Salesforce Document Builder limitations: the full list

Last updated 26 October 2026.

This page lists the limits of the two document features that come with Salesforce Field Service, Service Reports and Document Builder, each taken from Salesforce’s own documentation and linked to it. For each limit it says what to do, including when the built-in feature is the right choice.

Service Reports or Document Builder: which one you have

Field Service has two ways to make a signed PDF from a job. Service Reports is the older one, with templates in Setup › Service Report Templates. Document Builder is the newer one: an admin turns it on in Field Service Settings and builds templates in Setup › Document Builder. Salesforce now calls the product Agentforce Field Service and Operations [10]; this page says Field Service, as most of its pages still do.

An org can have both, but each user has one. Giving someone Document Builder hides the Service Report button for them, and they can no longer use Service Report features or templates [1] [3]. To tell which one a person has, open a work order as them: Create Service Report means Service Reports, Create Service Document means Document Builder [3] [8]. Both file the PDF in the record’s Service Reports related list [8].

The limits of Service Reports

PDF only

A service report “summarizes a work order or service appointment in a PDF” [12]. There is no editable output.

What to do. For a signed record of the visit, a PDF is right. If the office edits the document afterwards, or a customer asks for Word, Docable makes a PDF, an editable Word file or both from one template.

Three objects

Service reports are made from work orders, work order line items and service appointments, and not for service appointments whose parent is an account, asset, lead or opportunity [15] [10].

What to do. Keep the report on the work order. For a certificate per asset, a run sheet per technician or a document on a custom object, Docable builds the template on any object, standard or custom, and files the document on that record.

A fixed layout

A template has a header, body and footer that can’t be deleted. The header and footer each come with one section and take no other components, and a section has one or two columns [19]. A logo is best at 220 pixels wide; wider images are cropped. Each Blank Space field adds 5 pixels of space [13]. Section titles and rich text can’t be translated [10].

What to do. For a standard report, this is enough. For your own design, Docable has a Word-like editor with Brand Kits, photos, tables, charts, conditions, headers and footers.

Four sub-templates to keep in step

Every template has four sub-templates: Service Appointment for Work Order, Service Appointment for Work Order Line Item, Work Order, and Work Order Line Item. Salesforce recommends customising all four [12].

What to do. Change all four whenever you change one, and preview each before you activate the template.

A related list takes up to five filters, each on a checkbox or picklist field, and sorts by a number or date field. If the person making the report can’t read the field used to filter or sort, the filter or sort doesn’t happen [13].

What to do. Filter on fields every generating user can read. In Docable, a section, table or line can show only when a condition holds.

Signatures: one per type, not kept

A template holds one signature per type, up to 20 signature blocks, and a signature block can’t use multiple columns [14]. Signature field labels can’t be customised [10]. A signature isn’t reused when the report is made again, and the signatures collected are deleted once the report is created [14] [15].

What to do. Add numbered signature types (Technician 1, Technician 2) for extra signers, as Salesforce suggests, and keep the saved report as the proof of signature.

On the phone: no choice of template

In the Field Service mobile app, users can’t pick a template. The app uses the work order’s template, then the work type’s, then the standard one. On Android, if a work order already has a service report, users can edit it but can’t create another [16].

What to do. Set the template on each work type. In Docable the technician sees the documents that fit the job, chosen by each template’s Offer when rule, and a visit pack makes several documents with one signing.

The offline preview is not the report

A report can be requested offline, but the PDF is made only when the device is online. Previews can be out of date, formulas can be wrong, roll-up summaries are blank, headers and footers don’t show, and text is cut to 255 characters. A report that fails to generate doesn’t succeed when retried [16].

What to do. Treat the preview as a guide and check the PDF after sync. Docable’s offline preview is an example too, marked as one; the document is made from the record when the phone syncs, and a request refused for a passing reason is tried again for about forty minutes.

Not in the Salesforce mobile app, not from a flow

The Create Service Report action isn’t available in the Salesforce mobile app [10], and it can’t be triggered from a flow [22].

What to do. Use the Field Service mobile app or the desktop. For automation, Docable makes documents from a Flow, a schedule, a list, Apex or REST, and a sample Flow emails the customer their signed report.

The limits of Document Builder

PDF only, and no batch

Salesforce’s own comparison lists Document Builder’s output as PDF, its processing as “Synchronous processing only (no batch support)” and its layout as “Moderate layout control” [17].

What to do. One signed PDF per visit fits it. For Word as well as PDF, or for one record or thousands in the background, on a schedule or from a Flow, use Docable.

Three objects, and the pages disagree on phones

Templates are created from Work Order, Work Order Line Item or Service Appointment [5]. One Salesforce page says the mobile app generates PDFs from all three on Android and iOS [5]; the limits page says Work Order and Service Appointment on iOS, and only Service Appointment on Android [10].

What to do. Test each object on each kind of phone your technicians carry. Docable builds templates on any object.

A Work Order template needs a Service Appointment template

For a Work Order template to work in the mobile app, you also create a Service Appointment template; Salesforce suggests an identical one [11]. The app also needs default templates for all three objects, the Service Report related list on the service appointment layout, and push notifications on the phone [7].

