Canvas Apps in the Chatter Feed

Canvas enables you to expose your canvas apps as feed items. The feed gives users information about what’s happening inside of Salesforce and information about records and groups they’re following.

When you create a canvas app Chatter feed item, it contains a thumbnail image, a link title, and a description. In Salesforce Classic, when the user clicks on the link or the description, the canvas app opens up in the feed. If the user clicks the link again, the content is collapsed, giving users a seamless experience for working in their feed. In Lightning Experience, when the user clicks on the link or the description, the user is redirected to a dedicated canvas app page.

For example, you might have a canvas app that allows a user to log their hours worked. You can now programmatically create a feed item that displays a canvas app which shows the user their currently logged hours.

In addition, the feed item could display actions depending on the current user. So the canvas app could then post a feed item to the user’s manager, and the manager could approve or deny the hours logged. Since the content is served from the canvas app, the developer has full control over the behavior.