Salesforce Management System is an information system used in CRM to automate business processes like sales and marketing. To implement this, Force.com developed a powerful tool called Visual Workflow to automate business processes by creating applications called Flows.
Learning Salesforce Visual Workflow, Second Edition is a practical guide on Flows that will enable you to develop custom applications in Salesforce with minimized code usage.
The book starts with an introduction to Visual Workflows that teaches all the building blocks of creating Flows and how to use Flow efficiently. You will learn how to easily automate business processes and tackle complex business scenarios using Flows. The book explains the working of the Process Builder so you can create reusable processes. The book also covers how you can integrate existing or, newly created Flows with the Salesforce Lightning Experience.
By the end of the book, you will get a clear understanding of how to use Flows and Process Builder in your organization to optimize code usage. This book will also help you in preparing for yourSalesforce certified platform app builder examination.
What’s New
Over the past few months, I have spent a LOT of time updating the book. I made hundreds, if not thousands, of changes throughout the book – from big to small. For example, many of you provided me with hundreds of comments and suggestions; and, in this book, I have tried my very best, to incorporate almost all of them. Furthermore, I have added two new chapters – “Building efficient and performance optimized Processes” and, “Enabling Flows to work with Lightning Experience” to explain new concepts. I also did a major revamp to almost all of the chapters. I am especially excited about the app that I have discussed at the end of the book to show how easily someone can create an application (punch in/out) using Flow (plus a bit of Apex code).
Here’s a taste of what you’ll uncover:
Develop an application using point and click with the help of Flow.
Posted at 1:12 AM by Rakesh Gupta, on June 30, 2015
InSalesforceuser can useApproval process to get approval from managers or higher authority.Approval processes route a record to one or more approvers, specifying the steps necessary for a record to be approved, and who must approve it at each step. In a normal approval process, i.e.Static approval process, the approvers at each step are explicitly specified in each step approval process, or you can have the submitter choose the approver manually, as shown in the following screenshot
Static approval process
Whereas dynamic approval routing allows us to specify the approvers for each record usingUserlookup fields on the record requiring approval. These fields can be populated using the Process Builder orApex, using data from a special custom object/setting that contains all the information needed to route the record. Dynamic approval routing provides the flexibility to route the approval request to different people based on Account Type or some other criteria related to the record.Let’s start with a business use case
Business Use case
Steven Greene is working as System administrator in Universal Container. He has received a requirement from the management, to route opportunity approval requests to designated approvers, based on the opportunity’s Lead Source and the opportunity’s account type.
Solution for the above business requirement
There are a few possible solutions for the above business scenario, but I’ll use Process Builder and Flowto solve the above business requirement. Steps to create dynamic approval routing are mentioned below
Create a custom lookup (with user object) field on the object being approved
Create a custom settings/object that will be used as an approval matrix
Populate the approval matrix, i.e. create a few records in Custom settings/object
Use Flow and Process Builder to populate the lookup field on the record, from the approval matrix
Create or update an approval process to utilize the new lookup fields
Follow the below instructions to solve the above business requirement
1.Create a custom lookup field on the Opportunityobject, called as Opportunity Approver as shown in the following screenshot
Custom field
2. The next step is to create a custom object (Approver Matrix) and few custom fields to store all the fields used in routing, as shown in the following screenshot
Custom Object
3. The next step is to create the approval matrix records. For exampleLead Source = WebandType =Existing Customer – Upgrade, one might route the records to Helina Jolly asOpportunity Approver. It will loo like the following screenshot
Approver Matrix
4. Now we will use Flowand Process Builderto populate the lookup field Opportunity Approver on the opportunity record, from the approval matrix.
Click on Name | Setup | App Setup | Create | Workflows & Approvals | Flows and then click on the New Flow, it will open the Flow canvas for you. Now create few Text variables VarT_LeadSource, VarT_Type, VarT_OpportuntiyApprover and VarT_OppIdto store Lead source, Opportunity Type, opportunity Approver and Opportunity Id respectively.
5. The next step is to get the Opportunity approver, for this we will use record lookup element. To do this drag-and-drop Record Lookup element (Enter the name To get opportunity approver) onto the canvas and map the fields according to below details
Select Object Approver_Matrix__c
For criteria selectType__C= {!VarT_Type} and Lead_Source__C= {!VarT_LeadSource}.
Save the Opportunity approver in a Text variable as shown in the following screenshot
Record Lookup – To get Opportunity Approver
6. Now we will use theDecision element to check the Text Variable{!VarT_OpportuntiyApprover}size. If the Text Variable is not equal tonullthen we will go ahead and update Approver on opportunity record otherwise, we will update it with a default approver. You can take help from the following screenshot to create a DecisionElement
Decision Element – Check Text Variable Size
7. The next step is to update an Opportunity record. For this, we will useRecord Update element. Drag-and-drop Record Update element (Enter the name Update Opportunity Approver) onto the canvas and map the fields according to the following screenshot
Record Update – To update opportunity approver
8. In case if there are no approver exist inApprover Matrixfor the current opportunity based on Type and Lead Source then we will update,Opportunity Approverwith a default user Id. For this, we will useRecord Update element. Drag-and-drop Record Update element (Enter the name Update Default approver ) onto the canvas and map the fields according to the following screenshot
Record Update – To update default approver
Finally, yourFlowwill look like the following screenshot
8. Save your flow with nameDynamic Approval Routing and close the canvas. Don’t forget to Activatethe Flow.
Launch a Flow from Process Builder
Our next task is to create a Process Builder on theOpportunity object to launch a Flow. To create a Process Builder on theOpportunity object follow the below instructions
1. Click on Name | Setup | App Setup | Create | Workflows & Approvals | Process Builder and click on the New button, Enter Name, API Name and then click on the Save button
Define Process Properties
2. The next step is to add entry criteria. For this click onAdd Object, selectOpportunity object and for the entry criteria, Select when a record is created or edited, as shown in the below screenshot, once you are done click on theSave button
Evaluation Criteria
3. The next task is to add ProcessCriteria, To do this click on Add Criteria, enter Name, Type of action and set filter conditions(In this case set [Opportunity].LeadSource Is Null False or [Opportunity].Type Is Null False ) and click on the Save button as shown in the following screenshot
Process Criteria
4. The next step is to addan Immediate action to Process. Click onAdd 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
5. Once you are done, click on theSave button, it will redirect you to Process canvas. Finally, theProcess will look like the following screenshot
Don’t forget to active the Process by clicking on the Activatebutton.
Modify the existing approval process
The final step is to modify the existing approval process. I assume that you have created an active approval process on Opportunityobject, as shown in the following screenshot
Approval process on Opportunity
Now modify the approver step, and select related userOpportunity approver, as shown in the following screenshot
Select Assigned Approver
It’s time to test this feature
1) Navigate to theOpportunity tab, identify theOpportunity and click on Opportunity Name. 2) Update the Lead Source and Type, Process Builder automatically populate the Opportunity approver field, as shown in the following screenshot
Opportunity Record
3) Finally, submit an Opportunity record for approval.
Approval Request
Note: – I will suggest you to implement this first on your developer org, test it and then move it to production. Don’t try to implement this in Spring’15 org, otherwise, you will get an error.
