DF19: Flow and Apex Showdown

"Flow and Apex Showdown!" session from Dreamforce '19. Presented by Chris Peterson (Apex PM) and Tim Peng (Flow Engine PM)

https://success.salesforce.com/apex/m_Sessions?eventId=a1Q3A000021ea1UUAQ#/session/a2q3A000002BJNWQA4

Demo app: https://github.com/capeterson/df19-flow-apex-showdown

Transcript

1. Flow and Apex Showdown Everybody get up, it's time to slam now! Sr. Product Manager, Flow tpeng@salesforce.com Tim Peng Director of Product Management, Apex chris.peterson@salesforce.com, @ca_peterson Chris Peterson
2. Forward-Looking Statement This presentation contains forward-looking statements about the company’s financial and operating results, which may include expected GAAP and non-GAAP financial and other operating and non-operating results, including revenue, net income, diluted earnings per share, operating cash flow growth, operating margin improvement, expected revenue growth, expected current remaining performance obligation growth, expected tax rates, the one-time accounting non-cash charge that was incurred in connection with the Salesforce.org combination; stock-based compensation expenses, amortization of purchased intangibles, shares outstanding, market growth and sustainability goals. The achievement or success of the matters covered by such forward-looking statements involves risks, uncertainties and assumptions. If any such risks or uncertainties materialize or if any of the assumptions prove incorrect, the company’s results could differ materially from the results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements we make. The risks and uncertainties referred to above include -- but are not limited to -- risks associated with the effect of general economic and market conditions; the impact of geopolitical events; the impact of foreign currency exchange rate and interest rate fluctuations on our results; our business strategy and our plan to build our business, including our strategy to be the leading provider of enterprise cloud computing applications and platforms; the pace of change and innovation in enterprise cloud computing services; the seasonal nature of our sales cycles; the competitive nature of the market in which we participate; our international expansion strategy; the demands on our personnel and infrastructure resulting from significant growth in our customer base and operations, including as a result of acquisitions; our service performance and security, including the resources and costs required to avoid unanticipated downtime and prevent, detect and remediate potential security breaches; the expenses associated with new data centers and third-party infrastructure providers; additional data center capacity; real estate and office facilities space; our operating results and cash flows; new services and product features, including any efforts to expand our services beyond the CRM market; our strategy of acquiring or making investments in complementary businesses, joint ventures, services, technologies and intellectual property rights; the performance and fair value of our investments in complementary businesses through our strategic investment portfolio; our ability to realize the benefits from strategic partnerships, joint ventures and investments; the impact of future gains or losses from our strategic investment portfolio, including gains or losses from overall market conditions that may affect the publicly traded companies within the company's strategic investment portfolio; our ability to execute our business plans; our ability to successfully integrate acquired businesses and technologies, including delays related to the integration of Tableau due to regulatory review by the United Kingdom Competition and Markets Authority; our ability to continue to grow unearned revenue and remaining performance obligation; our ability to protect our intellectual property rights; our ability to develop our brands; our reliance on third-party hardware, software and platform providers; our dependency on the development and maintenance of the infrastructure of the Internet; the effect of evolving domestic and foreign government regulations, including those related to the provision of services on the Internet, those related to accessing the Internet, and those addressing data privacy, cross-border data transfers and import and export controls; the valuation of our deferred tax assets and the release of related valuation allowances; the potential availability of additional tax assets in the future; the impact of new accounting pronouncements and tax laws; uncertainties affecting our ability to estimate our tax rate; the impact of expensing stock options and other equity awards; the sufficiency of our capital resources; factors related to our outstanding debt, revolving credit facility, term loan and loan associated with 50 Fremont; compliance with our debt covenants and lease obligations; current and potential litigation involving us; and the impact of climate change. Further information on these and other factors that could affect the company’s financial results is included in the reports on Forms 10-K, 10-Q and 8-K and in other filings it makes with the Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time. These documents are available on the SEC Filings section of the Investor Information section of the company’s website at www.salesforce.com/investor. Salesforce.com, inc. assumes no obligation and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements, except as required by law. Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995
