I’ve been playing around with communications services and wanted to try sending an SMS using the popular MessageBird platform. In the video shown here, I demonstrate how you can do this with the No-Code HTTP Callout action that’s available for installation as an extension, along with a hard-learned lesson about including the required headers. I also demonstrate a dedicated invocable action for sending via MessageBird to show how dedicated actions are easier to work with:

Install

Haven’t packaged this one yet because it only contains a single action, but check out the source below.

Source

source

Version 3.0 of FlowActionsBasePack will shortly be available. It is still a managed package, but the namespace of 3.0 and all subsequent versions of FlowActionsBasePack is ‘usf3’ instead of ‘usf’.

Version 3.0.6 of Flow Screen Components Base Pack is being released at the same time. It requires Version 3.0 of FlowActionsBasePack. 9 files that made calls to the usf namespace had their names changed so they can call the usf3 namespace. for example, the component fsc_fieldSelector has been replaced with fsc_fieldSelector3. As a result you will see some dual files, like this:

This means that although the 3.0.6 version of Flow Screen Components Base Pack replaced fsc_fieldSelector with fsc_fieldSelector3, your copy of fsc_fieldSelector was not deleted because something is using it.

We’re encouraging all extension developers to use the latest versions of FlowActionsBasePack and FlowScreenComponentsBasePack as dependencies. If you have calls to ActionBasePack classes, you’ll need to do a find and replace to replace your ‘usf_’ with ‘usf3_’ and if you’re calling one of the screen components like this:

<c-fsc_field-selector
                    if:false={renderFlowCombobox}
                    name="fieldField
</c-fsc_field-selector>

….you’ll want to call the new version instead:

<c-fsc_field-selector-3
                    if:false={renderFlowCombobox}
                    name="fieldField
</c-fsc_field-selector-3>

If you have any questions or issues, this post is a good place to post them.

Why the extra messiness and the namespace change? The simple answer is that I broke the packaging upgradeability because I wasn’t careful enough. The changes made here ensure that everyone will be able to upgrade to this new v3.0 generation and other changes ensure that package upgradability can’t be broken in the future.

We’ll gradually upgrade all of the extensions to use V3 and above, and once that’s done, it will be possible to delete the old duplicate files and the old usf namespace classes if you wish.

It’s always fun to see the official content produced by Salesforce with its slick animation. Recently, the company released 5 useful video shorts introducing Flow concepts. We’ll put a link to this on the Tutorial Videos page.

Editor’s Note: Kerri’s application stands out because of the way it cleverly integrates several extensions to provide a slick send email solution that has template-like features but allows the user to edit the content before sending. Check it out!

I had a real request come in where someone wanted to be able to send branded emails that could be edited and have files attached before sending. At first, this seemed like it might be a bit much, but I thought about it and went to Unofficial SF and installed some packages. I was happy to be able to complete this request without having to get into any code!

In this example, we will be using a Flow to send a rich text email from a button on the Account Page. We’ll be able to edit the email before it is sent and include attachments.

Button Example

Clicking the Send Award Email button triggers the Award Email Flow screen flow:

The flow opens a screen with a Rich Text email component, allowing for edits and formatting and also a file upload component: 

The only feature in the edit screen that I noticed issues with is the image button. Any uploaded images in this manner are not included in the email:

Clicking Upload Files allows you to attach multiple files to the email and Project record:

The attachments and any changes to the Rich Text template are included in the email.

The Sent Email:

The related record: 

Notes & Attachments

Files

Flow: Send Award Email

This Screen Flow allows the User to edit a Rich Text email template that includes a base image and allows for adding multiple attachments.

Prerequisite Packages:

1. Rich Text Input – Flow Screen Component (richTextAreaFSC)
2. Upgraded FLOW ACTION AND SCREEN COMPONENT BASEPACKS (FlowScreenComponentsBasePack)
3. Send Richer Email with the ‘Send Better Email’ Flow Action (SendBetterEmail – 2.2.1 Unlocked)

Get and Set Variables:

The first step gets the record to relate this email to for merge fields. In this example, we’re using the Account. We’ll pull in fields from the Account  to the Text Template:

Next we start our Email Address collection with the testGroupEmail. For this example, we want to include a group inbox email address as part of our recipient collection. I am starting with adding the address variable manually and will explain why in a moment:  

testGroupEmail Variable:

The next step is to populate the rest of our Email Collection. Normally I would set the email collection variable to add all the values at once, but the “Send Better Email” Apex action will keep any extra commas from adding any empty fields and fail during sending.

