In this mini series of posts, become familiar with FlexCards, the hidden đź’Ž jewel of OmniStudio.
OmniStudio and Public Sector Solutions (PSS) have a lot of moving parts. To be honest, I’ve been intimidated by learning it all at once. Becoming comfortable with FlexCards will take a bite out of the elephant while giving you very valuable, practical skills that you can use in your apps. It’s also a gateway skill for learning the rest of OmniStudio.
This series will present you with my thought process for creating FlexCards and provide design patterns you can follow for your own apps.
- My Philosophy
- What are FlexCards?
- How Do I Build FlexCards? The Thought Process
- FlexCard Design Patterns & Examples
My Philosophy
Mitch, are you converting from a Flow guy to an OmniStudio guy? Do we need to hold an intervention?? I’m fine, thanks for asking. No, I’m still a HUGE believer that Flow is a key element of the future.
My philosophy is this: everything is a tool in the Salesforce toolbox. When a tool is right for the job, use it; when it’s not, find the one that is.
The future will require purists of all kinds to adopt a hybrid approach. For example, I currently use FlexCards to display data and buttons, the buttons open OmniScripts, and then record-triggered flows handle all automations, conditional/logical decisions and changes, etc. in a single place.
So pinky promise yourself right now that you will build one little FlexCard. Just one, to try it out. What’s the worst that can happen?
What are FlexCards?
Per Trailhead, FlexCards “display contextual information and actions in an at-a-glance format for customer account data”. But a simpler definition is this: FlexCards are a declarative way to create Lightning components.
You can use them to display data in an optimized way, rather than looking at standard record details, list views, and related lists. You can put data and action buttons exactly where the user needs them to be.
You create cards with a drag-and-drop, configurable builder tool that provides you with complete control over how they look and behave. You can even set conditions on any element in your card so that certain content, buttons, and styling only appear when desired.
FlexCards can be embedded in one another to create more complex cards. You can also embed them in OmniScripts.
To display data in a FlexCard, you have to feed it data. There are several methods for doing this but as a beginner, I almost exclusively use DataRaptors to work with Salesforce data.
FlexCards are also actionable. Add links to navigate to other records, pages, or URLs. Add buttons to open up OmniScripts, LWCs, or even other FlexCards.
Use FlexCards in both internal apps and Experience Cloud sites.
If you learn FlexCards, it’s a stepping stone on the journey to learning OmniScript and the rest of OmniStudio.
This Old Cloud 
Always one uping yourself! Love this Mitch.
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