Use custom process actions

Custom process actions, also known as Custom actions, or just actions open a range of possibilities for composing business logic. With custom process actions, you can perform operations, such as Create, Update, Delete, Assign, or Perform Action. Internally, a custom process action creates a custom message. Developers refer to these actions as messages. If the goal of a process is to create a row, then update it, and then assign it, there are three separate steps. Each step is defined by the capabilities of the table—not necessarily your business process.

Custom process actions let you define a single verb (or message) that matches an operation you need to perform for your business. These new messages are driven by a process or behavior rather than what can be done with a table. These messages can correspond to verbs like Escalate, Convert, Schedule, Route, or Approve—whatever you need. The addition of these verbs helps provide a richer vocabulary for you to fluently define your business processes. You can apply this richer vocabulary from clients or integrations rather than having to write the action within clients. This also makes it easier because you can manage and log the success or failure of the entire action as a single unit.

Configurable messages

Once an action is defined and activated, a developer can use that message like any of the other messages provided by the platform. However, a significant difference is that now someone who isn't a developer can apply changes to what should be done when that message is used. You can configure the action to modify steps as your business processes change. Any custom code that uses that message doesn't need to be changed as long as the process arguments don't change.

Workflow processes and plug-ins continue to provide similar capabilities for defining automation. Workflow processes still provide the capability for a nondeveloper to apply changes. But the difference is in how the business processes are composed and how a developer can write their code. A custom process action is a message that operates on the same level as any of the messages provided by the platform. Developers can register plug-ins for actions.

Global messages

Unlike Microsoft Dataverse workflows or plug-ins, a custom process action doesn’t have to be associated with a specific table. You can define global custom process actions that can be called on their own.

Next steps

Create a custom process action