Mini View
A Mini View is the right-hand frame of the Salesforce Classic Agent Console, a panel that showed records related to whatever record sat in the main detail view.
Definition
A Mini View is the right-hand frame of the Salesforce Classic Agent Console, a panel that showed records related to whatever record sat in the main detail view. When an agent opened a case in the center of the Console, the Mini View on the right listed the linked Account, Contact, or Asset so the agent could see context without leaving the page. The fields and related lists that appeared there came from a separate configuration called the Mini Page Layout, which an administrator set up per object.
This is a legacy concept. The Agent Console it lived inside was retired in the Summer '20 release, and the term applies only to Salesforce Classic. Mini Page Layouts also drove hover details and the event detail overlays in Classic, so the Mini View was one of three things the same configuration controlled. Lightning Experience does not have a Mini View. The Lightning Service Console reproduces the same idea with a Highlights Panel, related-record components, and the utility bar, all assembled in the Lightning App Builder. Treat Mini View as background you need when reading old documentation or planning a Classic-to-Lightning migration.
How the Mini View worked and what replaced it
The three-pane Agent Console layout
The Agent Console was a single tab in Salesforce Classic built for high-volume support work. It split the screen into three regions. A list view ran across the top, the selected record opened in the center detail view, and the Mini View filled the right frame. The detail view is the full record you would normally reach by clicking a record's ID. The Mini View showed a trimmed version of records associated with that detail record. An agent handling a case could glance right and read the caller's Account name, the Contact's phone number, and recent related activity without opening new tabs. The whole point was to cut clicks during a live call. Salesforce documentation describes the Agent Console as the place where an admin defines which related records display in the Mini View when a record of a given type sits in the detail view. For example, with a Case in the detail view you could surface its Account, Contact, or Asset on the right. The Console predated the modern multi-tab Service Console and was eventually retired in favor of it.
Mini Page Layout: the configuration behind the panel
The Mini View did not have its own field picker. Its contents came from the Mini Page Layout, a streamlined version of an object's standard page layout. You reached it in Setup by opening an object's page layout and clicking the Mini Page Layout link. A Mini Page Layout inherits record type and profile associations, related lists, fields, and field access settings from its parent page layout. You can then choose which of those fields and up to five related lists appear in the Console, but you cannot change the inherited structure from inside the Mini Page Layout itself. Any field marked Always Displayed or Always on Layout on the parent comes along automatically and cannot be dropped. Read-only and other field properties are inherited too. Salesforce recommends picking only the fields an agent truly needs, because selected fields and related lists render even when they hold no value, and a crowded panel forces scrolling. Each object that appeared in the Console (Case, Account, Contact, Asset) carried its own Mini Page Layout, so the right-frame display was tuned object by object.
Hover details and event overlays used the same layout
The Mini Page Layout did more than feed the Console. In Salesforce Classic it also defined hover details, the small pop-up that appeared when a user moused over a record link on a detail page or in the Recent Items list in the sidebar. Hover details gave a quick read of a record without a full page load, and the fields shown came straight from that object's Mini Page Layout once Hover Details was enabled under User Interface settings. The same layout drove the event detail and edit overlays on the calendar. One important quirk tripped up admins: related lists configured on a Mini Page Layout only displayed inside the Console tab, never in the hover pop-up. So if you added a related list expecting it to show on hover, nothing appeared. A few layouts could not have a Mini Page Layout at all, including the Close Case Layout and Self-Service Portal layouts, and a customized Mini Page Layout for the User object did not display in the Agent Console. These edges are worth knowing if you maintain an org still running Classic.
Why the Agent Console and Mini View were retired
Salesforce retired the Agent Console in the Summer '20 release. The Console was a Classic-only product, and its rigid three-pane design could not match the tab-and-subtab model that support teams needed. The Lightning Service Console offered primary tabs, subtabs, split views, keyboard shortcuts, and a component-based layout that an admin could rearrange without code. Rather than carry the old Console forward, Salesforce moved customers onto the Lightning Console and let the Mini View concept lapse with it. Because the retirement is old, the Agent Console no longer appears on Salesforce's current list of active or upcoming feature retirements; it is already gone for orgs on Lightning Experience. The practical takeaway is that no new org configures a Mini View. If you find Mini Page Layout settings in an inherited org, they are either supporting a Classic Console still in use or sitting as dead metadata after a Lightning switch. Either way, the modern path is to rebuild the experience in Lightning, not to refine the legacy panel.
The Lightning replacement, component by component
Lightning Experience spreads the single Mini View across several focused components, and you assemble them in the Lightning App Builder. The Highlights Panel sits at the top of a record page and shows key fields; it is driven by the Compact Layout, which is the Lightning cousin of the Mini Page Layout's field list. Related-record and Related List components display linked records in the body of the page, replacing the related lists the old Mini View carried. The utility bar runs along the bottom of the Service Console for cross-page tools like notes, a softphone, or macros. Hover details have a Lightning equivalent too: case hovers, for instance, are on by default and pull their fields from the case Compact Layout, with the first five fields shown and the first field used as the title. The result is more flexible than the Classic Mini View because each piece is configured and placed independently, though that also means more setup. Where Classic gave you one Mini Page Layout per object, Lightning gives you a Compact Layout plus whatever components you drop onto the page.
Migration and certification notes
When an org moves from the Classic Agent Console to the Lightning Service Console, the right move is a fresh design pass, not a direct port. The Mini View's field choices do not translate one-to-one into Lightning components, so plan to map each Mini Page Layout to a Compact Layout and a set of App Builder components. Agents will need a short adjustment period, since the tab-and-subtab navigation behaves differently from the fixed three-pane Console. For certification study, Mini Views and the Agent Console show up only as legacy context. Current Service Cloud Consultant and Administrator exams focus on the Lightning Service Console, Compact Layouts, the Highlights Panel, and the utility bar. Knowing that the Mini View was the Classic equivalent of the Lightning right sidebar, and that the Mini Page Layout was its Compact Layout counterpart, is enough to answer any question that references the older feature. Spend your real study time on the Lightning architecture, because that is what new builds and the exams both expect.
Trust & references
Cross-checked against the following references.
Straight from the source - Salesforce's reference material on Mini View.
Hands-on resources to go deeper on Mini View.
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. Where did the Mini View appear in the Salesforce Classic Service Console?
Q2. What controlled the contents of the Mini View for each object in the Console?
Q3. Which era of Salesforce did the Mini View belong to?
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