Definition
Clone in Salesforce is the action of creating a new record that duplicates the field values of an existing record. Users click the Clone button on a record to pre-populate a new record form with the original record's data, which they can then modify before saving. Clone functionality is available on most standard and custom objects and can be configured to include or exclude related records (Deep Clone).
Real-World Example
At their company, a Salesforce administrator at Coastal Health leverages Clone to maintain data quality and enforce organizational policies across the platform. By properly setting up Clone, they prevent common data entry errors and ensure that users follow established business processes, which saves the support team hours of cleanup work each week.
Why Clone Matters
Clone is a built-in Salesforce action that creates a new record by duplicating an existing record's field values. Users click the Clone button on a record (available on most standard and custom objects), and Salesforce opens a new record edit form with all the original record's field values pre-populated. The user can then modify any fields and save the new record. Clone is convenient for creating similar records without having to re-enter every field manually.
By default, Clone duplicates only the parent record itself, not related child records. For scenarios where you want to clone with related records (like cloning an Opportunity along with its Line Items, or a Quote along with its Quote Line Items), Salesforce provides Clone with Related, also called Deep Clone, on certain objects. Custom Clone behavior can also be implemented through Apex or Flow when the standard Clone doesn't fit a specific need. Watch out for unique fields and validation rules during cloning: a cloned record may need certain values changed before it can be saved successfully.
How Organizations Use Clone
- •Coastal Health — Trains staff to use Clone for creating new patient encounters that follow a standard template. The clone includes fields like provider, location, and visit type, so the user only needs to update the patient and date.
- •NovaScale — Uses Clone with Related on Quotes so sales reps can quickly create variations of an existing quote with all the line items copied. This made quote variations a one-click operation instead of a tedious manual process.
- •BrightEdge Solutions — Built a custom Clone action that excludes certain fields (like a unique reference number) and pre-populates others with default values for the new record. The custom action handles edge cases the standard Clone couldn't.