Custom Notification
A Custom Notification in Salesforce is an admin-defined notification message that can be sent to specific users through the Salesforce mobile app push channel, the desktop bell icon, or both — triggered programmatically from Flow, Process Builder, Apex, or the REST API.
Definition
A Custom Notification in Salesforce is an admin-defined notification message that can be sent to specific users through the Salesforce mobile app push channel, the desktop bell icon, or both — triggered programmatically from Flow, Process Builder, Apex, or the REST API. Custom Notifications are configured through the Custom Notification Type standard object (CustomNotificationType in the API), which holds the MasterLabel, CustomNotifTypeName, Description, and channel toggles (Desktop, Mobile). Once a Custom Notification Type is defined, automations reference it by Id when sending notifications, providing a Title, Body, optional Sender Id and TargetId (the record the notification is about), and a list of recipient User Ids. Custom Notifications complement standard Salesforce notifications (case assignments, approval requests, Chatter mentions) by letting admins build domain-specific alerts — "High-value Opportunity at risk", "VIP customer just submitted a Case", "SLA breach imminent" — without writing custom mobile push integration code.
In plain English
“A Custom Notification is a push or in-app notification you build yourself in Salesforce — like a custom alert for "VIP customer just opened a high-priority Case" or "Big deal stalled in Negotiation for 30 days." Admins define the notification type once, then automations (Flow, Apex) trigger it whenever the right business condition fires.”
Worked example
A sales operations team wants to alert account executives within minutes when a high-value Opportunity stalls in Negotiation stage for more than 14 days. The admin creates a Custom Notification Type named "Stalled High-Value Deal" with both Desktop and Mobile channels enabled. They then build a scheduled Flow that runs daily, queries Opportunities with Stage = Negotiation, Amount > $100K, and StageChangedDate older than 14 days, and for each match calls the Send Custom Notification action with Title "Deal needs attention", Body "$Amount Opportunity has been in Negotiation for $DaysSinceStageChange days — reach out to the customer", TargetId set to the Opportunity Id, and Recipient set to the Opportunity Owner. The next morning, every AE with a stalled high-value deal sees a push notification on their phone and a bell-icon alert in Lightning, with a tap-through that opens the Opportunity directly.
Why Custom Notification matters
Custom Notifications differ from Email Alerts and Tasks in fundamental ways. Email Alerts are asynchronous and routed through email infrastructure; Tasks create persistent records the user must manage; Custom Notifications are ephemeral push messages delivered to the user's notification stream without creating a new record to clean up. This makes Custom Notifications ideal for time-sensitive nudges that don't need long-term tracking — a notification that nudges someone to act, but doesn't require the recipient to mark it complete or file it away.
The Send Custom Notification action is invocable from Flow, Process Builder, and Apex through the standard Messaging.CustomNotification class. The Apex pattern uses Messaging.CustomNotification with setNotificationTypeId, setSenderId, setTitle, setBody, setTargetId, and a Set<String> of recipient User Ids passed to send(). Recipient resolution supports User Ids and Group Ids (notifications fan out to all group members) but not Role Ids — role-based notifications require resolving the Role to its Users first.
Mobile push delivery requires the recipient's User to have the Salesforce mobile app installed and notifications enabled at the device OS level — neither of which Salesforce can control. Failed mobile delivery is silent (the bell-icon notification still appears in Lightning), so reliable critical alerts should not depend solely on mobile push. Desktop bell-icon notifications are visible whenever the user is signed into Lightning Experience and persist in the bell-icon dropdown for review.
How organizations use Custom Notification
Sends Custom Notifications to account executives when their high-value Opportunities stall, when their Closed-Won deals trigger fulfillment milestones, and when key buying-group Contacts visit the customer portal. Each notification carries a deep link to the relevant record so the AE can act in one tap.
Configures Custom Notifications to alert supervisors when SLA breach is imminent on a Case in their team's queue, when a VIP customer submits a new Case, or when an agent escalates a complex issue. Supervisors get a single-pane notification stream rather than monitoring Cases manually.
Sends Custom Notifications to campaign owners when their Campaigns hit milestone thresholds (1,000 Campaign Members, conversion rate above target, budget pace warnings). Replaces the old workflow-driven email-alert approach with mobile-first nudges that fit the modern marketing operations cadence.
Trust & references
Straight from the source — Salesforce's reference material on Custom Notification.
Discussion
Loading discussion…