Example Use Cases

Connect to a credit service.

To illustrate how External Services work, let’s say you want to connect Salesforce to an external credit service. The credit service determines if credit can be extended to a Salesforce account. You also want to know the payment terms.

First, you create a Named Credential by supplying a URL and authentication settings for the credit service. Salesforce uses these items to make callouts to the external service. With External Services, you then select whether you get your API spec from Mulesoft Anypoint Platform, or from an API spec provided elsewhere. To register an API spec:

• Enter a URL (or endpoint) to the location of the hosted OpenAPI specification (”API spec”) for the external service, or provide (paste in) the complete schema from the API spec. For Mulesoft, provide your credentials and select the API spec.
• Select the operations from the schema you want to make available in Salesforce as invocable actions, and complete the registration.

External Services walks you through it so that you don’t directly touch the API. You can also skip writing Apex code to make the callout.

After you’ve registered your new external service, use a Salesforce point-and-click automation tool, such as Flow Builder or Einstein Bots. Create a flow using the External Service type for flow actions automatically generated from your External Services registration. When the flow runs, the output contains the credit decision and, if applicable, payment terms.

Automatically add a new org user to external applications.

Another use case involves saving time when you add new users to an org. For instance, you want new users to automatically become collaborators for all external org-related applications. Create a flow using inputs such as user ID, which you can define in your API spec’s schema. Then you add triggers in your flow. When a user is created, the triggers engage and add the new user as a collaborator to your other applications.

Send alerts to an external application with Apex.

If your business logic requires more tailored processing needs, you can easily extend the reach of your Apex logic to external integrations conforming to OpenAPI specifications. You can extend Apex with synchronous or asynchronous calls to a registered external service. In one use case, a detailed alert is sent to a third-party application if an urgent case is opened.