What is Record-Triggered Flow in Salesforce? Detailed Guide

With the rapidly increasing data generation, businesses need a trustworthy platform to assist them in managing their customer data. Salesforce is one of them. This platform offers many valuable services and features, including record-triggered flow.

A record-triggered flow permits you to execute actions automatically in Salesforce without user interaction. It reduces the time your business users spend on repetitive tasks and lowers the chances of human error because the system consistently performs tasks the same way every time.

Does this still need to be clarified? Don’t worry. We’ve you covered!

This blog will help you understand everything about record-triggered flow in Salesforce. So, let’s start.

What is Salesforce?

Salesforce is widely known for its CRM services. It is a centralized platform for handling sales leads, customer accounts, customer support cases, and activities. You can access this platform via a mobile app, web browser, and desktop application.

It’s a cloud-based organization that helps businesses close more deals, find more prospects, conduct marketing campaigns, monitor customer activities, and provide the best service to their customers.

Besides, this CRM platform allows you to understand your metrics and data better and helps you create a visual dashboard. It also offers personalized outreach through automation. 

What are Salesforce Flows?

Salesforce Flows is an emphatic automation tool within the Salesforce platform. It helps users to perform multiple tasks such as posting a chatter, sending an email and custom notifications, etc. 

Besides, Flows enables users to create a series of screens and steps to guide users through data entry, automate repetitive tasks, and perform complex logic without code. Also, it can be triggered for inserting, updating, and deleting records, making data interaction and management easier within the Salesforce environment.

An Overview: “Record-Triggered Flow”

The record-triggered flow in Salesforce is an auto-launched flow that runs automatically under the following conditions:

• When creating a record.

• When a record is updated.

• When a record is created or updated.

• When deleting a record.

Salesforce record-triggered flows provide the possibility to eliminate the need for writing triggers in specific scenarios. For example, the flow executes whenever deleting an item. It's worth noting that when working on your admin certificate, you should be mindful of the execution order. According to Salesforce, a record-triggered flow can smoothly update a Salesforce record up to ten times quicker than a record-change procedure.

Steps to Create a Record-Triggered Flow in Salesforce

Creating record-triggered flow in Salesforce is relatively easy if you have a proper guide. Follow the steps below to create a Salesforce record-triggered flow in no time:

Step # 1: Go to “Setup,” then head to the “Quick Find” box and enter “Flow.” Choose the "Flows" option from the search results. After that, click “New Flow.”

Step # 2: Now, select “Record-Triggered Flow,” and then click the “Create” button.

Step # 3: You’ll be sent to a “Configure Start” page. On that page, go for the following:

1. Choose “Service Appointment” in the “Object” field.

2. For ‘Trigger the Flow When,’ pick “Record is Created.” 

3. From ‘Condition Requirements,’ choose ‘All Conditions Are Met (AND).’

4. Then, add the below condition:

• In “Field,” select “AppointmentType.” (if you use engagement channels, then choose “EngagementChannelType”)

• “Equals” in “Operator”

• “Video” in “Value”

1. Now, Select “Actions and Related Records.”

2. Choose ‘Include a Run Asynchronously’ for an external system access after it has finished the original transaction for the triggering record. Once you've selected this, click “Done.”

Step # 4: Pick the “Auto-Layout” option and go for “Free-Form.”

Step # 5: Click the “Save” button.

Step # 6: Lastly, provide a label & an API name for the flow. Then, save your changes.

Record-Triggered Flow Considerations

Here are some essential points to understand about flows that make updates before saving a record:

1. The flow can only change the values of fields in the record that triggered it. It cannot perform other actions like creating or deleting records.

2. The flow is restricted from modifying values in records associated with the one that triggered it.

3. Only the following elements are supported: 

• Decision

• Assignment

• Get Records

• And, Loop

4. For activating an auto-launched flow with a trigger, the user needs the "View All Data" permission.

5. If there are several active record-triggered flows for an object set to run before saving the record, there is no guarantee of the specific order in which these flows will be executed. The execution order might vary.

FAQs

1. What’s the difference between record-triggered flow & apex trigger?

Ans: Unlike Record-Triggered Flows, Apex Triggers necessitate coding and are usually created by admins or developers with programming expertise. Apex Triggers enable you to define complicated logic and execute customized actions that may not be achievable with Record-Triggered Flows.

2. What is a record-triggered scheduled flow?

Ans: A schedule-triggered flow operates in the background at designated intervals (daily, weekly, or once) to execute actions on a records batch. This flow can improve efficiency, save time, and reduce the risk of manual data updates by automating these processes.

3. What’s the limitation of a record-triggered flow?

Ans: The highest number of scheduled path interviews Salesforce allowed within 24 hours is 250,000. However, this limit is flexible and depends on the number of user licenses your organization has. If the number of user licenses is multiplied by 200, it will be greater than 250,000, which becomes the new maximum. Each executed scheduled path in a record-triggered flow generates one interview.

Wrap Up

Record-triggered flows in Salesforce is an automation feature that simplifies your business processes. These flows execute automatically based on specified triggers, such as record creation, update, or deletion. 

In addition, it assists users in performing various actions, such as updating field values, retrieving records, and making decisions, without the need for extensive coding. 

However, it's important to note certain limitations, such as the inability to perform actions beyond updating field values and the necessity for View All Data permission for some flows. Despite these considerations, the flexibility offered by record-triggered flows makes it a valuable asset for optimizing workflows and increasing overall productivity within the Salesforce ecosystem.

Also, check out What is Assignment in Salesforce Flow?