Flow Screen Fields

All Flow Screen Components that appear in the Screen Builder are written using Lightning technology, but there are actually 4 variations of that technology.

Traditional (aka ‘Standard’ or ‘Native’) Field Components
These are the fields that existed before Flow gained the ability to host Lightning Components. Note that, although we call them Native in the image above, if you look under the hood, these native components are also written in Aura code. Technically, all of this is Lightning. However, the Traditional components don’t use the custom Lightning Flow Screen Component tools.

Traditional Fields are currently distinguished by the fact that they have custom mini-icons and customized property editors. (These features are on the roadmap to be available to the other types of components.)

‘OOTB’ Aura Field Components
OOTB stands for Out Of The Box, and refers to components that are written using the custom Lightning Flow Screen Component tools. This is the interface that allows non-Salesforce employees to build custom Flow Screen Components. The internal development team has built many recent new components (Dependent Picklist, Email, Name, Address, Phone, Slider, Toggle, URL) using this interface.

OOTB components are distinguished currently by living in the Input section of the Screen Components palette in Screen Builder, but featuring a lightning bolt mini-icon.

‘OOTB’ LWC Field Components
The most recent OOTB component, Lookup, was written in Lightning Web Components instead of Aura. We expect future components to use LWC, which is the preferred, modern, high performance way to build Flow Screen Components

‘Custom’ Aura and LWC Field Components
As a user, you can build your own Flow Screen Components and also install FSC’s built by other members of the Flowhana. Most of the existing FSC’s have been built using Aura technology, but an increasing number are being built using LWC technology. These components show up in the Custom section of the Screen Components palette in Screen Builder.