Understanding Agentforce: Choosing the Right Custom Action

 When building an agent in Agentforce, you can use many different actions to help your system think, find information, and complete tasks. Each action has its own purpose, level of skill needed, and licensing requirements. In this article, we will walk through each option in clear, simple language so you can decide what fits your project best.

1. Prompt Template

What it does:

A prompt template lets the agent ask a large language model (LLM) for an answer. This is one of the ways an agent can use Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG).

When to use:

When the agent needs to create or rewrite text

When you want the LLM to reason or answer based on instructions or retrieved details

Skill level: Low-code

Extra license needed? Yes

2. Flow

What it does:

Flow actions let your agent run low-code, rule-based steps. It can also look up records from Salesforce automatically.

When to use:

When you want simple automation

When you need to follow business rules

When pulling data stored in Salesforce

Skill level: Low-code

Extra license needed? No

3. Apex Code

What it does:

Apex code actions use pro-code logic.

This is the best option for complex rules or custom record operations.

When to use:

When low-code tools are not enough

When you need detailed control or special logic

Skill level: Pro-code

Extra license needed? No

4. MuleSoft API

What it does:

MuleSoft API actions connect your agent to older systems or complicated applications inside a large company.

When to use:

When data lives outside Salesforce

When your environment has many legacy systems

Skill level: Pro-code

Extra license needed? Yes

5. External Service

What it does:

This option connects to REST APIs that follow OpenAPI standards.

When to use:

When you want to pull information from a modern REST API

When you need a quick, low-code integration

Skill level: Low-code

Extra license needed? Yes

6. Predictive Model

What it does:

A predictive model lets your agent use AI to forecast or score information.

When to use:

When you want the agent to make predictions

When scoring or classification is useful

Skill level: Low-code

Extra license needed? Yes