Highlights Panel
A Highlights Panel is the strip of key fields shown at the top of a Salesforce record page in Lightning Experience.
Definition
A Highlights Panel is the strip of key fields shown at the top of a Salesforce record page in Lightning Experience. It surfaces the most important attributes of the record (Account Name, Amount, Close Date, and Owner on an Opportunity, for instance) and keeps them pinned in view while the user scrolls through related lists and the activity timeline. The first field appears in a larger accented font, and the panel renders up to the first seven fields of the record's compact layout depending on screen width and the user's permissions.
The Highlights Panel is unusual among record-page elements: it is the one part of the page that you cannot configure with the page layout editor. Instead, its content comes entirely from the compact layout assigned to the record. The Lightning App Builder places the panel as a standard component, but the fields inside it are chosen in Object Manager under Compact Layouts. Get that one setting right and every record answers "what is this?" at a glance.
How the Highlights Panel actually gets its fields
The compact layout is the single source of content
The Highlights Panel does not have its own editor. Its fields come from the compact layout assigned to the object, which you manage in Setup under Object Manager, pick the object, then Compact Layouts. You add the fields you want in the order they should appear, save, then set the layout as the primary compact layout so it becomes the default. Salesforce renders the first seven fields of that layout in the panel, and the very first field shows in a larger accented font as the visual anchor. The exact number that appears varies with screen width and with the viewer's field permissions, so seven is a ceiling rather than a guarantee. This is the detail that trips up new admins. They look for a Highlights Panel layout screen, find nothing, and assume the panel is hard-coded. It is fully configurable, just from a different place than expected. Once you internalize that the compact layout is the control point, editing the panel takes a couple of minutes per object.
One setting that drives four surfaces
The compact layout earns its keep because it controls more than the Highlights Panel. The same field set appears in the expanded lookup card that pops up when you hover over a linked record in the details area. It drives the summary shown when you expand an entry in the activity timeline. It also defines how the record looks in the Salesforce mobile app, where screen space is tight and a good field choice matters most. Salesforce deliberately routes all four of these surfaces through one configuration so they stay consistent. A field you add to the compact layout shows up everywhere at once, and a field you remove disappears from all of them. That consistency is a feature, but it is also a constraint worth remembering. You cannot show Amount in the Highlights Panel while hiding it from the hover card, because both read the same compact layout. Plan the field set with all four surfaces in mind rather than optimizing only for the desktop record header.
The system default is rarely the right choice
Every object ships with a system default compact layout that Salesforce populates automatically. For most objects that default contains little more than the Name field, which makes for a thin and uninformative panel. One of the first customization tasks on any new org is editing or replacing this default so the panel surfaces the org's real key fields. On Opportunity you might want Amount, Stage, Close Date, and Owner. On Case you might want Status, Priority, Contact Name, and Case Owner. The work is quick, but it is easy to forget because nothing in the interface flags the default as a problem. The panel simply looks sparse. A neglected compact layout shows whatever Salesforce chose out of the box, which is almost never the field a rep actually needs at the top of the screen. Treat tuning the primary compact layout as a day-one item on every object that users touch frequently, the same way you would review the page layout.
Per record type, when processes diverge
A single object often runs several different processes, and those processes care about different fields. Salesforce lets you assign a distinct compact layout to each record type so the Highlights Panel changes with the record's category. An Opportunity record type for New Business can show Amount and Close Date, while a Renewal record type shows Renewal Date and the contract end. You set this up in the Compact Layout Assignment area, where you pick which layout fires for each record type and which one serves as the primary fallback. This is the lever that keeps the panel relevant across a mixed object. Without it, every record of the object shows the same fields regardless of what stage or flavor of business it represents, which forces a lowest-common-denominator field set. Use per record type compact layouts whenever the underlying processes differ in a way users would notice. If two record types genuinely need the same highlights, share one layout rather than maintaining duplicates that drift apart over time.
When the standard panel is not enough
The standard Highlights Panel renders fields as plain text. It cannot color-code a value, show a computed indicator, or hide a field based on a condition. When a record header genuinely needs that kind of logic, admins and developers reach for a custom component placed in the same region of the Lightning record page. A Lightning Web Component can read the record at runtime, apply business rules, and render badges, progress bars, or conditional content that the compact layout cannot express. This path costs build and maintenance effort, so it is reserved for cases where the standard panel truly falls short. Most highlight requirements turn out to be solvable by choosing the right fields on the compact layout. Before commissioning a custom header, confirm that the ask cannot be met with formula fields surfaced through the compact layout, since a formula can already encode a fair amount of logic into a displayable value. The custom component is the escape hatch, not the default approach for a typical org.
Screen width and field-level security both reshape it
The Highlights Panel is responsive. A wide desktop shows the full set up to seven fields, a narrow tablet shows fewer, and the mobile app collapses the fields into a compact stacked card. Because of this, a panel that looks balanced on a 27-inch monitor can crowd or truncate on a 10-inch tablet, especially when long text fields are involved. Test the layout on the smallest screen your users actually carry. Field-level security adds a second filter on top of width. If a field on the compact layout is hidden from a user's profile, that field simply does not appear in their panel, with no placeholder left behind. Users on restrictive profiles can therefore see a shorter or differently ordered panel than an administrator does. Design the compact layout with the lowest-permission profile in mind so the panel still reads well when a few fields drop out. Verify the result by logging in as, or using the user-access view for, a representative restricted profile rather than trusting the admin view.
Set the Highlights Panel fields via the compact layout
You do not edit the Highlights Panel directly. You edit the compact layout that feeds it. Here is the path to set the fields that appear at the top of a record in Lightning Experience.
- Open the object in Object Manager
In Setup, go to Object Manager and select the object whose record header you want to change, such as Opportunity or Case.
- Create a new compact layout
Click Compact Layouts in the left rail, then New. Give it a clear label, and add the fields you want in the exact order they should appear. The first field becomes the accented header field.
- Set it as the primary compact layout
Save the layout, then use Compact Layout Assignment to set your new layout as the primary one so it replaces the system default for that object.
- Assign per record type if needed
In the same assignment screen, map specific record types to different compact layouts when those processes need different highlights, leaving the primary as the fallback.
- Verify on a record and on mobile
Open a record to confirm the panel shows the intended fields, then check the Salesforce mobile app and a narrow screen, since width and permissions can drop fields.
Drag fields into the order you want; the first field renders in the accented font and the panel shows up to seven fields.
The default layout used by the object when no record-type-specific layout applies; required to override the system default.
Optional mapping that lets each record type show its own compact layout, and therefore its own Highlights Panel fields.
- There is no separate Highlights Panel editor; all content comes from the compact layout.
- The same compact layout also drives lookup hover cards, the activity timeline, and the mobile record card, so changes ripple across all four.
- Fields hidden by field-level security drop out of the panel for that user with no placeholder, so the panel can look shorter on restricted profiles.
- The panel caps at seven fields and trims further on narrow screens, so a long compact layout will not show every field.
Prefer this walkthrough as its own page? How to Highlights Panel in Salesforce, step by step
Trust & references
Cross-checked against the following references.
Straight from the source - Salesforce's reference material on Highlights Panel.
Hands-on resources to go deeper on Highlights Panel.
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.
Test your knowledge
Q1. Which configuration decides which fields the Highlights Panel displays atop a Lightning record page?
Q2. Beyond feeding the Highlights Panel, what else does a Compact Layout drive across Salesforce?
Q3. A user on a restrictive profile sees gaps in the Highlights Panel. What causes those gaps?
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