Flow Builder in Salesforce | The Ultimate Developer Guide

Flow Builder

Flow builder in Salesforce is an automation tool that is used to automate the business requirement process. Flow builder is similar to Workflow Rule and Process Builder with some advanced functionality in Salesforce. There are additional features included in the flow builder which decrease the code for fulfilling the business requirement with the automation process.

In the Workflow rule, there are only four actions that automate your business process and in Process builder only 11 actions are extensions of the workflow rule.

Limitation of Process Builder

There is functionality over which Process Builder is failed which are given as below:

Process Builder only on a single Object and object which are related to this Object.
Process Builder cannot work on more complex actions
Process Builder cannot work on Deleting a set of records
Process Builder cannot work on custom roll-up summary action

These all types of work done by Flow builder like delete set of records, work on multiple objects, and custom roll-up summary actions.

Types of Flow

After the release of Salesforce 20 type of flow increased to 5 which are:

Screen Flow
Record-Triggered Flow
Schedule-Triggered Flow
Platform Event-Triggered Flow
Autolaunched Flow (No Trigger)

Don't forget to check out: Salesforce Workflow Vs Process Builder in Salesforce

Screen Flow is used for the user interaction when users want to create records in Salesforce like to create a registration form and Autolaunched Flow is basically used to perform action internally.

Example of Flow Builder

1. Send an HTML Template by Email:

Problem:

Create a one-click solution to update the case status to closed and also send out a confirmation email (Using HTML Email Template) to the customer.

Solution:

Create an HTML email template and email alert with Name:

Flow: Case Closed Email Notification with Template

Drag-and-drop Update Records element onto the Flow designer

Select the Case object from the dropdown list.

Set Conditions
1. Row 1:
  1. Field: ID
  2. Operator: Equals
  3. Value: {!VarT_CaseID}
Set Field Values:
1. Field: Status
2. Value: Closed

Add email alert action with the flow:

Drag-and-drop Action element on the Flow Designer.
Search for Close Case Email Notification and select it.
Enter Label the API Name will auto-populate.
Set Input Values:
1. RecordId: {!VarT_CaseID}

2. To count the number of Contact records

Problem:

To count the number of Contact records where Mailing city equals Delhi

Example by code:

List<Contact> myContact = new List<Contact>();
myContact = [Select id, Email from contact where Mailingcity =‘Delhi’];
system.debug('Size of List'+myContact.size());

Solution:

Flow: Contact Record count in Flow

Create a flow variable number Datatype

Drag and drops the Get Records element onto the canvas

Object: Contact

Fields:

MailingCIty equals Delhi

Drag and drops the Assignment element onto the canvas

3. Upload File by Flow

Problem:

To create a Flow that allows reps to create Leads and upload their business cards from it

Solution:

Create a screen Flow

Add two components to store Name(First name, Last Name), and Company

Drag and drop the Create Records element onto the canvas

Add the fields those created in Screen components

Create again a screen component and add the File Upload components

Check out another amazing blog by Aditya here: All About Record Locking in Salesforce

4. Create FeedItem

Problem:

A requirement to post Opportunity details (with Opportunity link) to the related Account’s feed, whenever an Opportunity gets created with an amount greater than $100k.

Solution:

Use Process Builder and Flow to solve it

Flow: Post to Chatter Feed of Related Record

Drag Create Record Element