Quarra Primary Contact Lookup Field Implementation

Overview

A Primary Contact lookup field was added to the Quarra Salesforce org's Opportunity object to allow users to designate a main point of contact for each opportunity. The field was also surfaced in the new opportunity creation modal via the Compact Layout.

This work was completed during an internal Asymmetric session (Mark Hope + Karly Oykhman) ahead of a client call with Lincoln Durham.

Implementation Steps

1. Create the Lookup Field

Navigate to Setup → Object Manager → Opportunity → Fields & Relationships → New
Select field type: Lookup Relationship
Related object: Contact
Field label: Primary Contact
Leave child relationship name as default (Opportunities)
Accept default field-level security and click through to Save

2. Add to the Classic Page Layout

Go to Setup → Object Manager → Opportunity → Page Layouts
Open the active Opportunity Layout
Drag Primary Contact from the field palette into the layout — recommended position is near the top of the first section, above or near Opportunity Owner
Save

3. Add to the Lightning App Builder

The classic page layout edit does not automatically update the Lightning record page. A separate step is required:

From an Opportunity record, click the gear icon → Edit Page to open Lightning App Builder
Switch to the Fields tab in the left panel (not Components)
Search for Primary Contact and drag it into the desired position on the record layout
Save and Activate (assign as org default if prompted)

The "New Opportunity" creation modal pulls fields from the Compact Layout, not the full page layout.

Go to Setup → Object Manager → Opportunity → Compact Layouts
Edit the active compact layout
Add Primary Contact to the selected fields list
Save

Key Notes

The field was not made required, per client preference — Lincoln did not specify that every opportunity must have a primary contact
The Compact Layout step is what controls which fields appear in the quick-create modal; this is separate from both the classic page layout and the Lightning App Builder layout
When in doubt about which layout controls a given UI surface, Claude can be queried with the specific context (object + UI element) to get accurate routing

^[1] — Quarra client overview
^[2] — Companion task: Details field on Task object
^[3] — Permission set review delivered in the same session