Learning Salesforce Visual Workflow and Process Builder - Second Edition

By : Rakesh Gupta

Learning Salesforce Visual Workflow and Process Builder - Second Edition

By: Rakesh Gupta

Overview of this book

Salesforce Management System is an information system used in CRM to automate the business processes like sales and marketing. To implement this, Force.com developed a powerful tool called Visual Workflow to automate business processes by creating applications also called Flows. Learning Salesforce Visual Workflow, Second Edition is a practical guide on Flows that will enable you to develop custom applications in Salesforce with minimized code usage. The book starts with an introduction to Visual Workflows that teaches all the building blocks of creating Flows and use it efficiently. You will learn how to easily automate business processes and tackle complex business scenarios using Flows. The book explains the working of the Process Builder so you can create reusable processes. The book also covers how you can integrate existing or newly created Flows with the Salesforce Lightening Experience. By the end of the book, you will get a clear understanding on how to use Flows and Process Builder in your organization to optimize code usage.

Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Free Chapter

Getting Started with Visual Workflow

Business problems

The benefits of Visual Workflow

System requirements for using Visual Workflow

An overview of the Visual Workflow lifecycle

An overview of the Cloud Flow Designer

An overview of the building blocks of Visual Workflow

The various ways to invoke a Flow

Visual Workflow outcome behavior

Creating an Admin playground account

Summary

Creating Flow through Point and Click

Creating the building blocks of Flow

Allowing users to pause Flows

Designing the Flow

A few points to remember

Exercises

Summary

Manipulating Records in Visual Workflow

Creating the building blocks of a Flow

Creating a constant

Creating a Text Template

Manipulating the data

A few points to remember

Exercises

Summary

Debugging and New Ways to Call a Flow

Debugging your Flow

Debug log

Who can run the Flow and how

Automating your business process

A few points to remember

Exercises

Summary

Developing Applications with Process Builder

An overview of Process Builder

Differences between Process Builder and other tools

Creating applications with Process Builder

A few points to remember

Exercises

Summary

Building Efficient and Performance Optimized Processes

An overview of process management

Hands on 2 - using custom labels in Process Builder

Hands on 4 - calling an Apex class from Process Builder

Hands on 5 - bypass processes using Custom Permission

Hands on 7 - scheduling multiple groups of actions

Hands on 8 - executing multiple criteria of a process

Hands on 9 - creating reusable processes using invocable process

A few points to remember

Exercises

Summary

Building Applications without Code

Distributing or deploying Flows and Processes

Hands on 2 - displaying messages after login

Hands on 4 - understanding Subflow and the Wait element

Hands on 6 - using custom metadata types in a Flow

Hands on 7 - creating scheduled jobs using a Flow

A few points to remember

Exercises

Summary

Enabling Flows to Work with Lightning Experience

Lightning runtime experience for Flows

Hands on 4 - embedding a Flow into a Lightning Record Page

Hands on 6 - displaying a two-column Flow through a custom button

A few points to remember

Exercises

Summary

Customer Reviews

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An overview of the building blocks of Visual Workflow

Flow has three major building blocks known as Element, Connector, and Resource. With the help of these blocks, you can easily develop Flows.

The Element block represents an action that Flow can use to display or collect information from the Flow user, create or update records, delete records, or loop logic. The Element block is used to manipulate the data. The Connector block is used to establish the path between the elements. A Resource block is used to hold the data that you can reference in your Flow.

Flow elements

Flow elements represent actions that Flow can execute such as Record Update, Record Lookup, Fast Lookup, Loop, Screen, and Decision. This is used to read, write, or delete data. Using the element (Screen), you can also display data and capture input from users. Use the Palette tab to drag and drop new elements onto your canvas. Once you add elements, it will be available on the canvas and Explorer tabs.

There are several types of elements available under the Palette tab. They are as follows:

