Big Idea or Enduring Question:
How do you automatically add users into a Chatter Group?
Objectives:
This blog post will help us to understand the following
- Create automation associated with creating a new user
- Automatically add a user to a specified Chatter group
- How to use the quick action in Process Builder
- What is MIXED DML error and how to avoid it
Business Use case
Brenda David is working as a System administrator at Universal Containers (UC). Her next assignment is to create a process to auto add a new user to Chatter Group (UC Internal Announcements).
Automation Champion Approach (I-do):
The process of creating a new user can involve many steps that have to be repeated for each person. This can become time-consuming for admins. However, this process can be made easier with automation.
A few months back, I had written an article Automatically Add New User to Chatter Group to discuss a way through which we can auto add a new user to Chatter Group. To achieve it, I had used Flow, Process Builder, and Workflow Rule. I got excellent feedback, so I wanted to share another way to do achieve the same business use case, using the Process Builder and Global Action.
While this can be solved using various automation tools like Apex or Flow, we will use Process Builder. This is not something that can be accomplished with Workflow Rules.
Before proceeding, ahead, understanding CollaborationGroupMember objects in Salesforce. It represents a member of a Chatter group.
| Field Name | Details |
| CollaborationGroupId | Represent Id of the Chatter Group |
| MemberId | Represent Id of the User (Group member) |
Before discussing the solution, let me show you a diagram of a Process Flow at a high level. Please spend a few minutes to go through the following Flow diagram and understand it.
Let’s begin building this automation process.
Guided Practice (We-do):
There are 8 steps to solve Brenda’s business requirement using Process Builder. We must:
- Create a chatter group
- Find the chatter group Id
- Creating a custom label to store chatter group Id
- Define process properties
- Define evaluation criteria
- Define process criteria
- Set time for actions to execute
- Add action – quick actions
Step 1: Create a Chatter Group
- Navigate to App Launcher and click on the Groups.
- Clicks on the New button.
- Name the Group and make sure to select the Private Access Type.
- Click Save.
Step 2: Find the Chatter Group Id for UC Internal Announcements
The next step is to find out the Id of the chatter group UC Internal Announcements. One possible workaround is to use the Developer Console.
- Click Setup | Developer Console
- In the Query Editor, run the following SOQL query
- Select id, name from collaborationgroup where (name=’UC Internal Announcements’)
- Make sure to copy the Id.
Step 3: Creating a Custom Label to Store Chatter Group Id
- Click Setup.
- In the User Interface, type Custom Labels.
- Click on the New Custom Label button.
- Enter Short Description the Name will auto-populate.
- Now enter the UC Internal Announcement chatter group id in the Value.
- Click Save.
Step 4: Define Process Properties
- Click Setup.
- In the Quick Find box, type Process Builder.
- Select Process Builder, then click New.
- Name the Process and click the Tab button. The API Name will populate.
- As a best practice, always input a description.
- The process starts when A record changes.
- Click Save.
Step 5: Define Evaluation Criteria
- Click on the Add Object node to begin selecting the evaluation criteria.
- Select the User object from the dropdown list.
- Start the process only when a record is created.
- Click Save.
Step 6: Define Process Criteria
- Click the Add Criteria node to begin defining the process criteria.
- Name the criteria.
- The criteria should execute actions when the conditions are met.
- Set Conditions
- Row 1
- Field: User | IsActive
- Operator: Equals
- Type: Boolean
- Value: True
- Row 1
- Select All of the conditions are met (AND).
- Click Save.
Step 7: set time for actions to execute
When DML operations on certain sObjects sometimes referred to as setup objects (such as a User Object), along with, on the non-setup object (such as Accounts), in the same transaction, then, a Mixed DML error is thrown at a User.
The Mixed DML error is generated – when a User performs DML actions on Setup and non-Setup Objects in the same transaction -because some sObjects affect the user’s access to records in the org. Therefore, a user must insert or update these types of sObjects in different transactions to prevent operations from happening with incorrect access-level permissions. For example, a user cannot update an account, and a user role, in a single transaction. However, deleting a DML operation has no restrictions (reference Salesforce help).
We are adding time delays to avoid MIXED DML Errors.
- Below Scheduled Actions, click Set Schedule.
- Set Field Values:
- Row 1:
- 0
- Hours
- After
- CreatedDate
- Row 1:
- Click Save.
Step 8: Add Action – Quick Actions
- Below 0 Hours After CreatedDate Scheduled Actions, click Add Action.
- For Action Type, select Quick Actions.
- Name the action.
- Filter Search By: Type
- Type: Create a Record
- Action: NewGroupMember
- Set Quick Action Field Values:
- Row 1:
- Field: Member ID
- Type: Field Reference
- Value: User | ID
- Click Add Row
- Row 2:
- Field: Related Record ID
- Type: Formula
- Value: System Variable | Label | UC_Internal_Chatter_Group_ID
- Row 1:
- Click Save.
Almost there! Once everything looks good, click the Activate button.
Note:- Before you activate your process, you will want to make sure that you have assigned data in the correct format because Process Builder obeys validation rules. If some fields are required by using validation rules, then make sure you have added those fields. Conversely, if some fields are required on the page layout, you can ignore those fields.
Proof of Concept
Now onwards, if a system administrator creates a new user, then Process Builder will automatically trigger and add the user to the UC Internal Announcement Chatter group.
- Now create a new user via the UI
- Once the user is created, they are automatically added to the chatter group UC Internal Announcements within a few seconds, as shown in the following screenshot:
Check Paused Flow Interviews
- Click Setup.
- In the Quick Find box, type Paused Flow Interviews.
- Now you will see all action waiting for execution.
Independent Practice (You-do):
Automatically add a user to a different user group based on their role or profile.
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.
