The Ultimate Guide to Salesforce Flows (2023)

This post was last updated on 10/4/22.

general description

Lightning flows (or just flows) help you automate complex business processes and manual data entry. With flows, you can work smarter, not harder, saving users time and ensuring that the necessary tasks are performed correctly.

As a Salesforce admin, flows are one of the most powerful tools in your tool belt: when set up correctly, flows make you look like a rock star to your sales team, but when not set up correctly, your flows can be difficult to to manage. or wreak havoc (like a rock star too).

In this guide, you'll learn everything you need to know about flows. Let's dive!

What is a flow in Salesforce?

In Salesforce, a flow is a tool that automates complex business processes. Simply put, you collect data and do something with that data.

Flow Builder is the declarative interface used to create individual flows. Flow Builder can be used to create code-like logic without using a programming language.

Streams are divided into five categories:

Screen flows:

• These are flows that have a UI element and require input from users. These types of flows are initiated as an action or embedded as an element on a Lightning page.

Program-enabled flows:

• These automatically started flows start at a specific time and frequency for each record in a batch and run in the background.

Streams started automatically:

• Run automated tasks with this flow type. Autostarted flows can be invoked by other flows (subflow), Process Factory, within an Apex class, by a defined schedule, by registry changes, or by platform events.

Register triggered flows:

• These automatically started flows run in the background before a record is saved, or after a record is saved, when a record is created, updated, or deleted.

Flows triggered by platform events:

• When a platform event message is received, these automatically started flows run in the background.

Check out this example of a programmatically triggered flow taken from a popular Salesforce group:

When/why should I use a stream?

If you need to create a new automated business process or human-driven experience that doesn't meet the Apex Code complexity threshold, Flow is the tool for you. If you are modifying an existing process created with Process Builder or a workflow, consider several factors when deciding whether to modify the existing process or migrate to Flow.

Flows can create, edit, and delete records in Salesforce, send emails, display relevant data, and collect information from users and generate outbound messages.

when I have tonotuse a stream?

In general, you shouldn't use a stream in the following situations:

There is intricate logic that is best handled with Apex code. An example of this is the flow shown in the Overview section. The logic of this flow is so complicated that it becomes tedious to debug and difficult to document and maintain.

Your Salesforce edition limits the number of flows you can create. Note that developers can write Apex methods that can be called from within a stream (similar to calling a child stream). With this pattern, you can offload particularly complex processes to Apex, but your flow builder still keeps track of the overall process!

Essentials and Professional editions are limited to five processes (per process type) and flows (per flow type) in each organization. For more logic on these topics, it's easiest to use a process.

How do I create a flow in Salesforce?

Open the flow builder. From Setup, enter Flows in the Quick Find box, select Flows, then click New Flow. Select the flow type and click Create.

The type of stream you create affects your experience. For scheduled and record-triggered streams, you can access an automatically created global variable called $Record. This provides access to all fields in the record that triggered the flow (and its parent records!). If you create an autostarted flow, you must create the necessary input variables yourself.

After configuring your inputs, you can click the “+” button after the initial item: you have items to choose from to run your business processes. Each element represents an action that the flow can perform. Examples of these actions are reading or writing data from Salesforce, displaying information and collecting data from flow users, executing business logic, or manipulating data.

(For some more detailed flow building examples, sign up for our newsletter! Just scroll to the bottom of this page to find the signup link.)

Save your stream.

After creating a flow, verify that it works correctly by thoroughly testing it. After testing it, enable the flow. Now you can distribute the flow to users.

Pro Tip: Flows can run in different ways depending on who the flow is designed for. Internal users, external users, or systems can run a flow, or a flow can be deployed to another organization. Remember, no matter how you drive...you have to go with the flow.

Fluxos vs. Apex

Deploying Apex code requires a developer and a sandbox, which means it can only really be created in organizations using a Professional edition or higher of Salesforce. Streams can be created in all editions. While a sandbox is not required to bring a flow into a production environment, it is recommended that flows that leverage the full power of the tool be sandboxed and tested before being deployed to production.

Apex is not available in Essentials and some Apex features are limited in Professional. Enterprise and higher organizations do not have Apex restrictions, but Flow features are not restricted by edition. Apex code requires constant development and discipline to maintain. Streams require less work to keep up to date.

Admins can create flows, whereas Apex code is typically only created by developers. Apex code is considered a last resort. Streams are simpler and should be used before Apex code.

If the logic is too complex, Apex code should be used. Each release brings new features that narrow down the use cases that Apex requires, but there are still some situations where Apex provides a performance boost and this should be considered. Update generation, opportunity product, and other automation pieces traditionally built as Apex code can now be built as flows, preserving code space for projects that require Apex.

Apex code should be used in the following scenarios:

• Your flow requirements require nested loops
• Your flow needs require loop elements
• You work with large amounts of data.
• You need custom integrations with other systems (for example, a connection to an SQL database that requires two-way syncs).
• ERP integrations are involved.
• You'll need to sign in or show a custom error message if the automation fails or doesn't find what you're looking for. (Although in some cases you can do this with Flow!)

