Salesforce Flows are a way to automate processes using a point and click interface without the need for code.
With each Salesforce release, Salesforce Flows get better with new and exciting features being added. The last few releases have seen tons of new features such as Columns, Record Triggered Flows, Auto Layout, and the long-awaited ISCHANGED() functionality.
As a Salesforce Consultant and Answers leader, I truly love Flows because most of the time they can do the job using clicks, not code. Administrator(s) can maintain them, which is another bonus, reducing the need to revert to a Developer every time a change is required.
This post will run through the set of rules I stick to that are inspired by Salesforce best practice, and then share some use cases you can apply Flows to, for some real-life “Flowspiration”!
If you’re looking for an introduction to Flow, read this guide.
Top Tips for Salesforce Flows
When building Flows, I stick to a set of rules that are inspired by Salesforce best practice:
1. Do not hard code IDs.
Salesforce IDs are unique to a specific org for the most part and as such should not be referenced directly. Instead, use a ‘Get Records’ component to dynamically find the necessary record and then use the returned ID.
2. For Email Alerts make sure the email field is populated.
If a Flow tries to send an email using an email field that is blank it will error. Make sure you include a condition to only send an email if the email field is populated.
3. Make sure Users are active.
If you are changing the owner of a record to an inactive user you’ll likely get an error. To prevent this from happening, try not to reference specific users or make sure the user is active before you make record updates.
4. Build Error Paths.
If you have lots of Flow Elements this may be a pain however, in the long run, error paths help users with a customised error screen that uses language they are familiar with rather than a nasty red indecipherable error message!
5. Do not Loop the Loop.
It’s best practice to avoid Get Records or Update Records Elements in Flow Loops. This is to ensure your Flow stays within the limits that Salesforce has in place to safeguard system integrity and performance. If you really need to do this then ‘bulkify’ your solution (source).
6. One Automation per Object.
Where possible have one process builder or one Flow per object. Imagine having 50+ automations on the Lead Object; you could spend hours trying to figure out what is going wrong. Long term this makes your solution more maintainable.
7. Do not build straight in Production.
If you build a Flow in the live environment and this starts to go wrong it could cause irreversible damage (if you don’t run in rollback mode). Build in a Sandbox first and test as many scenarios as possible before making changes live.
8. Using Component Visibility to your advantage.
If you are displaying information from a Related Record on the Flow Screen then using Component Visibility only displays fields that are populated instead of showing blank fields!
Some real-life Flowspiriation
From my own experience I’ve seen the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to Flows. Here are some of my top picks of the good:
Record Triggered Flow to Count Opportunity Contact Roles
Using tools such as Pardot, it’s imperative that you use Contact Roles with Opportunities, in order to report and automate effectively.
With a simple Record Triggered Flow on the Opportunity Contact Role object, you can count the number of Contact Roles and even stop the Opportunity being progressed to the next stage (with a validation rule) if there aren’t any related contacts.
You could opt for a softer approach with a warning message on the Lightning Page if your count field was 0.
Record Triggered Flow to Update Case Status on Chatter Post
What if you want a Case status to update should a Customer add a chatter post in your Digital Experience Site?
Using a Flow related to the Feed Item Object, you can achieve this in a few clicks and create a solution that can be easily tweaked should you need to in the future!
Record Triggered Flow to Stop Duplicate Records
If you are scared by the prospect of using a VLOOKUP type validation rule to prevent duplicates or wouldn’t know where to start, how about using a Flow instead?
When a Record is Created or Edited you can use a Get Record Element with criteria to find duplicates and then throw an error message or perform an action to alert someone of the duplicate.
Screen Flow to show a Customer/Partner User their Support Entitlement/Contact Person
A few releases back Salesforce added the functionality to hide the footer and the header from the Flow screen.
This means you can now sneakily embed a Flow on a page without the users even knowing they are using Flow.
I’ve used this a few times to:
- Display the Customer’s Account Support Level in a card-like format
- Display the Partner’s Contact Person details, with their picture to personalise service
Summary
Like all systems, there are limitations with Flows such as issues with Owner fields on Screen Flows and difficulties with parsing Multi-Select Picklist Values that it would be nice for Salesforce to resolve longer term.
However, I’m still very excited about Flows and what’s to come as from the last few releases there are pages of new features with more each release.
Salesforce is heavily investing in Flow with a goal of making this even easier to use in the future so if the prospect of a Flow is daunting don’t be scared and dip your toe in your Trailhead Modules to help you get started.
Let’s go with the f-l-o-w!
Resources
- Summer ‘21 Release Notes (Flow Builder) (Salesforce Help)
- Summer ‘21 Release Notes (Flow Debugging) (Salesforce Help)
- Flow Bulkification (Salesforce Help)
- Flow Troubleshooting (Trailhead)
- Automate Your Business Processes with Salesforce Flow (Trailhead)