It's that time again. Salesforce is doing another release, and they are making improvements to Flow. As an admin over the past few years I have become heavily involved with flows. We’ve watched Flow go from an overlooked feature to a go-to tool. The interface changed, and they added the ability to trigger them without the use of Process Builder or an apex trigger. What does Summer ‘22 have in store for us now…
Nothing in this release is earth-shattering, but there are some things we need to be aware of. I selected 6 changes that stood out. Below you will find text and links directly from the release notes and what they mean to us as Admins.
View All Data Permissions for Debugging Triggered Flows
In Summer ’22, only users with View All Data permissions enabled can debug record- and schedule-triggered flows. Previously, users without the View All Data permissions could debug triggered flows. https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=release-notes.rn_automate_flow_debug_view_all_data.htm&type=5&release=238 What this means: This is critical for anyone that builds or debugs Flow. If you suddenly are unable to schedule something or debug a flow this will be the reason. At this point you should review who does these things in your organization and decide if a profile update or permission set is needed before this is released into production.
Setup>Profiles>{Profile or Permission Set}>Administrative Permissions
Create Flow Tests for Record-Triggered flows
The maximum number of tests per flow is 200.
Flow tests are available only for record-triggered flows.
Flow tests support only flow paths that run immediately.
Packaging and change sets aren’t supported for flow tests.
The owner of the triggering record in a flow test changes to the last person who edits the test.
What this means: We will now be able to set up tests to check each path in the flow and run them repeatedly. Before this we would have to pick a record and set everything up every time we hit the debug, this will save time when working with larger flows. If someone were to ask if a flow had been tested, we can now prove that it was tested and how it performed by looking at the test run details on the test list.
When you create a Test, you must choose when a record is created or updated and what path to run per test.
You can then set up your triggering record.
Finally, you can set up your assertions and add a custom failure message.
Use Formulas as Flow Entry Conditions
A formula builder is now available in the Start element of a record-triggered flow. The builder guides you through the syntax and simplifies the process. Instead of waiting until you save a flow, you can check the formula syntax and catch errors as you work.
What this means: As it stands right now, we can not use a formula for an entry condition because so many times we have to open up the conditions on a record triggered flow and perform that decision immediately after we let the record enter the flow. For example, assume we have a flow that is supposed to fire on contacts that will fire when the contact is updated, and a date field on the record is past 3 days. We can now run a formula in the entry criteria to see if the {Date} >= Today()-3.
Convert Workflow Rules to Flows with the Migrate to Flow Tool (Generally Available)
In Spring ’22, the Migrate to Flow tool supported workflow rules that contained these items:
Field-based criteria
Field updates
Email alerts
Outbound messages
Time-dependent workflow actions
Rule criteria formula that's set to true (unless evaluation criteria is also set to created, and any time it's edited to subsequently meet criteria)
In Summer ’22, the Migrate to Flow tool now also supports:
Equal to null
Not equal to null
Rule criteria formula
Formulas that use Hour, Minute, Second, TimeNow, TimeValue, IsClone, or $RecordType aren’t supported.
What this means: Salesforce is pushing flow and attempting to deprecate workflow rules. This is an improvement to the migration tool to help us. It is a very small improvement and there is hope that this will improve even more in the future, however, the unfortunate part is that there are still a lot of workflow rules that will not convert and will take manual effort. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. If your workflow rules are not causing a problem I would hold off until this tool gets another retooling.
Slack
Send Screen Flows to Slack with an Invocable Action (Beta) Send a message to a Slack channel, a direct message, or the Messages tab of a Slack app that includes a button that a recipient can use to launch a flow.
What this means: This is in BETA so it is not generally available. This will be great for companies and organizations integrating Slack. I am personally looking forward to playing with this and exploring further implications. Currently Screen Flows have the options for Display Text, Radio button or Picklist.
When you Save the flow Make sure you click Advanced and check Make available in Slack.
Once it is available in slack you can launch it from another Flow as an Action.
Screen Editor Accessibility Improvements in Flow Builder
Focus and screen reader enhancements make creating screen flows using a screen reader easier. After certain actions, the focus is automatically set to make the next action faster. Also, screen readers are now able to read labels associated with screen record fields and unnamed components.
Where: This change applies to Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic in Essentials, Professional, Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, and Developer editions.
How: These focus enhancements improve accessibility.
When you open a new screen element, focus is set to the screen element’s label field in the screen properties pane.
When you open an existing screen element, focus is set to the for the screen element in the screen properties pane.
After you create a component visibility condition in a screen component, focus is set to the condition you created.
After you create a choice resource from a value field, focus is set back to the value field where you created the choice.
What this means: I applaud salesforce for this. Accessibility has been a hot topic as of late among government entities and corporations. Flow Builder is a wonderful tool but when it came to screen readers and other accessibility tools it was generally not a great experience. It does not surprise me with Salesforce’s commitment to inclusion and equity that this has been in the works and is now here. This will help our fellow Admins with disabilities. In the future, I would like to see More accessibility improvements for screen flows.
Conclusion
We took a look at 6 changes coming to Flow. This is not a comprehensive list, please check out the official release notes. This release is a mild improvement to Flow and flow-related tools. The migration tool is better but far from perfect. Slack integration with an Invocable action is an interesting and wonderful tool to add to the toolbox. Flow has come a long way in the past few years, and its future looks bright. I’m looking forward to the next Release Winter ‘23.
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