About Custom Actions

Object-specific custom actions invoke Lightning components, flows, Visualforce pages, or canvas apps that let users interact with or create records that have a relationship to an object record. The Visualforce page for an object-specific custom action must include the standard controller for the relevant object. For example, use the standard contact controller to create a custom action that lets users import a contact’s Twitter profile and add that information to a contact record.

Use a Visualforce page, Lightning component, or a canvas app to create global custom actions for tasks that don’t require users to use records that have a relationship to a specific object. Canvas apps that you want to use as custom actions require Publisher as a location. To call Lightning components from custom actions, you must have My Domain deployed in your org. Visualforce pages that you want to use as global custom actions can’t use standard controllers. For example, you want a custom action that lets users enter a street address and see a map, the local time, and the local weather. For this action, create a Visualforce page that doesn’t use any of the standard controllers, and add it as a custom global action.

We can’t create custom actions with point-and-click, so we won’t be working with them in our administrator exercises. If you want to find out more about custom actions, see Adding Functionality with Visualforce Custom Actions.