A decision guide for picking the right Platform Tools capability for the job — and for telling apart the pairs that are most often confused.
Overview
Several Platform Tools capabilities overlap at the edges: a decision table and a template both externalize something from an automation, and an object and a data entity both hold records. Picking the wrong one is recoverable but costly, because the choice usually shows up again at promotion time. Start from what you are trying to change, not from the tool name.
Choosing by task
I want to… | Use | Why |
|---|---|---|
Let an automation act on a third-party app | Connection Manager | Stores the credential once and reuses it everywhere |
Store records the platform owns | Object Manager | Schema, field types, relationships, and records |
Talk to an app with no built-in connector | Connector SDK | Define auth, actions, triggers, and pagination yourself |
Change business rules without editing a flow | Decision Tables | Rules live in a table non-developers can edit |
Reuse message or prompt content | Templates | One template serves email, SMS, WhatsApp, and prompts |
Share a snippet of logic across flows | Code Snippets | Written once, called from many automations |
Call one automation from another | Automation Interfaces | A defined, callable contract with inputs and outputs |
Build a full code app with an AI agent | Code Builder | Branches, Git, preview editing, versioned publishing |
Promote work between environments | Change Sets | Dependency resolution, approvals, deploy, rollback |
Understand usage and failures | Insights & Observability | Dashboards, global traces, user activity |
Configure the tenant itself | Platform Administration | Environments, variables, tags, hours, alerts, backups |
Distinctions worth getting right
Decision table or template? A decision table returns a decision — a value chosen by matching input conditions against rows. A template returns rendered content — text with variables substituted in. If the output is read by a person, it is usually a template.
Code snippet or automation interface? A snippet is a fragment of logic executed inline. An interface is a callable automation with a declared input and output contract, invoked as a unit.
Object or data entity? Define an object when the platform is the system of record. Model a data entity in Unify Data when records arrive from external sources and need matching, survivorship, and golden records.
Environment variable or feature flag? A variable holds a value that differs per environment. A flag turns a platform capability on or off.