Have not tried this new functionality yet. Having said this, it is unlikely that the documentation has been updated yet to account for this new way that custom events return data.
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Strangely enough it has. Can see in the original post
New feature … once we get our hands on this and experiment with it … many folks likely will as well … we will know more for sure 
This is a massive help. Time to get refactoring some of this workflow soup.
Amazing 
I am a little confused though, we can’t trigger a API Workflow from the front end and return data to the client still? It says those ideaboard ideas were shipped relating to API workflows.
I tried creating a custom event in backend thinking now it would be available on the front end to return data but nothing there either. 
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aaaarrrrg yes @an.tran is right, I celebrated too fast… 
@grace.hong The idea I posted was to get a response directly from front…
Instead what we need to do is :
- set up a backend WF with return data from api
- set up an API call to call the BWF
- use the API call in front to ping the BWF and get a response…
Too painfull
@grace.hong sorry but you can re-pass the idea as pended as it is not really what I excpected nor the other bubblers that liked the idea…
I’m sad lol
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Hey all - jumping in to provide some clarification!
This new action will allow you to create a custom event in the backend, return data from that event to be used in an API workflow (also in backend), and schedule that API workflow anywhere from the frontend. It’s one milestone for having workflows communicate more easily.
The next milestone would be streamlining communication between backend and frontend workflows (for instance, a backend custom event that can be triggered from any page). I would recommend creating a new Ideaboard submission for this and upvoting!
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Having a synchronous backend (like almost every other backend tool, in fact) would be really great and also a game changer.
However, I’m really happy with this new feature as we are now able to have functions in Bubble. l’m pretty sure that every code developer understand the potential of what this means.
Great, now do the client-side actions API!
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I’ve seen other people point to this as a solution but it’s just not robust; nor does it make much sense given the rest of the way data circulates through Bubble.
Its reasonably tedious and a bit of pain when you want to update that API in a test branch, having to manipulate urls in your API connector - then remember to re-update them on deployment/syncing etc.
I mean - at this stage, you’re getting very close to a usecase for just creating your own middleman API in expressJS or something to handle any reusable functions you need to be able to call and get a response from internally; purely for simplicity and maintainability.
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This change is definitely quite hot. Will help us in many ways in future!
However, like others have highlighted, please do not mark “Return data from API internally” idea as shipped with this. It doesn’t do that.
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Surely people aren’t actually doing this? You just dynamically specify the version using version-[appversion] and filling the parameter with the App version data source.
To echo the above posts, this is a great update. Trigger backend workflow (as opposed to schedule) and get data from it is a logical next step. This is what we care about, not AI 
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True. I have not seen much excitement about AI except from the Bubble team. Most users know there are many more higher priority features/issues that need to be addressed that the dedicated AI team are taking away resources from.
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You mean like an event listener like DB Triggers but on the front end right?!
@grace.hong just gunna summarize the situation here for you and your team 
This is a brilliant update and we’ve all been eagerly waiting for it. However it seems Bubble has slightly misunderstood what we’ve been asking for.
We’ve been asking for three separate but slightly related features. This release addresses one of them but Bubble has marked the other two features as being addressed by this update when in fact that’s not the case.
The other two features are:
- Returning data from a backend workflow (in exactly the same way as it now works for custom events) (ideaboard submission here)
- Ability to create event listeners on the host page that trigger a workflow when a ‘message/event’ is posted from a reusable (ideaboard submission here)
We’d love these other two features as well (more than AI stuff)
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- return data from client side actions of plugin
still this new feature is probably the greatest improvement since the new layout
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Yes, basically an event listener…the event being the data is returned
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This is what Bubble needs a developer advocate for!
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Does this mean that loops are available client side without utilizing API workflows?
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You could do the second one with a plugin…