Is Flow in salesforce killing workflows and process builders?
One of the many beautiful features of the Salesforce platform is the ability to automate complicated business processes without writing a single line of code. When Salesforce introduced the Workflow Rule engine, it seemed like ages had passed.
Then, in 2015, Process Builder arrived on the market, and it was fantastic. All of a sudden, we could update associated records in both standard and custom objects, alter parent records, and add new records. It’s fair to argue that Process Builder gave system administrators a tool that, at the time, appeared to be a legitimate rival to Apex.
What’s new:
Two years ago, I experienced a permanent shift in my perspective for three reasons:
I personally saw how much faster records were changed or generated using Flow than using Process Builder/Workflow Rules.
Salesforce enhanced the Flow tool’s capabilities by adding record-triggered Flow and schedule-triggered Flow.
Salesforce altered its recommendation in June 2020, stating that Salesforce Flow would now be the preferred solution for declarative process automation and that Process Builder and Workflow Rules will no longer get product upgrades.
What exactly did Salesforce say?
In June 2020 Salesforce published a blog post (read it here – it is still getting updated) which detailed Salesforce’s own views on what would – from that point onwards – be considered best practice for process automation in Salesforce. The blog post listed 3 key takeaways:
- Takeaway #1: If you need to update a Salesforce record, use a “BeforeSave“ Flow, as this is faster than Process Builder (they could possibly outperform Process Builder by a factor of 10). End users will be able to save and update records a lot faster!
- Takeaway #2: If you need to create records or send emails, then use an “AfterSave“ Flow – this will also increase the performance for the end-user when compared to using Process Builder
- Takeaway #3: If the logic of a Flow gets overly complex then it’s probably best to move it to Apex coding
In other words, start using Flow rather than relying more on Workflow Rules and Process Builder. Because Salesforce is substantially investing in the continuous development of Flow, they are no longer planning to improve Workflow Rules and Process Builder.
Process Builder and Workflow Rules, farewell.?
Are Process Builder and Workflow Rules now Dead? Not nearly (yet), I suppose. System administrators will still be able to update already-existing Process Builders and Workflow Rules in Salesforce.
But keep in mind that although the Classic interface is still available, it won’t be improved anymore, and eventually, you’ll want to move on from it. And you’ll be glad you did it because your users will be too.