Flow builder is the most powerful automation tool within Salesforce. In its Winter ’22 release, Salesforce recently announced the deprecation of new workflow rules and processes since 2023. No workflow rules and processes can be built since next year. Thereafter Flow builder will remain the only source of business automation without programming. To start with learning about Salesforce Flow builder, here in this blog, we can see certain terms and features of Salesforce flow builder.
Elements
- Elements are basic building blocks of a flow.
- They are simply actions the flow executes.
There are 3 types of elements
- Interaction elements
- Screen- It is available only for screen flow. The screen is used to display information or to collect data from the user.
- Action- This is used to do external actions. Eg: Sending email alerts.
- Subflow- For initiating another flow
- Logic Elements
- Assignment- To assign a value to a variable.
- Decision- Evaluate a set of conditions, and route users through the flow based on the outcomes of those conditions.
- Loop- A loop uses a loop variable to store the values for the current item in the collection. When the loop finishes examining an item, it copies the field values for the next item into the loop variable. To reference each collection item in elements along the loop path, use the loop variable.
- Data elements
- Create Records- Create one record using a variable or multiple records using a record collection variable which is populated earlier in the flow with the new records’ values.
- Update Records- Identify records to update, and set the values to change in those records. To do so, use the IDs and field values stored in a record variable or record collection variable, or use specify conditions to identify the records and set the field values individually.
- Get Records- Fetch salesforce record which meet the filter conditions and store the values from the records in variables.
- Delete Records-Identify records to be deleted either by using IDs stored in record variable/record collection variable or by giving specified conditions.
- Rollback Records– Available only for screen flows. One can use it to roll back a transaction and cancel all its pending record changes.
Resources
Resources includes the individual variables and constants that are used with in the flow, the various screen components, choice options, decision outcomes etc.
Flow Types
These are the types of Flows you can create:
- Screen Flow- It guides users through screen through which users can interact and give inputs. This is the only flow type which is not auto launched.
- Schedule-triggered flows-Runs in the background and functions when required or at a scheduled time.
- Auto launched flows (Non Record-Triggered flow) – Run automatically in response to particular conditions or events.
- Record-triggered flows- Launched when a record is created, updated or deleted. This flow runs in the background.
- Platform Event-triggered flows- Instead of this trigger being based on a record being created or edited, the Platform Event Flows are triggered when a platform event message is received.
Flow Interviews
Flow interview is an instance of a flow running. For example, in a screen flow, whenever the user clicks on an action on the screen created, it will initiate a new flow interview.
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