Collection Actions for Flow (Sort, Filter, Find, Join, Map, and more)
This Post was most recently updated on: 10/3/21
Current Version: 1.31
This package contains new Flow actions that are designed to manipulate any SObject or collection of SObjects. This means that in one Flow you might use them with a collection of Accounts and in another flow a collection of Leads.
Install Current Version
Installation links at the bottom of this page.
Updates
New! 10/3/21 – Eric Smith – Added support to Map Collection for mapping numeric fields
6/21/21: Now includes a Permission Set for all Apex Classes in the Collection (USF Flow Action – Collection Actions)
5/23/21: CollectionCalculate
4/22/21: Dedupe Record Collection
2/3/21: Compare Record Collections
Notes on Dynamic Inputs
Keep in mind that you can insert mergefields as dynamic inputs in these actions. A mergefield takes the form of a reference name surrounded by braces and an exlamation point: {!myUpstreamVar}. So for example, you can use Map Collection like this:
“Rating” : “Warm”, “Industry” : “Banking“
or like this:
“Rating” : “Warm”, “Industry” : “{!myUpstreamVar}“
To get the syntax right, use this rule: Flow Builder will replace everything between braces before passing the inputs to the invocable action.
Add or Insert Record
Takes as input a collection of records and a single record, and an optional index value. Returns the combined collection. If the index value is specified and is less than the length of the inputCollection, the
Inputs
List<SObject> inputCollection;
SObject inputRecord
Integer index
Outputs
List<SObject> outputCollection;
Collection Calculate
Allows Add, Multply, and Average aggregate operations across a collection of records.
Copy Collection
Takes as input a collection of records and returns the collection as output, allowing a new variable or reference to have the same value
Inputs
List<SObject> inputCollection;
Outputs
List<SObject> outputCollection;
Count Records And Fields
Takes a collection of records and returns a count. Optionally also takes a field name and a field value, and then also counts the number of records that have that particular value for that particular field. Returns both the number of matches and the total number of records. Added in V
Inputs
List<SObject> inputCollection;
String fieldName;
String fieldValue;
Outputs
Integer totalNumber
Integer matchedNumber
String errors
Dedupe Record Collection
Returns a set of de-duped records based on the field you specify. More Information
DeepClone
Clones a record and one or more sets of its child related records. More Information
Extract Strings From Collection (with Dedupe)
Takes a collection and a field name, and returns a list of strings reflecting the values of those fields for the records. For example, if you pass in a list of Contacts and a fieldName of “Id”, you’ll get back a list of recordIds for the contacts.
Features
- Extract a text collection or comma-separated string of any field for each record in a Record Collection
- Particularly useful for Ids, Picklists, Multi-select picklists
- Optionally de-dupe the values returned from all of the records.
- Supports Multi-select picklists across all records in the collection
- Useful when paired with the new AddQuotesToFields and ExecuteSOQL actions to pass in a set of strings wrapped in quotes
- Ex.
Select Name, Email from Contact where Id in (‘003023044333sDl’, ‘003023044333sKF’)
- inputRecordCollection
- List of records to extract field values from
- fieldAPIName;
- API Name of the field you want returned
- dedupeValues;
- If true only unique values will be returned. The default value is true
- fieldValueCollection
- Extracted fields in a text collection
- fieldValueString;
- Extracted fields in a comma-separated text variable
Filter Collection
Filters a collection against a formula string which can be created by an included Expression Builder Flow Screen Component.
Inputs
List<SObject> inputCollection;
String formula;
Outputs
String errors;
List<SObject> outputCollection;
Details
For each member of the inputCollection, this action will evaluate the provided formula and add the member to the outputCollection if the formula is true.
The formula must be a string that can be processed by the Salesforce formula engine. The actual engine that evaluates this string is written in Apex and is included in the Collection Processors package.
It will use the recordId of the current member as context, replacing expressions in the formula string of the form $Record.fieldname. For example, if the formula is ‘$Record.Age__c > 21’ and the input Collection is a collection of Student__c, the evaluator will do the following:
Loop through the collection of Student records. For each record:
- use its ID and retrieve the record
- retrieve the values of any fields present in the formula string
- use the formula evaluator to evaluate the formula
- If the formula evaluates to true, add the current record to the output collection
Also see ‘Notes on Dynamic Inputs‘ at the top of this post.
Find Record in Collection
Returns all records from the inputCollection that have a field with name targetField that has a value of targetValue. Pass in the name of the object in targetObject (for example, if the inputCollection is a List of Contacts, set targetObject to Contact. There’s probably a way to determine this automatically but it’s not implemented in the action at this time). If there’s just a single result, the result is returned as singleOutputMember. Otherwise it’s returned as multipleOutputMembers. Version 1.20+: MultipleOutputMembers returns null if there are no results
Inputs
List<SObject> inputCollection;
String targetObject
String targetField
String targetValue
Outputs
SObject singleOutputMember;
List<SObject> multipleOutputMembers
Find Common and Uncommon Records
Compares & Contrats two record collections – even different sObject Types!
Generate Collection Report
Given a collection and a comma-separated list of field names, generates a string that includes all of the field values for every member of the collection. There are now two modes you can use. displayMode ‘simple’ simply throws the information out in simple groups. Useful for some debugging. displayMode ‘table’ generates HTML table markup that’s great for insertion into emails:
For full information on this action, see this post.
