overall org coverage. Address any failure before deploying. Code coverage below 75% blocks production deployment; the page tells you which classes are uncovered. Continuous integration pipelines run the same tests automatically, but the manual surface is useful for quick verification.
- Use Email Logs to diagnose delivery problems
When an automation appears not to send email, open Email Logs from Setup. Request a log for the last hour or last day, and wait the few minutes it takes to generate. Open the resulting CSV. Each outbound email is a row with delivery status: Sent, Bounced, Suppressed, Rejected, or other. The bounce reason column tells you exactly what happened. Cross-reference the timestamps against your Flow or Apex execution to confirm the message was generated. Most "email did not arrive" tickets resolve in five minutes with this page.
- Debug Logs auto-expire after 24 hours and the total per-day storage is capped per org. Download important logs immediately rather than relying on them being available later.
- Apex Test Execution from the UI runs synchronously by default. For large test suites, use the Async option or trigger from the metadata API to avoid timeouts.
- Change Sets do not support every metadata type and cannot delete metadata. For modern DevOps, evaluate SFDX or DevOps Center as the replacement.
- Email Logs request only the most recent 30 days of email data. For older traffic, the logs are not available through Setup and require a Salesforce Support case.
- Schema Builder and Object Manager can both edit metadata. Stick to Object Manager for production schema changes; Schema Builder is better for visualization and design review.