Every Salesforce Admin lives in two worlds. In one, you’re a strategic architect, designing flows and planning for the future. In the other, you’re the org’s caretaker, performing the vital, daily maintenance that keeps the system running smoothly — like merging duplicates and managing user permissions.
Both roles are essential, but the clicks of caretaking can often consume the time needed for creation. What if you had a digital agent to handle the routine work, giving you more time to focus on strategic innovation? That agent is here, and it’s a powerful tool for productivity.
In this post, we’ll show you how to build your own “admin command center” using Agentforce. This isn’t just a metaphor; it’s a powerful tool that can reduce unnecessary steps in your workflow and empower your team.
Before we dive into the how-to, let’s see the AI agent in action. The most powerful automations are built using custom actions. In this Agentforce Decoded video, Lead Admin Evangelist Kate Lessard uses simple, conversational commands to trigger these custom workflows.
While standard duplicate rules are essential, the cleanup is often manual. With a custom action, you can build a command to find potential duplicates and present merge options directly to the admin. This turns a multistep analysis into a single, on-demand command.
By creating a custom action that calls an autolaunched flow, an admin can simply state, “Give access to this report to one of my users” and the agent handles the sharing. No need to stop what you’re doing to navigate through sharing settings.
To get a quick snapshot of the pipeline, we can ask the agent to show new opportunities created that week. While this can be done with a standard action, a custom action gives you more control over the output, allowing you to format the information exactly how your sales leaders want to see it.
Understanding a record’s history is crucial. A command to “Show the activity history for this contact” is the fastest way to get up to speed before a sales call. This can be run on any object that tracks activities, from a Case to an Opportunity. It’s a versatile tool for getting the full story on any record.
These custom commands are just the beginning. By the end of this post, you’ll have a clear understanding of how to build your own productivity-boosting automations.
How the AI agent really works
Every powerful tool has a simple explanation. The secret to an AI agent’s capabilities isn’t complicated — it’s a well-configured agent that connects natural language to powerful actions. This is where we pull back the curtain and show you how it all works with Agentforce.
We used clear instructions to teach the agent to recognize certain phrases. By defining these phrases, you can train your agent to perform specific tasks. For instance, an instruction might be, “If a user asks to find duplicates, execute the find duplicate records action.” If you want your agent to reference specific actions, call them out in the instructions. It’s that simple.
As you build in Agentforce, your agent’s performance will be directly influenced by the instructions you add to your topics. Writing good instructions involves crafting clear, actionable, and precise guidance for agents.
Some tips for writing effective instructions to enhance Agentforce performance include:
Agentforce comes with powerful standard actions right out of the box — letting it summarize records, draft emails, or answer questions from your knowledge base. But the real power for admins, and the secret to the examples shown earlier, lies in creating custom actions to handle unique business needs.
These are the commands an admin builds themselves. You can create custom actions using three core components.
The flexibility to combine natural language instructions with powerful custom actions is what helps you transform a generic agent into a true expert for your org.
For those wanting to take a different approach to their automations, Prompt Builder and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) can help you achieve similar results.
An effective AI agent uses the right tool for the right task. While custom actions execute a flow or Apex, sometimes you need a capability that focuses on generating specific text or retrieving knowledge. That’s where Prompt Builder and RAG shine.
Use Prompt Builder templates to generate specific text
This is your go-to when a command needs to generate a precise, formatted text response. For example, you could create a command to “Draft a project summary email.” A prompt template lets you define the exact tone, structure, and required merge fields, giving you a perfectly crafted response every time.
Use data libraries and RAG to answer questions from your documents
What if your agent needs to know things that aren’t stored in standard Salesforce fields? That’s the job for RAG. If you wanted a command to “Summarize the new partner onboarding PDF”, you could add that document to a data library. Using RAG, your agent can then read and answer questions based on its content. This is the perfect approach for turning internal websites or policy manuals into an instant, searchable knowledge base.
Your business has specific language and terminology that you use internally. Agentforce can be trained to understand and use this language, making it a powerful ally in your org. When your agent understands your internal verbiage, it unlocks a world of practical applications.
Here are a few more practical automations you could create.
With Agentforce, you can create a conversational interface that understands your business. By building your own set of custom actions, you can automate repetitive tasks and focus on the strategic work you do best.
Let us know in the comments: Which terms or definitions would be helpful for your agent to know? What is the first command you’d create for your org?
You’re already the expert in your org — it’s time to build your AI agent. Embrace the power of Agentforce and put your own custom agent to work. The true potential isn’t just in the platform; it’s in the solutions you build with it. Now, go create yours.
This article was co-authored by Salesforce Program Manager Anna Bromley and Salesforce Solution Architect Jeff Kallenbach. From Hackathon pitch to working demo in 14 days Let me take you back to June 2025. The lights were bright overhead, and the low hum of TDX London buzzed around. Jeff and I were on stage, about a […]
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