The New World of Flows

It’s no secret that Flows are the future of automation in Salesforce. In each release, we are presented with a new list of awesome enhancements that help drive efficiency and user-friendliness of the tool. So, what are some of these new features?

Some people may remember when only Screen Flows and Autolaunched Flows were available for your flow automation needs. Today we have multiple types of Flows; Screen Flows, Autolaunched Flows, Record-Triggered Flows, Scheduled-Triggered Flows, Platform Event–Triggered Flows, and Record-Triggered Orchestrations. Additionally, some of these can be run before or after saving and have the option of a scheduled/asynchronous path. All these options have completely changed the flow playing field, providing much more flexibility and possibilities for admins.

Salesforce has also gone on to change their recommended best practice for flow creation to “Do what’s best for your organization!”. No longer are you bound by the “One Record-Triggered Flow” per Object – per Type. With the ability to add custom entry criteria and enter the trigger order on the flows, you can now have multiple flows per object. However, if the one flow per type still is a better fit for your company, that’s great too! Each way has its benefits, and Salesforce provides a ton of information to help you decide what path is right for you. If you want to learn more, check out Salesforce’s Automate This! Series for Record-Trigger Flows!   https://admin.salesforce.com/blog/2022/automate-this-designing-record-triggered-flows

Now that Salesforce has ended creation for new Workflows and Process Builders, this is also an excellent resource to help guide you on the migration to Flow. Although you do have the Flow Migration Tool to assist, this is a great time to take inventory of your automations, clean them up, remove those no longer in use, and start on a fresh path with flow.

In addition to more options on the flow types themselves, Salesforce has put a ton of love into the UI of Flow Builder. With the Auto-Layout design, the flow builder is cleaner and easier to maneuver. The recent color changes on the elements have made them easier than ever to see, and now when you click the + to add an element if you need to move the screen down to see all your options, the drop-down stays open! This was a real win in my book! The Toolbox is also super clean and easy to navigate, with all your Resources and Elements neatly organized.

Another greatly improved feature is Debug. Dependent on the type of flow you are working with, some of the debug features you will now see are run as another user, run upon creation or update (with the ability to update a field right in the debug screen), Skip Start Conditions, Run Immediate or Asynchronous Paths, and run in Rollback mode. My favorite feature is running in Rollback Mode. It’s been around for a while at this point, but I’m always grateful records aren’t being created or updated every time I debug! Salesforce has also recently added the ability to Create Tests for flows. This concept is like Apex Test Classes but can be written declaratively within the Flow Builder. Because this is a relatively new feature, there are still some limitations around this, and these can only be created for Record-Triggered flows at this time. See our blog specifically about Flow Tests here “insert Kyles blog link.”

It’s not just these higher-level features that are being improved. New and improved Elements are available such as Collection Sort, Collection Filter, and Update Triggering Record, new Actions within the Action Element, the ability to create HTTP Callouts, new Resources, and new Screen Flow Components. Not to mention Summer 23’ presented us with some exciting features now in Beta, such as Reactive Screen Components, Reactive Formulas, and Post HTTP Callouts!

This is just the tip of the iceberg, but as you can see, Flow is headed in a very exciting direction! So, what are you waiting for? Get out there and start building!