With each new release lately the Salesforce Flow team has been bringing some amazing features. I am really excited about the introduction of HTTP Callout (Beta) in Spring 23′. It really starts to open up the possibility of more resources for admins to start doing more with clicks and not code. This allows an admin directly inside of flow to make an HTTP Callout to perform a Get on an external system previously this would require either an invocable apex action or an external service be created in Salesforce.

Andy and I took sometime over the last couple of weeks to test it out and you can see our video here to see our discussion and brief demo but let’s take a deep dive walkthrough on how we configured it and the steps to take. For this testing and demonstration we found a simple api that has a free use tier that allows for a set number of callouts to validate a phone number and return validation information you can find more on Api Layer and the documentation here.

Before you can create an HTTP Callout you first need to create a what’s called a Named Credential a Named Credential is what Salesforce uses to validate you are able to use the external service you are making the call to.

1️⃣ In Setup go to Named Credentials

2️⃣ Click on External Credentials then click on New

(Yes we are doing this before creating our Named Credential because we are going to use it in our Named Credential.)

3️⃣ Enter the initial details for your External Credential

4️⃣ After hitting save scroll down on the new External Credential until you see Principals and click on New

5️⃣ Enter in your Principal details this is what the API service will use to authenticate

6️⃣ Click on New in Custom Headers and we are going to create the header to pass through our authentication

7️⃣ Create one more header to set how to accept the data from the api service

8️⃣ Go to the Named Credentials tab and click on New

9️⃣ Enter the details of your Named Credential and click save

🔟 Allow users the use the External Credential. I created a permission set to handle permissions.

1️⃣1️⃣ New Fields

I created 2 fields on the Lead Object Phone_Number_Details__c a rich text field to hold the information about the phone number that will get returned in the callout and I also created a checkbox field called Phone_Number_Validated__c that is checked true or false if a phone number has been validated in the service

1️⃣2️⃣ Let’s make a flow

In this example I am using a record-triggered flow that will fire when a lead is created. I set two conditions on Phone to make sure this fires only when there is a value in the Phone field. I also marked it to include an Asynchronous path since we can only make a callout Asynchronously.

On the asynchronous path click on the “+” and then add an action

After clicking on action a modal will pop up and you will want to scroll down to the bottom of the left panel and click on “Create HTTP Callout (Beta)”

Next fill out the details for the HTTP Callout Action you are creating the name is all one word no special characters or spaces, make sure to add a description because you will be able to reuse this in other flows without a need to create a new one so make it easier on other admins, devs and your predecessors so they know what it does, and finally choose the named credential you created in Step 1.

On the next screen we want to give it another label and description along with setting our Method which in the beta is only GET which means we can only retrieve data from an external service. Optionally, we can set a URL Path to ‘/validate’ as specified in our API documentation for the desired service action. We’ll also set Query Parameters ‘apikey’ and ‘number’, both strings as defined in the API docs, making them required to avoid call failure. The task is to give an example of what a successful json response will look like. Once again we get this from our API Documentation. After you paste your example click review and you should see the data structure on the right click done.

1️⃣3️⃣ Configure the new action you created.

Give it a name and description like all best practices. In the apikey input I am referencing the label I created in step 3 using the global variable for label. In the number field I am referencing the phone file using the Record Variable from the lead

1️⃣4️⃣ Almost done

I created a text template to populate the Phone Details Field I created. In the text template I am referencing the outputs from my service I just created. It will create what’s called an Apex Defined Variable I can reference specific pieces of data.

1️⃣5️⃣ Update the Lead

Here I am updating the Lead Record that is my Triggering Record updating the Phone Validated and Phone Detail fields.

1️⃣6️⃣ Debug, Validate, Activate, Deploy

Next up debug your flow. Make sure you set to debug on the asynchronous path and review your debug details. Validate it is doing what you expect. Once it’s validated activate your flow and deploy it 🙂

1️⃣7️⃣ Take a deep breath exhale, pat yourself on the back. Put on your superhero cape, and enjoy your drink of choice

Views and opinions in this article are my own and do not represent that of Salesforce.

Thanks for reading.

This guest post was penned by Josh Dayment.

Note: To watch the demo on Youtube, click below.

To read about the HTTP Callout POST method, click here.

HTTP Callout in Salesforce Summer 23 – POST – 1/3