Agentforce subagents, agent actions and flow automation
How Agentforce agents automate business processes: subagents (formerly topics), the Agent Router, agent actions that call autolaunched flows, prompt templates or invocable Apex, action settings, standard assets, billing, template-triggered prompt flows, Omni-Channel routing, and drafting flows with Agentforce in Flow Builder.
Describe the capabilities and use cases for using Agentforce to automate business processes.
~8 min read · 12 practice questions ·
What the exam expects
- Describe an Agentforce agent in current terms: subagents (formerly topics), instructions, actions and the Agent Router, in the new Agentforce Builder versus the legacy builder.
- Decide what belongs in an agent action (an autolaunched flow, prompt template or invocable Apex) and what belongs in instructions.
- Configure custom agent action settings such as Collect data from user and Require user confirmation.
- Explain how standard assets are copied, which steps are billed, how template-triggered prompt flows ground Prompt Builder templates, and how Omni-Channel flows route conversations to an agent.
- Use Agentforce in Flow Builder to draft a flow, name the permission it needs and review the draft before activation; call a prompt template from a flow.
Key terms: subagent (a job the agent can do, made of actions and instructions); agent action (how an agent gets things done in Salesforce); reference action (the functionality an action calls); Agent Router (the system subagent that starts every conversation); agent user (the integration user a customer-facing agent runs as); Omni-Channel flow (routes conversations to or from an agent).
Key facts
- Detail
- Subagents since April 2026, no change in functionality
- Detail
- Starting system subagent in new-builder agents; editable instructions and transitions
- Detail
- Invocable and REST Apex, external services, autolaunched flows, MuleSoft APIs, prompt templates
- Detail
- In an agent action, not in nondeterministic instructions
- Detail
- Not applied automatically; re-add and recreate customizations
- Detail
- Agent actions bill when they run; escalation, variables and transitions don't
- Detail
- Beta; turn on in Process Automation Settings; Manage Flow; review drafts
- Detail
- Einstein for Sales, Einstein for Service or Einstein Platform
Sources for this section (7)
- Agentforce Glossaryhelp.salesforce.com (opens in a new tab)
- Custom Agent Actionhelp.salesforce.com (opens in a new tab)
- Subagents in the Legacy Builderhelp.salesforce.com (opens in a new tab)
- Builder Considerationshelp.salesforce.com (opens in a new tab)
- Drafting Flows with Agentforcehelp.salesforce.com (opens in a new tab)
- Build a Flowhelp.salesforce.com (opens in a new tab)
- Template-Triggered Prompt Flowshelp.salesforce.com (opens in a new tab)
- Why should a refund-eligibility rule live in a flow rather than in subagent instructions?
- When does an agent pick up Salesforce's changes to a standard action it already uses?
- What does a subagent contain?
- When is a template-triggered prompt flow the right tool?
The questions are free to read. Answers with their sources and self-grading are included with the pack.
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