What Are Salesforce Flows? A Beginner’s Guide to Automation

February 07, 2025
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What Are Salesforce Flows? A Beginner’s Guide to Automation

Keeping tabs on your business operations 24/7? Spending valuable resources on manual tasks?

It can be taxing and slow down your business growth. To avoid this, businesses around the world are adopting automation tools that supercharge their productivity. Automation can save businesses 77% of their time.

Want to join the league?

Consider Salesforce Flows, a powerful automation tool in Salesforce that requires no code.

What is Flow in Salesforce?

Flows enable you to create complex business automation processes with the help of clicks, not code. Whether you want to streamline processes, perform mass updates, or post chat and send emails, a lot can be done with Salesforce Flows. What’s more? Since it’s a no-code automation tool, your non-technical team members can also leverage it easily.

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Types of Salesforce Flows

There are a variety of Flows that Salesforce offers based on their different uses: –

  1. Screen Flow

    Need to take user input? With Screen Flows, you can create a custom UI that showcases messages, accepts user input, and guides the user through a business process. Screen Flows can be embedded on a lightening page or launched as an action.

  2. Record-Triggered Flow

    Record-triggered flows are automated processes that take place due to changes in records in Salesforce. They are triggered when a record is created, deleted, or updated.

  3. Scheduled-Triggered Flow

    Scheduled-triggered flows are scheduled and run at a specific time for a certain frequency. It is especially useful for tasks that are to be performed daily or frequently.

  4. Platform-Event Flow

    As the name suggests, this flow is triggered when a platform event message is received. It is an auto-launched flow that runs in the background.

  5. Auto-Launched Flow

    Auto-Launched Flow is initiated by REST API, Apex Class, or a Process Builder. With this, you can tackle complex issues in the background and the user wouldn’t know.

Building Blocks of a Flow

A Flow is made of three main building blocks: –
  1. Elements

    As individual building blocks, elements are responsible for performing logical actions including loops, decisions, or assignments. These also include data elements that will perform record changes or query the database.

  2. Connectors

    A Flow’s direction is decided by connectors. They determine which elements will lead to what. As the name implies, connectors connect the elements and decide the sequence of actions.

  3. Resources

    Resources refer to the individual variables of data such as records, numbers, strings of text, etc. that are meant to be used in a Flow.

Why should you use Salesforce Flow?

  • User-friendly

    Need a hassle-free automation tool that doesn’t require your technical staff to work hard? Flow Builder has a drag-and-drop interface which makes it easier for users to create and manage flows. From simple tasks like sending emails to data updates and more complex workflows, you can do everything without writing a single piece of code with Salesforce Flow.

  • Saves Time

    Want to supercharge your team’s productivity? Salesforce Flows saves the time and effort required to perform repetitive processes by automating them. Thus, you and your team can focus on more important aspects of your business.

  • Pocket-Friendly

    Building bespoke solutions using programming languages can be expensive. Since Salesforce Flow doesn’t require any specialized knowledge, it is a more reasonable option when it comes to costs.

  • Flexible to suit your needs

    Whether your workflows are simple or complex, Salesforce Flow meets the needs of a wide variety of businesses. As your organization grows, it evolves with it to meet your growing requirements. Its flexibility and scalability make it one of the best automation tools for organizations of all sizes.

  • Enhances Customer Experience

    A business can only thrive when its customers are satisfied with its offerings. Salesforce Flow enables seamless customer updates and interactions on time, allowing businesses to resolve customer queries swiftly, thus bettering customer experience.

Conclusion

Since Salesforce Flow has all ‘apex-like’ functionalities, and that too with the use of clicks, not code, it is the most powerful automation tool by Salesforce. Its multi-faceted benefits and ease of use make it the go-to option for organizations looking to automate workflows. Ready to start building? Check out our detailed guide, Building Your First Flow: A Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners.

Written by

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Mohit Bansal

Salesforce Technical Architect | Lead | Salesforce Lightning & Integrations Expert | Pardot | 5X Salesforce Certified | App Publisher | Blogger

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Gopinath G

Passionate about the intersection of cutting-edge technologies

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