Flow element	Description
Step	You can use this as a placeholder while designing your Flow. Later, you can convert Step elements into Screen elements.
Screen	This will display a screen to the user who is running the Flow. The Screen element contains input or output fields. The Screen element is mainly used to take input from users or display guided information.
Decision	This is used to evaluate conditions to determine which Flow path to take.
Assignment	This is used to set or change values of variables, collection variables, SObject variables, and SObject collection variables.
Loop	This iterates through an SObject collection variable and assigns an item's value to an SObject variable.
Wait	If you want your Flow to wait for one or more defined events to occur, then use this element.
Record Create	This is used to create one record using the field values that you specify separately. You can assign these values from Flow resources such as variables, SObject variable, and the screen fields.
Record Update	This is used to update records using the field values that you specify separately. You can assign these values from Flow resources such as variables, SObject Variable, and the screen fields.
Record Lookup	This is used to extract one record that meets the filter criteria you specify, and then assign the record's field values to separate, individual Flow variables or individual fields on SObject variables.
Record Delete	This is used to delete records from Salesforce that meet the filter criteria you specify in your Flow.
Fast Create	This is used to create records using the fields' value from an SObject collection variable or to create one record using the field's value from an SObject variable.
Fast Update	This is used to update records using the field's value from an SObject collection variable or to update one record using the field's value from an SObject variable.
Fast Lookup	This is used to extract records to assign their field values to an SObject collection variable or query one record to assign its field values to an SObject variable.
Fast Delete	This is used to delete records using the ID value from an SObject collection variable or to delete one record by using the ID value from an SObject variable.
Apex Plug-in	This is used to call an Apex class that implements the `Process.Plugin` interface. If you used the tag property in the `PluginDescribeResult` class, the Apex class appears under a customized section. Otherwise, it appears under the APEX PLUG-INS section.
Subflow	This is used to invoke another Flow in the organization.
Quick action	This calls an object-specific or global action, such as `NewTask` and `LogACall`.
E-mail Alerts	This is used to send an e-mail using a Workflow e-mail alert to specify e-mail template and recipients.
Post to Chatter	Using this element, you can post a message to the feed for a specific record, user, or Chatter group.
Send Email	This is used to send an e-mail using Flow with the specific subject, body, and recipients.
Submit for Approval	This is used to auto submit one record for approval.

From Chapter 2, Creating Flow through Point and Click, we will start using these elements.

Flow resources

Resources are used to hold the data that you can refer in your Flow. The Explorer tab displays the resources that you added to the Flow. To create new resources, double-click on this tab. Global constants and system variables are automatically provided by the system. There are several types of resources available under the Resource tab. They are as follows:

Flow resource	Description
Variable	This is used to store a value that can be updated as the Flow is executed. It can be referenced throughout the Flow and can be used as the value of a field in a record.
Global variable	These are system-provided variables that can be referenced as resources, such as an organization ID (`{!$Organization.Id}`) or running user ID (`{!$User.Id}`). Visual Workflow global variables are only available in flow formulae.
Collection variable	This is used to store values with a single data type. You can use a collection variable as a container in the Flow to store and reference multiple values at once.
SObject Variable	This is used to store a record for a specified object. Use an SObject variable as a container in the Flow to store, update, and reference field values for a record.
SObject Collection Variable	This is used to store multiple records for a specified object. Use an SObject collection variable as a container in the Flow to store, update, and reference field values for multiple records.
Constant	This is used to store a fixed value.
Formula	This is used to calculate a value from other resources in the Flow.
Text templates	This is used to store formatted text with merge fields that refer to resources.
Choice	This represents an individual value that can be used in a variety of screen fields.
Dynamic record choice	This looks up data from an object's record and dynamically generates a set of choices for screen fields at runtime. When referenced as a resource, a dynamic choice value is determined by the most recent user selection of a choice within the generated set. For example, display all contacts from an account if a user entered a valid account ID.
Element	Any element that you add to the Flow is available as a resource with the visited operator in outcome criteria. An element is considered to be visited if the element has already been executed in the Flow interview.
Global constant	This is used to store fixed system-provided values, such as `EmptyString`, `true`, and `false`, that can be assigned as the values of Flow resources.
Outcome	For the Decision element you have added to the Flow, its outcomes are available as Boolean resources. If an outcome path has already been executed in the Flow interview, the resource's value is `true`.
Picklist values	These are system-provided values that are available as resources only in Assignment and Decision elements when selecting values for or to compare against picklist fields in SObject variables and SObject collection variables.
Picklist Choice	This is used to store picklist or multi-select picklist values, those are generated from standard or custom object picklist or multi-select picklist field.
Screen field	This is the field that you add to the Flow is available as a resource.
System variable	These are system-provided values that can be referenced as resources, such as `{!$Flow.CurrentDate}`, `{!$Flow.CurrentDateTime}`, and `{!$Flow.FaultMessage}`.
Wait element	Wait element events are always available as Boolean resources. If an event's waiting conditions are met, the resource's value is `true`. If the event has no waiting conditions set, the resource's value is always `true`.

From Chapter 2, Creating Flow through Point and Click, we will start using these resources.

Flow connectors

A connector is used to establish the path between the Flow elements. A connector looks like an arrow that points from one element to another. There are several types of connectors available. They are as follows:

Label	Sample	Description
Unlabeled		This is used to identify which element to execute next.
Decision outcome name		This is used to identify which element to execute when the criteria of a decision outcome are met.
Wait event name		This is used to identify which element to execute when an event that's defined in a wait element occurs.
Fault		This is used to identify which element to execute if the previous element results in an error.
Next element		This is used to identify the first element to execute for each iteration of a loop element.
End of loop		This is used to identify which element to execute after a loop element finishes iterating through a collection.