Question

Difficulty: MediumCustom Fields and Data Types

A Salesforce administrator at a digital publishing company needs to create a field on the Account object that displays the total calculated value of all related subscription records. The Subscription custom object is currently connected to the Account object through a Lookup relationship. However, when trying to create a new custom field on Account, the Roll-Up Summary field type is grayed out and unavailable. What is the cause of this limitation, and how can the administrator fulfill the business requirement?

  1. A
    Roll-Up Summary fields are supported on Lookup relationships, but require custom field mapping to be configured first within Lead Conversion settings.
  2. Roll-Up Summary fields are only natively supported on the master object in a Master-Detail relationship, so the relationship must be converted to Master-Detail or automated using Flow.Answer
  3. C
    Roll-Up Summary fields can be created on Lookup relationships, but are disabled until all picklist values on the child object are assigned to a active Record Type.
  4. D
    Roll-Up Summary fields are allowed on standard Lookup relationships, but only if Field-Level Security is set to Read-Only across all user profiles.

Answer

Roll-Up Summary fields are only natively supported on the master object in a Master-Detail relationship, so the relationship must be converted to Master-Detail or automated using Flow.
In Salesforce, native Roll-Up Summary fields are only supported on parent objects involved in a Master-Detail relationship. Because Account and Subscription are linked via a Lookup relationship, the option to create a Roll-Up Summary field is disabled. To resolve this, an administrator must either convert the Lookup relationship to a Master-Detail relationship or use an automated solution such as Flow or Apex to calculate and update the value on the Account record.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the relationship type between Account and Subscription
The objects are connected via a standard Lookup relationship.
Salesforce declarative capabilities differ significantly between Lookup and Master-Detail relationships.
2
Evaluate standard Roll-Up Summary field requirements
Roll-Up Summary fields require the parent object to be the Master in a Master-Detail relationship.
Lookup relationships do not enforce strict parent-child data dependency required for standard declarative roll-ups.
3
Determine appropriate administrative resolution
Convert the Lookup relationship to Master-Detail (ensuring all child records have parent values) or create a record-triggered Flow to aggregate values.
Either approach enables the parent Account object to reflect cumulative metrics from child Subscription records.

Key Concept

Roll-Up Summary Field Restrictions and Relationship Data Types
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