This is a continuation from my last article Getting Started with Process Builder – Part 35 (Delete Chatter Messages), In that I had discussed a way through which you can allow your users to delete Chatter messages. This article goes a step ahead and explains, how to delete all messages at once, i.e. how to delete a Chatter conversation. Chatter conversation is nothing but messages that members have sent or received. Let’s start with a business use case
Business Use case
Rachel Gillett is working as System administrator at Universal Containers (UC). She has received a requirement from the management, they want to allow their Sales reps (License Type: – Salesforce Platform) to delete a Chatter conversation from Salesforce UI.
Solution for the above business requirement
There are a few options for the above business scenario, but we’ll use Flow and Process Builder to solve the above business requirement. As discussed in the previous article System administrator with the Manage Chatter Messages permission can view and delete all users‘ messages in Chatter. Business users are not allowed to delete messages or conversations. The steps to solve the above business use case are mentioned below
The steps to solve the above business use case are mentioned below
- Create a custom object that will be used to save the Id of Chatter conversation, which the users want to delete
- On creation of the record use Process Builder to trigger a Flow (Runs in System mode) and pass the Chatter conversation Id
- Use Flow to delete the Chatter Message
Before proceeding ahead, you have to understand ChatterMessage objects in Salesforce. It represents a message sent as part of a private conversation in Chatter. Few relevant fields are
1) ConversationId: – ID of the conversation that the ChatterMessage is associated with.
Follow the below instructions to solve the above business requirement
1. First of all, grant Manage Chatter Messages permission to your user record (Via Permission Sets), to create a Flow. Otherwise, you will get the following error while building a Flow at step 3.
Flow Error
Later on, you can remove this permission set from your user record.
2. Create a custom object (Delete Chatter Conversation) and a field to save the Chatter Conversation Id, as shown in the following screenshot
Custom Object – Delete Chatter Conversation
Make sure that you have marked the field Chatter_Conversation_Id__c as required, Unique (Case Sensitive) and also granted CRUD access to the respective profiles.
3. The next step is to create a Flow to delete Chatter Conversation. Navigate to Name | Setup | App Setup | Create | Workflows & Approvals | Flows
4. Click on New Flow, it will open the Flow canvas for you. Now create a Text variable VarT_ChatterConversationId to store the Chatter conversation Id (we will pass the Chatter Conversation Id through Process Builder), as shown in the following screenshot
Text Variable
5. The next step is to delete a Chatter conversation. To do this drag-and-drop Record Delete element (Enter the name Delete Chatter Conversations) onto the canvas and map the fields according to below details
- Select object ChatterMessage
- For the criteria select ConversationId= {!VarT_ChatterConversationId}, as shown in the below screenshot
Delete Chatter Conversations
6. Finally, your Flow will look like the following screenshot
7. Save your Flow with name Delete Chatter Conversation and close the canvas. Don’t forget to Activate the Flow. If you want, you can now remove the permission set from your user record that you have used to grant Manage Chatter Messages permission.
Launch a Flow from Process Builder
Our next task is to create a Process Builder on the Delete Chatter Conversation object to launch a Flow. To create a Process Builder on the Delete Chatter Conversation object follow the below instructions
1. Click on Name | Setup | App Setup | Create | Workflows & Approvals | Process Builder
2. To create a new process from scratch, click on the New Button available on Process Management page. A popup will appear where you have to enter the Name (Use Delete Chatter Conversations PB as name), API Name and Description as shown in the below screenshot
Define Process Properties
3. Click on Object node to add object and then select Delete Chatter Conversation object. For the entry criteria, Select only when a record is created, as shown in the below screenshot. Once you’re done, click on the Save button
Evaluation Criteria
4. The next task is to add Process Criteria, To do this click on Add Criteria, enter Name, Type of action and set filter conditions (In this case select No criteria—just execute the actions!) and click on the Save button as shown in the following screenshot
Process Criteria
5. The next step is to add an Immediate action to Process. Click on Add Action (Under Immediate actions), Select the type of action to create (In our case Flows), and then fill out the fields to define the action, as shown in the following screenshot
Add action – Flows
6. Once you are done, click on the Save button, it will redirect you to Process canvas. Finally, the Process will look like the following screenshot
Don’t forget to active the Process by clicking on the Activate button.
It’s time to test this feature
1) To test this application, I’m going to use the Salesforce Platform licensed user, i.e. Brendon Schaefer, as shown in the following screenshot
Salesforce Platform User
No extra permission is assigned to this user apart from Create and Read permission on the Delete Chatter Conversation object.
2) Brendan wants to delete a Chatter conversation (It contains 4 messages) that’s started by System Administrator Rakesh Gupta, as shown in the following screenshot
Chatter Conversation
Now the million dollar question is how to get the Id of Chatter conversation as a business user when you can’t run a query.
3) To get a Chatter Conversation Id, navigate to message section and right click on a Chatter Conversation then select Inspect Element, as shown in the following screenshot
Select Inspect Element for a Chatter Conversation
4) It will open another window, from where you can copy the Chatter Conversation id as shown in the following screenshot
Chatter Conversation Id
5) Final step is to create a new record in the Delete Chatter Conversation object, as shown in the following screenshot
Create a new record
Once you’re done, click on the Save button.
6) Navigate to the Chatter messages and check it out now. The conversation is started by System Administrator Rakesh Gupta gets deleted.
Final Output
Note: – You can be only able to delete those Chatter conversation in which you are included, else you will get an error, i.e. There is nothing in Salesforce matching your delete criteria. It’s not applicable to the system Administrator with the Manage Chatter Messages permission.
