Creating Salesforce Links in VisualForce Email Templates

[MrTheTyler]

Wow, I just can't seem to figure this simple thing out.  In a visualforce template I want to create a link to an object record. 

I've seen examples like this

({!LEFT($Api.Partner_Server_URL_140, FIND(".com/",$Api.Partner_Server_URL_140)+3)

but shouldn't I be able to use a simple relative URL to get this to work?

A new record was created!  <a href="/{!RelatedTo.ID}">Click here</a>  to see it.

However, when the email gets sent out the link becomes "http://5008000000dmoskaax/" and not "http://na8.salesforce.com/5008000000dmoskaax"

Any idears?

Tyler

[bob_buzzard · Accepted solution]

Relative URLs only make sense in the context of a web server - i.e. they are relative to the root of the server. A relative URL in an email doesn't have a root so it is assumed to be an absolute URL.

The formula based on the partner server url is the only way I've found to achieve this.

[JoyD]

Does it work in the preview before sending the email?  I copied and pasted your example and that works for me - but when it sends, it looses the 'context' - so my guess is that you'll have to hardcode the beginning of the URL (or use some nifty way of generating it that I can't think of offhand)...

[MrTheTyler]

It does work in preview but as Bob Buzzard said the email has no server context.  The server partner url code I pasted above had some comments about links breaking in special cases such as european users vs american users.  I was hoping there was a clean way to do this as it is pretty crucial and used over and over again.  Alas.

[Ken Koellner]

Can someone explain w

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bob_buzzard wrote:

Relative URLs only make sense in the context of a web server - i.e. they are relative to the root of the server. A relative URL in an email doesn't have a root so it is assumed to be an absolute URL.

The formula based on the partner server url is the only way I've found to achieve this.

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Can someone explain what this "formula" is?

[Ken Koellner]

I hacked around with that formulate to get a complete syntax that actualy works in the email template--

<apex:outputlink value="{!LEFT($Api.Partner_Server_URL_140,FIND('.com',$Api.Partner_Server_URL_140)+4)+relatedTo.Id}">{!relatedTo.Name}</apex:outputlink>

You need to use single quotes in the expressions within the value attribute so as not to confuse the double-quotes that delimit it.

I used 4 unlike the +3 so I got the "/".

[EllenH]

Ken - I know this is an old post, but I was playing around with similar functionality and could not get it straight...  In searching I came across this post.   The line you posted worked great and I learned a little something.  Thank you for posting.

[Ken Koellner]

Glad I could help.  It's always neat learning other peoples' tricks.  And SF is a bit of a maverick environment so it helps.

-Ken