10 Best Practices for Scalable & Efficient Salesforce Flows

Plan Before Building Your Flows

Hastily diving into execution without planning is a recipe for errors. Before you design a Flow, plan in advance. Ask yourself and the team, what are your requirements from the Flow? What purpose will it serve in the business process? Who will be using it? Getting clear on various aspects of the Flow will save you from cumbersome edits later.

Use Subflows

Want to create a large and complicated Flow? Break into smaller Subflows that can be reused. Subflows are auto-launched flows that can be called from one more parent Flows. Using Subflows means enhanced modularity. What’s more? It makes maintenance easier and reduces the chances of errors.

Don’t Perform DML Statements in Loops

Stick to this rule for building efficient Flows- never perform DML (Data Manipulation Language) statements inside loops. What does it mean? Don’t perform a repetitive Get, Update, Create or Delete inside a loop. Why? Because you can get governor limit errors in Salesforce. What should you do instead? Make sure to perform DML operations outside the loop. Doing so will reduce the number of database calls.

Document your Flow

Working in tandem with other Salesforce admins? Or likely to forget about the Flow in the future? Document your Flows – include what the Flow is about and what are its key objectives. You can revisit this in the future. Following this practice can save you and your team a lot of time and effort. Moreover, this will make your automation game strong in the long run.

Create Fault paths for error-handling

Errors are bound to happen at some point while creating Flows. What can you do to handle them effectively? Create fault paths. A fault path is a route within the flow that will capture and manage errors. For example, if a user queries a record but finds no result, a detailed error message on what to do next can be flashed instead of a generic one. With fault paths, you can also notify admins and take certain steps so that the same error does not happen in the future.

Test your Flows

Don’t hastily push your Flow into production without testing it thoroughly. If you do so, it can have repercussions like data loss, and the creation of too many test records. Avoid this by always testing your flow. You can use the debug tool in Flow Builder to do it. Want to be double-sure? Test your entire process too. It doesn’t matter if your Flow has been successful in initial tests. You can still encounter issues in the process. Take care of that before deployment for maximized output on your effort.

Don’t mix Trigger, Process Builder, Flow, and Record Trigger Flow

Mixing Triggers, Process Builder, Flows and Record Trigger Flows is a big no. Why? Because each of these automation tools has a distinct purpose and way of working. For example, triggers execute custom logic in the database when certain events occur while process builders and flows are used to automate processes with simpler configurations.

Combining these different tools can cause poor performance, more technical and documentation debt and other unexpected problems. So, consider choosing one automation tool for one object instead of using several tools that could overlap in functionality.

Don’t Hardcore IDs

Want flexibility and scalability when building Flows? Don’t hardcore IDs. When you hardcode IDs, you are directly embedding specific record IDs into your logic. These can be Object IDs, User IDs or Record IDs. One of the most important reasons for not hardcoding your IDs when building a Flow is that these IDs will change in different environments (for example, when shifting from sandbox to production). Instead, you can use custom metadata types to store IDs, use Get records to query them or use custom labels for storing IDs.

Know when to create a Flow

You don’t need to create Flows for every situation. Assess the requirements before deciding- consider its level of complexity. Analyze if you can use simpler solutions such as workflow rules, apex triggers, process builder etc. Since Flow may take up more resources, it’s best to analyze its needfulness. Sometimes, a formula or a report is a better solution. For example, if you want to show the Account site on a contact record, use a formula field instead of a record-triggered Flow.

Build in Sandbox Environment

A sandbox is a safe space to build and test your Flow. You can calmly build your flow in this isolated environment since it will not affect ongoing business processes or bring any changes in data. Once you feel confident, you can push the Flow into production. Building and testing in a sandbox environment reduces the chances of errors, easy collaboration with other admins and ensures better quality.