What to do. Keep templates in pairs and follow the set-up list. If no template field value or default is set, users get an error [7] [9].

Licences, contractors and Government Cloud

Users need the Field Service Dispatcher or Field Service Mobile permission set licence. Document Builder isn’t available for Contractor and Contractor+ licences [4] or Government Cloud users [1]. Only admins with Setup access can build templates [2].

What to do. Check your contractors’ licences before you plan the rollout.

A monthly document allowance

“Each Salesforce org is granted an allowance of 250 documents per user per month” for the Field Service Dispatcher and Field Service Mobile licences, including their login-based versions, with a one-time allotment of 10,000 documents if the allowance is exceeded [10].

What to do. Count documents per technician per month at your busiest time. Docable has no per-document fee: one price covers any number of people and documents.

Pages and size

The limits page says “PDFs can be up to 50 pages” and a service document can be up to 100 MB [10]. The developer guide says service documents are limited to 250 pages [21]. The signature component isn’t split across pages, and PDF conversion doesn’t compress static resources [21].

What to do. Test your longest real job against the lower figure, and resize and compress images before adding them.

Tables: ten columns, 1,000 rows, IDs for lookups

A related record table takes up to 10 columns and doesn’t support Geolocation or long text area fields [6]. It holds up to 1,000 records, and lookup fields show record IDs instead of values [10].

What to do. Try a text formula field on the child object that shows the related record’s name, and check it in the preview.

Rich text and fields

Rich text prints in black only. Embedded expressions don’t support address, geolocation, compound, picklist, multi-select picklist, long text, rich text or encrypted fields [6] [10]. The parent record field is empty, and account names appear only when the Account field is on the template [10].

What to do. Try the field component for such values and check them in the preview. In Docable you type @ where a value goes and insert any field of the record or a record it looks up.

Images and photos

Images can’t be rendered from URLs, and several image galleries on one template repeat the same images [10]. A gallery shows every image filed on the template’s object, and you can’t change how many [6].

What to do. Use one gallery per template. Docable prints the record’s photos by title, singly or as a gallery.

Languages

Right-to-left languages are translated, but their document format isn’t supported. In rich text only custom labels are translated [10]. Offline, only the language in the service report language field is available [11].

What to do. Put fixed wording in custom labels and test each language on a phone before you go live.

Custom components are a project of their own

Components built for other platforms, including the Field Service mobile app, must be made again for Document Builder [18]. Apex returns an empty array offline, calls to third-party data sources don’t work offline [20], and iframes and CSS side-by-side layouts aren’t supported [21].

What to do. Budget developer time for each custom component. In Docable the same layouts are built in the editor.

Design and site details

Refreshing the browser while designing can lose fields, and community users are supported only on sites ending in .site.com [10].

What to do. Use the builder’s own Refresh button, and test portal users first.

Limits people report

These come from public questions, not from Salesforce documentation.

The Create Service Document button is missing on the phone

Reported by a user on Trailblazer Community. A user built a Work Order template, added the action and assigned the permission sets, but the button didn’t show on the work order in the app [23]. The replies pointed to the one-feature-per-user rule and the Service Report related list on the layout. Salesforce’s limits page adds that a Work Order template also needs a Service Appointment template [11].

Moving Service Report templates between orgs

Reported by a user on Salesforce Stack Exchange. A user could not find the template in deployable metadata to move it from a development org to a test org; the question had no answer when read [24].

What to do. If your deployment tool doesn’t list it, write down each template’s settings and rebuild it in each org.

Job photos in a service report

Reported by users on Salesforce Stack Exchange. Asked how to add several images, a reply said images can’t be added to a service report template [25]. Salesforce’s guidelines describe adding a logo [13], so the gap is the job’s own photos.

Reports for many records from code

Reported by a user on Salesforce Stack Exchange. To make reports for a list of records, a developer called the Create Service Report REST action from Apex in a queued job and hit “Callout loop not allowed”; a trigger turned out to be the cause [26].

What to do. Docable makes documents inside Salesforce, with no callout to make a document, for one record or thousands.

When the built-in features are enough

Service Reports and Document Builder come with Field Service and do a good job of a standard service report, signed offline. Document Builder adds conditional visibility on its components, a reason when a signature can’t be collected, translation and an image gallery [1] [6] [7]. If every document is one signed PDF per visit, on a work order, work order line item or service appointment, in a layout of sections and tables, for technicians on Field Service licences and within the monthly allowance, use what you have.

When you need more

Reach for Docable when you need editable Word as well as PDF, any object in the org, documents for many records at once, a design of your own, questions answered on the phone, visit packs or several documents a visit, and the office’s quotes, invoices and letters from the same product. With no signal, the technician previews the document in the Field Service mobile app, answers its questions, signs and taps Submit; the document is made and filed on the record when the phone syncs.

Questions

Can I use Service Reports and Document Builder together?

In one org, yes. For one user, no: each user has one or the other [1].

Why is the Create Service Report button missing?

The user may have Document Builder, which hides it [3], or may be in the Salesforce mobile app, where the action isn’t available [10].

