Discover the power of Record Triggered Flows in Salesforce with our comprehensive implementation guide! In this blog post, we’ll take you through essential strategies and development standards to make the most of Record Triggered Flows while adhering to best practices. Let’s dive into the world of efficient automation!
The Right Approach?
To make an informed choice between Record Triggered Flows and APEX Triggers, consider the following criteria:
- For same-record field updates and decision logic, use Record Triggered Flows.
Example: Automate sending notifications/emails based on record changes or set conditional default values using Record Triggered Flows. - For complex record processing, especially with large volumes and related records, leverage APEX Triggers for better performance.
Example: When dealing with complex list processing or transforming data from a large number of records, APEX Triggers may be more suitable. Flow offers only a limited basic set of operators.
Name Them Correctly!
Maintain a consistent and clear naming pattern for your flows to enhance organization.
- Give a meaningful name to your flows so you know what they are doing. Having an object name in there would be great too.
Example: CaseRecordUpdateStatus. - Elements! They can get very messy with growing functionalities, sometimes a nightmare when someone new on your team has to look at it. Let them be self descriptive. Take special care when you clone the elements.
Example: Get Business Account(s) can be a sensible name for a Get Records elements fetching Business Account(s). - Variables can be named in a very similar way as above. They can follow the regular Apex’y format so they describe what they hold or what they do.
Example: a variable holding account record(s) from above can be called businessAccountsToUpdate or similar.
Controlling Flow Execution Order
With growing processes, there will be a definite addition in automations for object(s) thereby making it crucial to control their order of executions.
- Utilize Flow Trigger Order for managing the execution order of multiple flows on the same object.
Example: Assign decimal Flow Trigger Order values (e.g., 10, 20, 30) to evenly distribute flow priority. When adding a new flow, simply set the trigger order as an intermediate value (e.g., 15) to accommodate future flow additions without disrupting existing order. (this was a real useful trick I learnt).
Optimizing Flow Development
Just building big flows isn’t the deal. Being considerate about governor limits with flows is also a necessity.
- Minimize multiple DML statements within a flow by collecting them into a record variable and executing a single Update Record element.
Example: Instead of separate DMLs for each field update, use a single Update Record element for multiple field updates. - Avoid using DML and SOQL statements within flow loops to ensure smart Flow bulkification.
Example: For larger looping and record set needs, consider APEX-only or Flow APEX invocables. Don’t forget using Collection Filter element to avoid loops in some scenarios.
Effective Error Handling & Logging
Error handling is crucial. Imagine a try/catch block for your flows.
- Use conditional checks and “Fault Path” for DML operations to log errors with relevant information.
Example: When a DML operation fails, log the error with detailed information to identify the issue. - Utilize Push/Flush Logging Context actions for multiple log messages in a single DML operation.
Example: Use Push Logging Context to group multiple log messages together and then flush them using Flush Logging Context.
Leveraging Sub-Flow/Autolaunch Flows
To simplify our complex solutions, we have leveraged amazing patterns/frameworks for our Apex code. We can do that for flows too by making the most of Sub-Flow/Autolaunch flows for efficient and scalable automation:
- Create re-usable helper sub-flows for equivalent of Apex Utility functions.
Example: Build a sub-flow to perform a common calculation used across multiple flows. - Use sub-flows to reduce complexity and manage conditional processes and branching logic.
Example: When dealing with multiple conditional processes, create separate sub-flows for each logic segment.
Implementing Record Triggered Flows in Salesforce can significantly enhance your automation capabilities. By following the strategies and standards outlined in this guide, you can build robust, efficient, and maintainable workflows. Empower your team with the right tools and techniques for successful automation in Salesforce! Also do check out an amazing article on the Salesforce Architects website with some performance tests.