Force.com Apex Code Developer's Guide

Getting Started
Writing Apex
Ways to Invoke Apex
Invoking Apex
Apex Transactions and Governor Limits
Using Salesforce Features with Apex
Actions
Approval Processing
Chatter Answers and Ideas
Chatter in Apex
Moderate Chatter Private Messages with Triggers
Communities
Email
Salesforce Knowledge
Lightning Connect
Salesforce1 Reporting API via Apex
Force.com Sites
Support Classes
Territory Management 2.0
Visual Workflow
Getting Flow Variables
Passing Data to a Flow Using the Process.Plugin Interface
Implementing the Process.Plugin Interface
Using the Process.PluginRequest Class
Using the Process.PluginResult Class
Using the Process.PluginDescribeResult Class
Process.Plugin Data Type Conversions
Sample Process.Plugin Implementation for Lead Conversion
Integration and Apex Utilities
Finishing Touches
Reference
Appendices
Glossary
PDF

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Passing Data to a Flow Using the Process.Plugin Interface

Process.Plugin is a built-in interface that allows you to process data within your organization and pass it to a specified flow. The interface exposes Apex as a service, which accepts input values and returns output back to the flow.

We recommend using the @InvocableMethod annotation instead of the Process.Plugin interface.

  • The interface doesn’t support Blob, Collection, sObject, and Time data types, and it doesn’t support bulk operations. Once you implement the interface on a class, the class can be referenced only from flows.
  • The annotation supports all data types and bulk operations. Once you implement the annotation on a class, the class can be referenced from flows, processes, and the Custom Invocable Actions REST API endpoint.

Tip

When you define an Apex class that implements the Process.Plugin interface in your organization, the Cloud Flow Designer displays the Apex class in the Palette.

Process.Plugin has these top-level classes.
  • Process.PluginRequest passes input parameters from the class that implements the interface to the flow.
  • Process.PluginResult returns output parameters from the class that implements the interface to the flow.
  • Process.PluginDescribeResult passes input parameters from a flow to the class that implements the interface. This class determines the input parameters and output parameters needed by the Process.PluginResult plug-in.

When you write Apex unit tests, instantiate a class and pass it into the interface invoke method. To pass in the parameters that the system needs, create a map and use it in the constructor. For more information, see Using the Process.PluginRequest Class.