Example: emailAddresses might look like test@gmail.com ,,,,,,

To resolve this, we need to check if there are values in each field we want to pull an email address from and only add those fields to the collection instead of blank values:

Text Templates

EmailTemplateRT

This is the Rich Text Template where we’ll store some default text, formatting, images:

Note: Extra carriage returns in the rich text seem to appear as ? in the email, so delete any extra spaces in front of your text.

To add the image, I had to switch to Classic, upload the image to a public folder and check Externally Available Image. 

Right click on the image (don’t open in a new tab) and copy the address into the Flow Text Template <img src=””> code in Plain Text and the image appears when switching back to Rich Text and when the email is sent:

Note: It doesn’t look like Text Templates work with Files or uploading images to the Rich Text template – at least not for the purposes of sending an email:

EmailTemplateUpdated

This is the template that we will actually use in the “Send Better Email” Apex action. We’ll paste the variable from the Edit Email Screen into the body:

Rich Text side:

Plain Text side. Remove any html tags:

EmailTemplatePT

I’m not currently using this, but it’s just a Plain Text version of the template that can be included in the  “Send Better Email” Apex action:

Email Preview Screen

Now, we set up our email edit screen. Drag the inputRichTextFSC component:

Rich Text Value is where we’ll reference our Text Template

I added a note to the Screen about not using the Image icon on the Rich Text Editor to add images because they won’t be included when the email is sent. I don’t see any way to hide this, so I wanted to provide a warning:

File Upload

To upload files to the email, drag the File Upload component to the screen:

File Upload Settings: 

• Related Record ID – The record where this file will be uploaded. In this case, I pulled the record Id from the initial Get Account element
• Allow Multiple Files – Set to True to attach multiple files

Setting the Attachments to Variables

contentDocumentLinksGet1

We need to get our files that were uploaded in the form of Content Document Links in order to include them in the rich text email using SendBetterEmail. A caveat for this is that in order to use this functionality, the Content Document Link query must be filtered like: 

• By ContentDocumentId OR LinkedEntityId using the Equals operator or multiple Id’s using the IN operator. 
  • You cannot use the Contains operator or any other in this filter.

Failing to filter correctly, will result in the following error when you try to send the email: 

“This error occurred when the flow tried to look up records: Implementation restriction: ContentDocumentLink requires a filter by a single Id on ContentDocumentId or LinkedEntityId using the equals operator or multiple Id’s using the IN operator.”

How to filter using the IN Operator? 

Set a Loop element to pull in the collection from contentDocumentLinksGet1. We only want to attach the Files that are uploaded during this Screen Flow to the email, not every File attached to the record, so we have to do some filtering.

Decision: Is Content Document Link part of the File Upload?

The File Upload record is not the same as a Content Document Link, but it does collect the Content Document and Content Document Links. When we attach a file or multiple files, File Upload sets a few variables:

• contentDocIds – Id to the Content Document of the File(s)
• contentVersionIds – sets the version of the File(s)
• recordId – the record where the File will live. It’s a Project record in this case. 

Querying for the Content Document Link gets a little weird because it’s not set as a variable in the File Upload. 

1. Check if the Content Document Ids from the File Upload variable match the Content Document Id in our current Content Document Link in the loop.
   1. Conditions: {!AttachFile.contentDocIds} CONTAINS {!Loop_through_Content_Document_Links.ContentDocumentId}

If this is true, then we want this record.

contentDocumentLinksGet2 

Under normal circumstances, DON’T DO THIS. It’s a bad practice to add DML statements and/or queries within Loops as it’s likely to cause the Flow to fail due to governor limits being reached (CPU errors, max SOQL queries reached, etc). In this case, we’re only looping through a few records that we’ll be attaching to an email. It’s also the only way I can think to get the Content Document Link records from the File Upload. 

Again, we need to follow the specific filtering for getting Content Document Links:

Add the current Content Document Link to the record collection that we’ll use in our “Send Better Email” Apex action. 

Note: Per discussion on UnofficialSF page for the SendBetterEmail component, this collection variable MUST be named contentDocumentLinks:

“Send Better Email” Apex action

After the last loop, we send the email. The “Send Better Email” Apex action is effective, but very sensitive to the variables you give it. 

You can send one email (Standard) or Mass Email. In this example, we just want to send one email to multiple recipients. 

Add the Recipients to the Set Addresses section. For Search Existing Flow resources, select String Collection and select our emailAddresses collection variable:

Subject and Body

1. Set the Email Subject. This can be from a Text Template, Variable, etc or just typed in.
2. Set the Email Body. Check Specify Body here since we’re using a Text Template and not an actual Email Template. Set HTML Body to the EmailTemplateUpdated Text Template.

Recipients & Recipient-Related Records

• Related Record Id: The record we’re pulling fields from and uploading the file to

Attachments

• Set to our contentDocumentLinks collection variable

• Q: Why do we have a template within a template? 
• A: Sending using the edited template directly causes weird artifacts to appear in the email:

Note: The functionality shown in this post currently requires that orgs be enabled for the Reactive Screens pilot.