3. Why Mix Code and Clicks? Build performant, flexible & configurable Apex integrations for reuse in (multiple) Flows • Apex has an extensive framework around backwards compatibility, like Hammer • Robust versioning, testing, and reuse across both Flow and Apex use cases • Apex runs in system mode & allows you to elevate or enforce permissions in a surgical, targeted manner • Apex is dynamic enough to make integrations as flexible as those we (Salesforce) ship Democratize ownership & maintenance of configuration- & business-driven customization • Decouple business rules & presentation from underlying technical implementation • Mock out & A/B test UX improvements with low operational overhead • Plug-n-play interoperability with Apex, External Services, Lightning Components, Lightning Web Components
4. Bridging Apex and Flow 1) Define your invocable methods in Apex with the @InvocableMethod annotation • Limit of 1x @InvocableMethod annotated method per Apex class • Declare input variables using the @InvocableVariable annotation • Supported inputs/outputs: Primitives, SObjects, Apex-defined classes; lists • Must be bulk-safe. Inputs and outputs are always lists. 2) Invoke them declaratively in Flow (+ Process Builder, Strategy Builder, Einstein Bot Builder, APIs) 3) Profit! Want a deeper dive? • Check out https://unofficialsf.com/understanding-invocable-actions/ • "Automate Post-Workshop Tasks with Invocable Apex" on trailhead Marry the power & flexibility of Apex with the simplicity of Flow
5. What's the implementation like? From: SMS for Flows by Salesforce Labs https://github.com/SalesforceLabs/SMS-for-Flows
6. Invocable Methods: Best Practices Build for reusability & extensibility • The more flexible & generic your invocable method is, the more it can be reused/leveraged by others • If you're building one method per use case, you're doing it the hard way • Use an Apex-defined data type for input/output if you expect to allow complex configuration • Make sure the action is bulk-safe Be diligent w.r.t. security! • Screen flows by default run in user mode, where sharing, field-, and object-level security are enforced • Make sure your invocable methods also follow this convention by default! • Document how, and why, your actions break out of the normal security model to avoid unwelcome surprises • There's no shame in a trusted business process deliberately bypassing security, as long as everybody knows what it does, and why, before use.
7. Demo Simple Price Match Flow w/ Stripe Integration
8. Who Really Uses this Stuff? The Channel Order App Salesforce uses for manage partner orders • Submit order, edit order, and recall order APIs are all invocable actions • Single Apex class exposes: • REST API via Invocable Actions framework • Programmatic API for Apex developers to consume • Declarative API for Admins to use in Flow/PB
9. • Summer '19 ◦ Support for Apex types ▪ Apex classes allowed as @InvocableVariable • Winter '20 ◦ InvocableMethod allow declaring a category for flow builder UI • Spring '20 ◦ Generic SObject allowed ◦ [Pilot] Custom configuration screens ▪ Allows building complex Apex types in flow configuration Invocable Framework Roundup
10. Resources These slides: https://speakerdeck.com/ca_peterson/df19-flow-and-apex-showdown Getting starting with invocable actions, step by step: https://unofficialsf.com/understanding-invocable-actions/ Trailhead: Automate Post-Workshop Tasks with Invocable Apex https://sfdc.co/workshop-invocable
12. Date/Time Session Wed | 8:00 - 8:20a Increase Productivity with Screen Flows (1) | MW Admin Theater Wed | 10:30 - 11:20a Advanced Flow for Admins: Become A Salesforce Developer Using Points And Clicks | MW 2002 Wed | 5:30 - 5:50p Designing High Performance Flows (1) | MW Admin Theater Thur | 1:00 - 1:40p Prebuilt Business Processes with Flow Templates | MW 2024 Thur | 4:00 - 4:20p Increase Productivity with Screen Flows (2) | MW Admin Theater Fri | 8:00 - 8:20a Designing High Performance Flows (2) | MW Architect Theater Fri | 11:00 - 11:40a Developing Modern Enterprise Apps with Flow and Next Best Action | MW 2009 What’s Next? Experience Lightning Flow at Dreamforce Check out these amazing sessions Platform Keynote Weds @ 1:00 PM Moscone North Hall F Lightning Keynote Weds @ 3:00 PM Marriot Marquis Yerba Buena Salon 9 Explore Digital Transformation at the Platform Meadow Experience the Customer 360 Platform Attend a workshops Learn about Lightning Moscone West Floor 2 Platform Park Meet Product Experts & get a Hands-on Demo Moscone West Floor 1