Considerations for migrating from Process Builder to Flow:

With the Winter 23 release, admins can no longer create new workflow rules and Process Builder will be released soon. New automation must be built on top of Flow, and migrating existing workflows and processes must be an important consideration. Changing existing automations comes at your own risk. Consider the following when determining the right time to make the switch.

Situations that indicate you should migrate soon:

• Has more than one process generator per object
• Your existing processes often fail or cause errors
• Your existing processes are simple
• It introduces a significant number of new features
• You have well thought out acceptance criteria to compare your new automation against your existing processes

Situations that indicate you should postpone your migration:

• It has complex and stable processes that meet today's business needs
• You don't have clear testing requirements to confirm that your new flows will replace your migrated workflows and processes.
  

test flows

To test a flow, click the Debug button on the canvas, enter your variables and click Run. Then run the flow to make sure it's working correctly. This process is particularly useful for screen flows.

Please note that starting with the Salesforce Winter 2021 release, a beta feature called Debugging on Canvas is available. This feature makes it easy to debug flows by visually demonstrating the path your flow will take when executed. It also shows stream query limits in debug details. Also, debugging now offers two more options than before: running the flow as a different user and running the flow in rollback mode.

Where is Flow Builder located in Salesforce?

To find Flow Builder in Salesforce (Lightning), go to Setup > Process Tools > Flows.

What are the different types of flows in Salesforce?

Streams started automatically without stream activation

These flows don't require user interaction and don't support screens, local actions, options, or option sets. The available distribution methods are:

• Flow Actions
• Flash Pages
• Lightning-Community-Seiten
• Custom aura components
• Lightning Custom Web Components
• Custom buttons or custom links
• web guides
• Direct Stream URL
• Visualforce Pages
• flash off
• Integrated service deployments

Flows started automatically with a schedule trigger

These flows only run on a user-defined schedule. They do not support user interaction, screens, local actions, options or option sets. The available distribution methods are:

• Law Suit
• Custom Apex Classes
• API-REST
• web guides
• Custom buttons or custom links
• Visualforce Pages

screen flows

Screen flows require user interaction because they contain screens, local actions, steps, options, or prompts. Screen flows do not support pause elements. A flow triggered by a schedule runs only at the scheduled time and frequency.

Streams started automatically with a record trigger

These flows are designed to quickly make simple changes to a record when the record is created, updated, or deleted. They can also be configured to make these changes before or after saving the record to the database. In a pre-save stream, supported elements are Assignment, Decision, Get Records, and Loop. Flows after saving have access to all flow resources, but cannot launch child flows.

User provisioning process

User provisioning flows provision users for third-party services. You can use this flow type to customize user provisioning settings for a connected app and associate Salesforce users with their Google Apps accounts. A user provisioning flow can only be implemented by associating it with a connected app by running the user provisioning wizard.

Field service mobile flow

These flows require user interaction because they have one or more screens.

Integrated field service flow

These flows require user interaction because they have one or more screens.

Contact request process

These flows require user interaction because they have one or more screens. Use one of the following Experience Builder components to add this flow:

• Contact request button and flow (Launch the flow in a popup window)
• Flow (flow embedded directly on the page)

For more information about flow types in Salesforce, seeofficial documentation.

What is a Flow Interview in Salesforce?

Whereas a flow is an app created by your admin that takes your input and does something in Salesforce based on that input, a flow interview is a running instance of a flow.

For example, a flow can provide a call script to call customer support using the provided information to create a case. What the flow does with the information you provide is entirely up to your admin.

When running a flow interview, whether from a link, button, or tab, you are running a single instance of a flow. If the terminology is confusing, consider the difference between a record and an object. You create an account record, which is a single instance of the account object that your administrator has customized.

It's a good idea to monitor the list of paused and failed flow interviews, available under Settings > Paused and Failed Flow Interviews. This pair of lists is very useful. With paused flow interviews, you can review flows with time-based actions or screen flows that users didn't complete. The list of failed flow interviews is even more useful as it shows the flow errors along with the debug log of the flow interview. This should be your first stop when troubleshooting a stream.

Read more about flow interviews atSalesforce documentation.

How do you name a one-button flow in Lightning?

As of Winter 2018, Salesforce provided an easy way to trigger a flow from a quick action button in Lightning.

Use:You can only initiate screen flows or mobile field operations from a quick action button.

Create a custom action for the record in question by navigating to Object Manager > (object name) > Buttons, Actions & Links. Select Flow as the custom action type, configure the custom action to point to the flow, and give it a name. Then add the custom action to the page layout of your choice.

Common mistakes when designing flows

We see a lot of streams here on Kicksaw and we're building even more of them. Here are some common and preventable mistakes we've identified:

• Using the wrong field or variable
• Don't look for null values
• Include Get, Create, Update, or Delete elements in a looping element
• Reference objects or fields that an end user may not have access to
• No access to running streams
• Use Get elements to retrieve data available through $Record or $RecordPrior in a scheduled record or trigger flow
• coded record id
  

More Salesforce Flow documentation

We hope you've learned a lot about the power of Salesforce flows in this article, but if you need more help, read theofficial documentation.

For more information, we also recommend filling out theCreate flows with Flow BuilderTrail on Trailhead, and we encourage you to read more about it.flow builder.

Better yet, get in touch with us by filling out the contact form below. We would love to help whenever we can.

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