Inputs
| List<SObject> inputCollection; | ||
| String shownFields | a comma-separated list of the fields you want to show in the table. Make sure to use the full api names, including ‘__c’ for custom fields. | |
| displayMode | ‘simple’ or ‘table’. defaults to simple | |
| tableStyleString | will be inserted into the table html as a style attribute: <table style=”[tableStyleString]”> | |
| headerStyleString | will be inserted into the <th> tags as a style attribute | |
| rowStyleString | will be inserted into individual row tags (<tr>) as a style attribute | |
| showHeader | Boolean |
Outputs
String reportString
Get Child Collection
Takes a record and returns a specified collection of child records related to the input record.
Pass in either a record or a recordID (as a string), but not both. Specify the childRelationshipName, which should be the name of the child Object. Example. If you have an Opportunity and want to retrieve all of the OpportunityContactRoles associated with the input, specify a childRelationshipName of OpportunityContactRole. Note that this should also be specified as the Output Collection.
In childRecordFieldsCSV, specify the fields you want returned as a comma-delimited string. Example: Id,Name
For more information, see https://unofficialsf.com/automate-junction-updates-with-getchildcollection-and-getlookupcollection/
Inputs
SObject inputRecord;
String inputRecordId;
String childRelationshipName;
String childRecordFieldsCSV;
Outputs
List<SObject> childCollection;
String errorText;
Get First
Returns the first member of the inputCollection. The inputCollection is not modified by this action. Make sure that the types of your inputCollection and outputMember match.
Inputs
List<SObject> inputCollection;
Outputs
SObject outputMember;
Get Lookup Collection
Takes a collection of records and the name of an object related via a Lookup, and returns a collection of objects.
Pass in either a collection of records or a collection of string record ID’s. Pass in the name of the related object. Example: You start with a collection of OpportunityContactRoles and you want to get the Contacts associated with your OpportunityContactRoles via the ContactId Lookup field. In this case you would set lookupObjectName to Contact.
In lookupRecordFieldsCSV, specify the fields you want returned as a comma-delimited string. Example: Id,Name
For more information, see https://unofficialsf.com/automate-junction-updates-with-getchildcollection-and-getlookupcollection/
Inputs
List<SObject> inputCollection;
List<String> inputIds;
String lookupRecordFieldsCSV;
String lookupObjectName;
Outputs
List<SObject> lookupCollection;
String errorText;
Get Records from Ids
The Collection Actions package of utility actions now has a new action that takes a collection of recordIds (i.e. a List of Strings) and returns the corresponding records. It carries out a SOQL query and obtains the fields that you specify by name.
Join Collections
Takes two collections (of the same type, please!) and returns their union as a single collection.
Inputs
List<SObject> inputCollection1;
List<SObject> inputCollection2;
Outputs
List<SObject> outputCollection;
Map Collection
Takes a collection and a set of key value pairs. Example:
“Rating” : “Warm”, “Industry” : “Banking“
Goes through the collection and changes each field with a name matching the key to the specified value.
Note that dynamic inputs are supported: “Rating” : “Warm”, “Industry” : “{!myUpstreamVar}“. See above for more.
NOTE: this currently only works for string values.
Inputs
List<SObject> inputCollection;
String keyValuePairs;
Outputs
List<SObject> outputCollection;
String errors;
Remove Record from Collection
Takes a collection and an index integer. Uses the Apex List class remove method to remove the member of the collection at the index location.
Inputs
List<SObject> inputCollection;
Integer index;
Outputs
List<SObject> outputCollection;
Sort Collection
Takes a collection and a sortKeys string formatted as key value pairs (example:
“Name”:”ASC”,”Rating”:”Warm”
Known Issues:
1. Picklist fields are not supported.
2. If some of the records in your collection have a blank value for the field you’re sorting on, it will display the blank ones first no matter which direction you sort
3. The sorting priority is reversed from what I would have thought. It sorts first on the last key pair and then works backwards to the first.
Inputs
List<SObject> inputCollection;
String sortKeys;
Outputs
List<SObject> outputCollection;
Upsert
Upsert will either save or update a collection, depending on whether the collection already has ID’s
For more info, see https://unofficialsf.com/create-or-update-with-the-new-upsertrecords-action/
Discuss Additions, Changes, Improvements, Requests
Thinking of a great addition to this package? Propose it at https://quip.com/6jg3AyrUEFnw/Collaboration-Sheet-for-Flow-Collection-Processors
Installation
Install Prerequisites
Before installing this component you need to have on your org the Screen Component and Action Base Packs.
Install that here.
1.31 Unmanaged (adds support to Map Collection for mapping numeric fields )
(If installing to a sandbox, change ‘login’ to ‘test’ in the install URL above)
Old Versions
1.30 Unmanaged (bug fix)
1.29 Unmanaged (adds permission set 6-19-21)
1.28 Unmanaged (adds CollectionCalculate 5-23-21)
1.27 Unlocked (add Dedupe Records)
1.25 Unlocked (add Get Records from Ids 3-8)
1.23 Unlocked (add Find Uncommon and Common 2-13)
1.20.2 Unlocked (some bug fixes)
1.20.1 Unlocked (adds bulkification to remaining unbulkified actions)
1.19.3 Unmanaged (fix bug in Generate Collection Report)