Business Events
Looking for Events like Conferences?
This section is about platform events. Head over to Events if you are looking for "events" like conferences and webinars.
Business Events make it simple for app builders and administrators to use declarative tools to react to common system actions and activities. For example, rather than building elaborate triggering criteria for when a process should execute, wouldn't it be convenient if the triggering criteria could just be a simple, predefined platform event? This prevents repetitive setup across multiple processes and makes it simpler for non-technical users, abstracting out the complicated condition building in a process. Now, they can just ask, "What do I want to have happen when the complicated thing happens?" This also empowers app builders and admins to trigger processes in a powerful new way: time-based events that trigger when date and time fields elapse!
What is a "Process"?
Unless specifically called out, when the term "process" is used in the content of Business Events, we are referring specifically to a process built using Salesforce Process Builder. Learn more about Process Builder on Trailhead: Automate Simple Business Processes with Process Builder
When creating a process, you can select A platform event occurs. This tool takes full advantage of this powerful, often-overlooked feature of Process Builder.
For more info on processes using platform events from a Salesforce perspective, check out their Winter '18 release notes, when they introduced the feature: Start a Process When a Platform Event Occurs
Benefits
There are many benefits to adopting platform events in your org:
- Business events make processes accessible to admins at any level of experience. They can simply select the platform event rather than build out intricate conditions with formulas or multiple filters.
It massively extends what you can automate because you can now go beyond the A record changes entry criteria for a process: you can react to time-based changes! For example, if a membership ends, that is a date field that doesn't trigger anything... until now. A platform event can now listen for that event happening, and then trigger a process, such as firing off an email to the constituent.
- It reduces the frustration of troubleshooting a process via trial and error. Platform event configuration gives you feedback with a single click to ensure your syntax is correct.
- It can reduce project time and support time, and also make customizations in your org more consistent because of the reusable nature of platform events.
Extension Points
With the initial release of the Business Events Framework in Spring '19, we are providing ten business events. Over time, we plan to open the framework so that developer/services can create their own business events. This ensures that we have a smooth transition as we introduce the feature and can safely monitor performance in orgs using platform events.
Next Steps
- Admins: Enable Business Events so your staff can use them.
- Staff: Learn how to Use Business Events to greatly simplify your existing processes or create new ones.