Last Updated on February 13, 2022 by Rakesh Gupta

Quip not only helps Sales teams to organize their work and integrate seamlessly with Salesforce. But, it also empowers the teams to be consistent, foster collaboration, and remain focused.

Quip is not only a collaboration tool but, it also has the capability to create slides, excel, sheets and connect with live apps, including Salesforce. Administrators can create a template, like a pre-sale discovery call, that everyone can use. The templates enable users to start a page with pre-populated values for a specific account, opportunity or a record for any object. Furthermore, users can take this a step further by creating templates with a set of filters like deal size, industry or add live apps like TaskRay into it. You can learn more about Quip here. 

One can use Salesforce Flow to auto-create a Quip Folder, document and add it to a record based on your business requirement. No need to create a Quip document first and then, manually associate it with a record. 

Let’s take a business use case to understand the concept – how can one auto-create a quip document and associate it to a record?

Business Use case

Suzanne Schneider is working as a System Administrator at Gurukul on Cloud (GoC). Suzanne is an experienced Salesforce Administrator and is proficient at using automation to eliminate manual processes.

Users at GoC use Quip document at the account level to improve reps’ productivity. However, they face the following challenge – whenever an account owner creates an account with Type Technology Partner, s/he has to manually perform the following tasks related to Quip: 

1. Create a Folder in Quip for each new account.
2. Create a separate Quip document for each new account.
3. Associate the quip document to the account. 

Let us help Suzanne to automate the above business requirement.

Automation Champion Approach (I-do):

There are a few possible solutions for the above business scenario, but I’ll use Salesforce Flow to solve the business requirement.

Before trying to understand the technical aspect of the solution, let us spend some time to understand the general flow at a high level. Please spend a few minutes to go through the following flow diagram and understand it.

This is a basic use case to start with the Salesforce flow. To solve the above requirement, we will use the After-save Record-Triggered Flow.

Let’s begin building this automation process.

Guided Practice (We-do):

There are 6 steps to solve Suzanne’s business requirement using Salesforce Flow. We must:

1. Define flow properties for record-triggered flow
2. Create few Variables to store Quip Folder Id and Quip Document Link
3. Add a Decision element to check account type
4. Add action – Create Quip Folder
5. Add action – Create Quip Document
6. Add action – Attach Quip Document to Record

Step 1: Salesforce Flow – Define Flow Properties

1. Click Setup.
2. In the Quick Find box, type Flows.
3. Select Flows then click on the New Flow.
4. Select the Record-Triggered Flow option, and click on Create and configure the flow as follows:
   1. Object: Account
   2. Trigger the Flow When: A record is created or updated
   3. Set Entry Criteria
      1. Condition Requirements: None
   4. Optimize the Flow For Action and Related Records
5. Click Done.

Step 2: Salesforce Flow – Create Few Variables to Store Quip Folder Id and Document Id

Create a few variables in the Flow, as shown in the following table: 

Name	Variable type	Input/Output type
VarT_FolderId	Text	Input and Output
VarT_QuipLink	Text	Input and Output

Step 3: Salesforce Flow – Using Decision Element to Check the Type Field

Now we will use the Decision element to check the Type to ensure that it is equal to Technology Partner and the record is New.

1. 1. On Flow Designer, click on the + icon and select Decision element. 
   2. Enter a name in the Label field; the API Name will auto-populate.
   3. Under Outcome Details, enter the Label the API Name will auto-populate.
   4. Condition Requirements to Execute Outcome: All Conditions Are Met (AND)
      1. Row 1:
         1. Resource: {!$Record.Id}
         2. Operator: Is Null
         3. Value: {!$GlobalConstant.True}
      2. Click Add Condition
      3. Row 2:
         1. Resource: {!$Record.Type}
         2. Operator: Equals
         3. Value: Technology Partner
   5. When to Execute Outcome: If the condition requirements are met
   6. Click Done.

 

Step 4: Add Action – Create Quip Folder

The next step is to create a folder for the account to save the Quip document specific to the newly created account. For this, we will use the Create Quip Folder Core Action element. Now follow the steps below:

1. On Flow Designer, click on the + icon and select Action element. 
2. Below Filter By, select Type.
3. Select the Create Quip Folder from the dropdown menu
4. Label the new action Create a Quip Folder
   
5. Set Input Values
   1. Folder Name: {!$Record.Name}
6. Set Output Values
   1. Folder ID: {!varT_FolderId}
7. Click Done.
   
   

Step 5: Add Action – Create Quip Document

The next step is to create a Quip document for the account record. For this, we will use the Create Quip Document Core Action element. Now follow the steps below:

1. On Flow Designer, click on the + icon and select Action element.
2. Below Filter By, select Type.
3. Select the Create Quip Document from the dropdown menu
4. Label the new action Create a Quip Folder
   
5. Set Input Values
   1. Document Title: {!$Record.Name}
   2. String Add Members by Email Address: Email address of Account Owner
   3. Document Type: Document
   4. Parent Folder URL: https://appiuss.quip.com/{!varT_FolderId}
6. Set Output Values
   1. Document Link: {!varT_QuipLink}
7. Click Done.
   
   

Step 6: Add Action – Attach Quip Document to Record

Next, we will use another Core Action – Attach Quip Document To Record – to associate the newly created Quip document to an account record. Now follow the steps below:

1. On Flow Designer, click on the + icon and select Action element.
2. Below Filter By, select Type.
3. Select the Attach Quip Document to Record from the dropdown menu
4. Label the new action Create a Quip Folder
   
5. Set Input Values
   1. Document URL Name: {!varT_QuipLink
   2. Salesforce Record ID: {!$Record.Id}
6. Click Done.

In the end, Suzanne’s Flow will look like the following screenshot:

Once everything looks good, perform the steps below:

1. Click Save.
2. Enter Flow Label the API Name will auto-populate.
3. Click Show Advanced.
4. API Version for Running the Flow: 54
5. Interview Label: Record-Trigger: Account After Save {!$Flow.CurrentDateTime}
6. Click Save.

Almost there! Once everything looks good, click the Activate.

Proof of Concept

Next time, when a user creates a new account where the Type is ‘Technology Partner’, the flow we created will fire and, it will auto-create a quip document and auto associate it to the account record. 

 

Proofreader: - Munira Majmundar

Formative Assessment:

I want to hear from you!

What is one thing you learned from this post? How do you envision applying this new knowledge in the real world?

Let me know by Tweeting me at @automationchamp, or find me on LinkedIn.