Marie Gallagher is a System Administrator at GurukulOnCloud (GoC). He received a requirement from upper management to create a Flow that allows reps to create Lead and then associate it with a Campaign. 

The solution for the above business requirement

This article is fully focused on the new debugging technique that allows you to debug the Flow in the Flow Builder. So I am not going to explain the steps to create the Flow for the above business requirement. But, for your reference, however, I have created an unmanaged package that you can install in your Org. For a deeper dive, view the following video and create a sample Flow!

Notice that, in the video, I am not using any screen element after Create Records (creating a lead record) element to verify the lead record ID to make sure that data is being correctly processed by the Flow. Instead, I am going to show you how one can use the newly built-in debug tool:

1. To start the debug process, click on the Debug button.
2. It will open another window where you can set the Debug Options and Input Variables. In our case, enter a valid Campaign ID in the CampaignID field, as shown in the following screenshot: 
3. Once you are done, click on the Run button. 
4. On the next screen provide the input data –  to the Flow – to create a lead record, as shown in the following screenshot: 
5. If you look at the preceding screenshot carefully, it has two additional options:
   1. Pause – Pause your test/debug and resume it later. But note that ‘later’ means that it will open a normal Flow run screen, not debug screen with populated data.
   2. Run Again – Restart your test/debug from scratch or run it again with the same inputs that you previously entered.
6. Once you are done with entering the lead data click on the Next button. It will create a lead and a Lead ID will be generated by the Flow. No need to add an additional Screen element just to verify the outcome.
7. Well done guys. Now you understand how to debug your Flow! A savvy tester tests a positive as well as a negative scenario; since you are in this coveted club, now, let us test a negative scenario:
8. Let’s take a negative scenario and see how this built-in debug tool helps when Flow fails at runtime.
9. Go ahead guys and create a Validation Rule on the Lead object as shown in the following screenshot: 
10. Re-run the complete debug process once again. To do so follow steps 1-6.
11. This time Flow will fail to create a record, and you will get the same message on the screen with reason: 
12. Yes! Wowed by the power of the new Debug tool? Me too! Having gone through the above exercise, now you understand how helpful this Debug tool in the Cloud Flow Designer is! Most of us would agree that it is a better, quicker, and easier way to debug a Flow – rather than setting up standard Debug Log and reading a convoluted mammoth log file.

Whether you are testing a new flow or troubleshooting a flow that failed, the debug option in the Cloud Flow Designer is now your new best friend!

Things to remember

• Debugging or testing a flow actually runs the flow and performs actual actions – including any DML operations and Apex code execution. Remember, closing or restarting a running flow does not roll back its previously executed actions, callouts, and changes committed to the database.
• You can not pass values into input variables of type collection and Record Collection variable.
• Clicking Pause or executing a Wait element closes the flow and ends debugging.

I hope you gained valuable insights from the blog about how to debug a Flow in the Cloud Flow Designer.!! Yes, go ahead! Show off your newly acquired skills to your friends, colleagues, and families!

Please feel free to add constructive comments, insights – and yes, challenges too! – to the blog. Good Luck in your Journey towards becoming a Salesforce Ninja!