QuickQuery works with data presentation components like Datatable and FlexCard to provide innovative, easy-to-use List View solutions. Let’s take a look:

Here, we’re looking at a screen flow on a record page. The screen being shown has a QuickQuery component on top and a Datatable component below:

You start by selecting the object you want to work with:

For each column that you’re currently showing, a ‘Filter Button’ appears. Use those to create fast filters, like this:

As you can see above, as soon as the filter expression is created, QuickQuery immediately runs a new query and passes the results to one of its outputs. In this Flow screen, the Datatable component is configured to take that output as an input. Because Reactive Screens is enabled on this org, the Datatable immediately updates to show the filtered results.

Columns and Sorting

Click the gear icon to choose the visible columns and set the sort order:

Creating, Updating and Using Views

A QuickQuery View consists of the Column and Sorting choices, plus the Filter Expressions. You can persist a view by clicking Save view:

Doing this will create or update a set of 3 records:

A FlowTableViewDefinition record stores information about columns, sorting and other table configuration data. This is used for Datatables in general and isn’t specific to Query Query.

A QuickQueryConfiguration record combines a reference to a FlowTableViewDefinition with configuration information specific to this component, such as which object is selected.

A FlowPersonalConfiguration record ties the QuickQueryConfiguration to a User ID. This ensures that when you load this component, you’ll only see the views you created, and not someone else’s view.

Exporting to CSV

An Export to CSV button has been added to QuickQuery to provide an easy way to quickly export sets of records

If you wire the output of a supported data component up to the input of QuickQuery, you can use the Export to CSV function by clicking on that button. Note that in order to make this work, you need to wire the output of the Datatable back into the input of Quick Query, so the Export button knows which records to export.

Wiring up the Pieces

Taking advantage of reactivity is all about wiring the right outputs to the right inputs. Learn more about reactive wiring here.

How it Works

QuickQuery takes the following inputs:

objectName	allows you to preset the object that the component is set to when it first loads
quickRecordViewId	Quick Record Views are saved as records and can be retrieved. If you pass in the id of a Quick Record View, it will be loaded automatically when the component loads.
recordDataStringAll
recordDataStringSelected

Installation:

Step 1: Install prerequisite extensions

Install Screen Components Base Pack and Action Base Pack version 3.0.6 or higher for Screen Components, and version 3.0 or higher for Actions

Install Datatable 4.0.3 or Later

Install Collection Actions 3.0.0 or Later

This component uses the Upsert and Get Records From Ids actions, found in the Collection Actions package to save changes to the view configuration

Step 2: Install this QuickQuery package.

Version 3.01 5/20-22 Initial Release

Old Release

Version 1.0 3-13-22 Initial Release

Step 3 (Optional): Add the Quick Query Deployment flow to a Lightning Page

This package comes with a sample flow “Quick Query Deployment” that can be added to pages. Here, I’ve added it to a Home Page by adding the Flow component and pointing it at Quick Query Deployment flow:

Here’s what that looks like when the page is loaded:

At this point, you should be able to select an Object and see the results show up automatically. If no results are displayed, verify again that your org has the Reactive Screens pilot turned on!

View Source

source

Developer Notes

Several new custom objects have been defined as part of this project:

QuickQueryConfiguration

QuickQueryConfiguration is specific to QuickQuery. It encapsulates the settings specific to a particular object. When you select an object in the object picker, its QuickQueryConfiguration is accessed to determine the current filter settings and the underlying FlowTableViewDefinition

FlowTableViewDefinition

This is a renamed version of the ers_DatabaseConfiguration object that was created for Datatable by Eric Smith. The purpose of this object is to define a table view, including things like the columns and their sort order. We anticipate that FlowTableViewDefinition can be used as a common standard across Flow extensions by anyone working with views. Note that this object is actually defined in Flow ScreenComponents Base Pack.

FlowPersonalConfiguration

The goal of this object is to provide a common way to allow individuals to personalize their experience. In the example below, a particular User, reflected by the general Actor ID, is linked to a particular QuickQueryConfigurationName (shown as an id here):

When QuickQuery initializes, it wants to start with the configuration last used by the user that’s running. So it queries to see if there’s a FlowPersonalConfiguration for the running User. If it finds one, it looks to see if any of the 10 available keys match what QuickQuery uses. If it finds one, as is the case above, it will load that particular QuickQueryConfiguration. This mechanism is designed to be used by multiple products. Basically, any product can query for FlowPersonalConfiguration and store configuration values in available ‘slots’. . Note that this object is actually defined in Flow ScreenComponents Base Pack.