So as we’ve been telling our story about our Lightning implementation, it has become apparent that we aren’t alone in initially being scared of what seemed like a daunting task to move to Lightning.

Looking back on our prep, development and implementation I can see why we had those fears, but I can also see that most of them were due to not fully understanding some of the Lightning concepts. So it was hard to wrap our heads around them.

My fearless leader and product owner, Marshall King and I got to present our story on a recent Salesforce Admins podcast and it was clear in the questions we got after the webinar that this seemed to be a common thread.

One question we got a lot, that I wanted to see if I can help make a bit more clear, is about Lightning Record Pages. In our Webinar we indicated that we made our changes and adjustments to them in production and lots of people were shocked, or maybe surprised is a better word.

They wanted to know how we could do that in production and not effect the classic users and I think this very question points to the root of some misunderstanding.

So we all know that Page Layouts are what controls the fields displayed, the order and sections of those fields, what Related Lists show up, buttons, etc. This is true (with minor exceptions I’ll outline below) in Classic and in Lightning.

Lightning Record Pages are NOT the same thing as Page Layouts.

I repeat: Lightning Record pages are NOT the same thing as page layouts.

It took me a while to wrap my head around this but here is where I ultimately got the Ah Ha! moment:

The Lightning Record Page is a SKIN designed around the Page Layout.

• Elements of the Page Layout (Details & Related Lists) are displayed using components you add to the Lightning Record Page
• Those Components are like add-on features that give us more functionality to provide our users, in addition to the traditional Page Layout elements.

You could think of it like a car.

The Page Layout is the base model of the vehicle. You’ve got a general body type, you’ve got an engine that makes it run and the rest of the standard features.

The Lightning Record Page is where you get to customize the ‘Extras’ – add a Sunroof or a Navigation System.

Still the same engine and car underneath it all, but now it’s got some great new features that will make your experience driving a better one.

Or to make it super simple – it’s like the case (skin) you put on your phone. Didn’t do anything to the phone but changed the look and feel of it.

So don’t be afraid of working on those Lightning Record Pages in production in fear that your Classic Users will notice something! They will only notice if you actually drill into the Page Layout, rearrange fields, rearrange related lists or move the buttons. So stay away from that and you’ll be fine.

If your users are using mobile, there are a couple of minor things to be aware of:

• The buttons/actions and order of those on your Lightning Record Page are the same as mobile. So if you make a change it will cascade to the mobile experience.
• The fields showing on the Highlights Panel on a Lightning Record Page are also the same ones displayed on Mobile so if you rearrange those it will cascade to the mobile experience.

And don’t forget to create that Beta App (explained in my previous blog post) – where you can re-skin Lightning Record Pages to your hearts content and show all the awesome options to your test users and focal groups to help them visualize the possibilities!

Time to get your Skin in the Game!