How many documents can Document Builder make?

250 documents per user per month for the Field Service Dispatcher and Mobile licences, with a one-time 10,000 more [10].

How many pages can a service document have?

Salesforce gives two figures: 50 pages on its limits page [10] and 250 pages in its developer guide [21].

Can Service Reports or Document Builder make a Word file?

No. Both make PDF only [12] [17].

Can I make service reports for many records at once?

Document Builder has no batch support [17], and the Create Service Report action can’t be triggered from a flow [22].

Do they work offline?

A Service Report can be requested offline, and the PDF is made when the device is online [16]. Document Builder queues the document when you’re offline [7].

Can two customers sign the same document?

Yes, with numbered signature types such as Customer1 and Customer2, because a template has one signature per type [10].

Sources

  1. Salesforce Help, Document Builder. https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=service.fs_document_builder_about.htm&type=5, read 26 October 2026.
  2. Salesforce Help, Set Up Document Builder: Licensing and Enablement. https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=service.fs_document_builder_set_up.htm&type=5, read 26 October 2026.
  3. Salesforce Help, Give Users Access to Document Builder. https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=service.fs_document_builder_user_access.htm&type=5, read 26 October 2026.
  4. Salesforce Help, Assign Document Builder to Dispatchers and Mobile Workers. https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=service.fs_document_builder_perm_sets.htm&type=5, read 26 October 2026.
  5. Salesforce Help, Create a Service Document Template. https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=service.fs_create_service_document_templates.htm&type=5, read 26 October 2026.
  6. Salesforce Help, Document Builder Standard Components. https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=service.fs_document_builder_standard_components.htm&type=5, read 26 October 2026.
  7. Salesforce Help, Generate Service Document PDFs on the Mobile App. https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=service.fs_generate_pdfs_mobile.htm&type=5, read 26 October 2026.
  8. Salesforce Help, Generate Service Document PDFs on the Desktop Site. https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=service.fs_generate_pdfs_desktop.htm&type=5, read 26 October 2026.
  9. Salesforce Help, Setting the Service Document Template Field. https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=service.fs_service_document_template_field.htm&type=5, read 26 October 2026.
  10. Salesforce Help, Field Service Limits and Limitations. https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=service.fs_limits.htm&type=5, read 26 October 2026.
  11. Salesforce Help, Field Service Mobile App Limitations. https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=service.mfs_limits.htm&type=5, read 26 October 2026.
  12. Salesforce Help, Create Field Service Report Templates. https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=service.fs_customer_reports_settings.htm&type=5, read 26 October 2026.
  13. Salesforce Help, Field Service Guidelines for Creating Service Report Templates. https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=service.fs_customer_report_guidelines.htm&type=5, read 26 October 2026.
  14. Salesforce Help, Field Service Guidelines for Using Signatures on Service Reports. https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=service.fs_signature_guidelines.htm&type=5, read 26 October 2026.
  15. Salesforce Help, Create Field Service Customer Reports. https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=service.fs_create_customer_reports.htm&type=5, read 26 October 2026.
  16. Salesforce Help, Create Service Reports in the Field Service Mobile App. https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=service.mfs_service_report.htm&type=5, read 26 October 2026.
  17. Salesforce Help, Document Builder and Document Generation. https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=ind.sf_docgen_understand_doc_builder_and_doc_generation.htm&type=5, read 26 October 2026.
  18. Salesforce Field Service Developer Guide, Build Custom Lightning Web Components for Service Documents. https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/service/field-service-dev/guide/fsl-dev-mobile-document-builder.html, read 26 October 2026.
  19. Salesforce Field Service Developer Guide, Service Report Template. https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/service/field-service-dev/guide/fsl-dev-servicereporttemplate.html, read 26 October 2026.
  20. Salesforce Field Service Developer Guide, Lightning Web Components for Document Builder: Requirements. https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/service/field-service-dev/guide/fsl-dev-mobile-doc-builder-requirements.html, read 26 October 2026.
  21. Salesforce Field Service Developer Guide, Lightning Web Components for Document Builder: Considerations. https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/service/field-service-dev/guide/fsl-dev-mobile-doc-builder-considerations.html, read 26 October 2026.
  22. Salesforce Actions Developer Guide, Create Service Report Actions. https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/platform/api-action/guide/actions-obj-create-service-report.html, read 26 October 2026.
  23. Trailblazer Community, Can’t we create service document template from Work Order object in Mobile? https://trailhead.salesforce.com/trailblazer-community/feed/0D54V00007bLXlbSAG, read 26 October 2026.
  24. Salesforce Stack Exchange, Service Report template deployment. https://salesforce.stackexchange.com/questions/438897/service-report-template-deployment, read 26 October 2026.
  25. Salesforce Stack Exchange, Adding images to Service Report in FSL. https://salesforce.stackexchange.com/questions/399739/adding-images-to-service-report-in-fsl, read 26 October 2026.
  26. Salesforce Stack Exchange, Rest API code 400 “Callout loop not allowed”. https://salesforce.stackexchange.com/questions/372354/rest-api-code-400-messagecallout-loop-not-allowed, read 26 October 2026.

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