Flow Flashcards
5 Types of Flows
- Screen
- Autolaunched
- Schedule-Triggered
- Record-Triggered
- Platform Event-Triggered
Record Triggered Flow
Launched when a record is created, updated or deleted. This flow runs in the background.
Platform Event-Triggered Flow
Launches when a platform event message is received.
The auto-launched flow runs in the background.
Screen Flow
Guides users through a business process that’s launched from lightning pages, communities, quick actions and more.
You use flow builder to create an interaction that presents info and asks your users questions.
Schedule-Triggered Flow
Launches at a particular time and frequency for each record in a batch. This autolaunched flow runs in the background.
Auto launched Flow (No Trigger)
Launches when invoked by Apex, processes, REST API, and more. This autolaunched flow runs in the background.
Use Flow Builder to create automation that runs when a button is clicked. These can also be run by other automation processes.
Record-Triggered Flow
Launches when a record is created, updated, or deleted. This autolaunched flow runs in the background.
3 Types of Flow Elements
- Interaction
- Logic
- Data
Interaction Parts of Flow
- Screen
- Action
- Subflow
Logic Parts of Flow include (3)
- Assignment
- Decision
- Loop
Data Parts of Flow include (4)
- Create Records
- Update Records
- Get Records
- Delete Records
4 Types of Flow Resources
- Choices
- Formulas
- Record (Single) Variables
- Variables
Variables
Variables are just a place to temporarily store some information. They have a name and store a value. Normally they just store one piece of information like the variable “v_temp” that can store the number 75 as it’s value. We can have dates, text, percentages and other types for our variables.
The important thing about variables is in the name (the value can vary or change). We may add values to the variable or change it’s value part way through our flow.
Collection Variables
In Flow, we can also have a collection variable.
One that contains many values. eg “c_temp”
Record Variables
In Flow, we can also define a variable that is of type record and we can store an entire record in the variable.
For example, we may have a record variable named “r_contact” which can store a contact record. These are used in screen flows with loops that collect data to create a number of new records.
Record Collection Variables
A collection of records can be stored in a record collection variable. Our collection of contacts could be named: “rc_contacts” and contain a number of contact records.
When we use a record variable like in the example above, we add each record variable to our record collection variable (inside the loop) and then when finished adding records create the records from the collection (outside the loop).
Constant
A constant is like a variable but its value cannot be changed. The value stays the same throughout the flow.
The value for “pi” is 3.14 (approx) and never changes. This is an example of a constant.
Formula
There is a large range of formulas that can be used in Flows. From simple math formulas to complex string handling formulas.
v_outsidetemp - v_windchill could be a formula used to calculate the “feels like temperature”.
Flow has some restrictions on the type of formulas, not all Salesforce formulas are currently supported.
The full list of Salesforce functions is here: Formula Operators and Functions
The restrictions are listed here: Flow Formula Considerations
Not supported Formulas for Flow
- GETRECORDIDS
- IMAGE
- INCLUDE
- ISCHANGED
- ISNEW
- PARENTGROUPVAL
- PREVGROUPVAL
- PRIORVALUE
- REQUIRE SCRIPT
- TIMENOW
- TIMEVALUE
- VLOOKUP
Text Template
Text templates are a special type, a block of text.
These are ideal to format the message body of an email and you can also include merge fields in the text block.
Choice
Choices are used when you want to present the user with choices eg: Yes/No/Maybe.
Available for Input
If your flow is to be run from a button on a record page then you will probably want to pass the current record (eg Opportunity) through to the flow to perform some actions on it. For this, you would define a text variable called “recordId” (exact capitalization is very important) and select the checkbox for input.
What this means is the variable recordId is going to recieve the Opportunity ID as an input.
recordId is a special name reserved for passing the ID of the current record across to the flow.
(note the capital letter “I”)
Available for Output
If your flow solution contains one main flow that calls other sub-flows then you may want the main flow to have a variable eg “recordId” and mark this as Available for both input and output.
This way the main flow can receive the recordId from the page and pass it across as an output to the sub-flow.
In the subflow element (within the main flow), you configure the variable to be passed in as follows:
Main flow configuration of the sub-flow element:
Use values from the master flow to set up inputs for the “config-order-subflow flow “
By default the master flow stores all outputs.
You can either reference outputs via the API name of the subflow element or manually assign variables in the master flow to store individual outputs from the “config-order-subflow” flow.
Sub-Flow configuration:
In the sub-flow itself, you also configure the recordId variable as input (to receive the value).
This way you now have the recordId of the record that started your main flow and you can also perform actions on it in the sub-flow (if needed).
Perhaps you want to update the record at the end of the sub-flow?
Global Constants
Global Constants can be used anywhere in your flow and they always have the same value.
They are useful for testing True/False and Empty string conditions.
Global Variables
There are a large number of Global Variables that are available in your flows too.
When you are doing an assignment, you can use these (depending on the data type you are assigning to):
examples:
- Flow
- Label
- Organization
- Permission
- Profile
- Setup
- System
