Chatlet
A Chatlet was a small custom Chatter widget or applet in early Salesforce Chatter that an admin or developer could add to a Chatter publisher to extend the kinds of posts users could create.
Definition
A Chatlet was a small custom Chatter widget or applet in early Salesforce Chatter that an admin or developer could add to a Chatter publisher to extend the kinds of posts users could create. Chatlets surfaced as buttons in the Chatter publisher and let users compose specialised post types: a poll Chatlet for quick voting, a thank-you Chatlet for peer recognition, a question Chatlet for structured Q&A. The concept was loosely Salesforce's early answer to extensible micro-apps inside Chatter feeds, predating the modern Lightning Component model.
Chatlet is largely a historical term. Salesforce never standardised Chatlets as a first-class feature, and the patterns they covered have moved into modern surfaces: Chatter Questions handle the question use case, Quick Actions handle structured Chatter posts, and Lightning Components extend Chatter feeds with custom UI. The term appears in some pre-2018 partner blogs, AppExchange listings, and Chatter administration material. Reading any contemporary Salesforce documentation, treat Chatlet as a legacy concept; the modern equivalent is a Chatter Quick Action or a custom Lightning Web Component embedded in the feed surface.
Chatlets in Chatter history
The original Chatter publisher and Chatlets
Early Chatter shipped with a flexible publisher that admins could extend with custom post types. The custom post types were sometimes called Chatlets, though Salesforce documentation also used Chatter Publisher Actions and similar names. The pattern let admins extend Chatter beyond plain text posts without writing a full custom UI.
Common Chatlet use cases
Polls, peer recognition (Thanks Chatter), structured questions, link sharing, and event announcements were common Chatlet patterns. Each presented as a button in the publisher; clicking opened a small form that captured the specific data type and posted it as a Feed Item.
Migration to Quick Actions and Lightning Components
Salesforce consolidated Chatlet-style functionality into the standard Quick Action framework. Object-level Quick Actions and Global Quick Actions cover most Chatlet use cases with much better admin tooling. Lightning Components extend further when admin Quick Actions are not enough.
Chatter Questions as the successor for question Chatlets
The question-asking Chatlet pattern became Chatter Questions, a first-class Salesforce feature with intent recognition, Best Answer tracking, and Knowledge integration. The capability is much richer than the original Chatlet but solves the same need.
Thanks Chatlet and the Recognition feature
Some Chatlets (Thanks, Recognition, Badges) appeared in third-party Chatter add-ons and partner solutions. Salesforce did not consolidate these into a first-party feature; modern equivalents come from third-party employee-recognition apps that integrate with Chatter or Slack.
Why Chatlets faded
The Chatter publisher's flexibility was uneven, the Chatlet model never became formal documentation, and Salesforce instead invested in Quick Actions plus Lightning Components as the supported extension model. New work always used the supported model; Chatlets accumulated as legacy with no path forward.
Where the term lives today
Chatlet appears in old Salesforce partner blogs, Idea Exchange posts, and informal Chatter documentation from 2011 to 2017. Reading any such reference, translate to Quick Action or Lightning Web Component as the modern equivalent. The term has no current product surface.
Building modern Chatter extensions
Modern admins extend Chatter through Quick Actions (declarative, fast), Lightning Components in the feed (richer UI), and Slack integrations (cross-channel collaboration). Each fits different needs; none uses the Chatlet vocabulary.
How to build a modern Chatter extension
Chatlets are not a current Salesforce concept. The modern path is Quick Action or Lightning Component depending on the requirement.
- Identify the Chatter extension you need
Custom post type, structured form in the feed, specific action a user can take from a Chatter post. Each maps to a different modern surface.
- Try a Quick Action first
Setup, Object Manager, Buttons, Links, and Actions. Create a Quick Action that creates the right record from a Chatter context. Quick Actions are declarative and fast.
- Escalate to Lightning Web Component when needed
For complex UI or behaviour beyond Quick Action capabilities, build a Lightning Web Component embedded in the feed surface.
- Translate legacy Chatlet references
Any documentation that mentions Chatlets is historical. Translate to Quick Action or LWC for the current implementation pattern.
- Consider Slack for cross-team collaboration
Many Chatter extensions today are better served by Slack integration than by extending Chatter directly. Salesforce's Slack-first product direction makes this the modern path for many use cases.
- Chatlet is a legacy term. Documentation that uses it is historical; translate to Quick Action or LWC.
- Quick Actions are usually enough. Reach for Lightning Components only when Quick Actions cannot model the requirement.
- Third-party Chatter recognition apps remain useful but use their own extension models, not Chatlets.
- Slack integration often beats extending Chatter for collaboration-heavy use cases.
Trust & references
Cross-checked against the following references.
- Chatter OverviewSalesforce Help
- Quick Actions OverviewSalesforce Help
Straight from the source - Salesforce's reference material on Chatlet.
- Lightning Web ComponentsSalesforce Developer Docs
About the Author
Dipojjal Chakrabarti is a B2C Solution Architect with 29 Salesforce certifications and over 13 years in the Salesforce ecosystem. He runs salesforcedictionary.com to help admins, developers, architects, and cert/interview candidates sharpen their fundamentals. More about Dipojjal.
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