Be a Flow expert in no time! Join us to reduce the frustration of the first-time or novice flow builder by hearing hard-won knowledge and tips. No matter your skill level, we will equip you with what you wish you knew before sitting down to write your first Flow. You'll leave with knowledge you can use immediately to write better flows with less pain.

1. Know how to flow
​ Kelly Hardebeck
​ Director of Professional Services
​ Cloud for Good
​ @kellyhardebeck
​

2. ​ Safe harbor statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995:
​ This presentation may contain forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions. If any such uncertainties
materialize or if any of the assumptions proves incorrect, the results of salesforce.com, inc. could differ materially from the results expressed
or implied by the forward-looking statements we make. All statements other than statements of historical fact could be deemed forward-
looking, including any projections of product or service availability, subscriber growth, earnings, revenues, or other financial items and any
statements regarding strategies or plans of management for future operations, statements of belief, any statements concerning new,
planned, or upgraded services or technology developments and customer contracts or use of our services.
​ The risks and uncertainties referred to above include – but are not limited to – risks associated with developing and delivering new
functionality for our service, new products and services, our new business model, our past operating losses, possible fluctuations in our
operating results and rate of growth, interruptions or delays in our Web hosting, breach of our security measures, the outcome of any
litigation, risks associated with completed and any possible mergers and acquisitions, the immature market in which we operate, our
relatively limited operating history, our ability to expand, retain, and motivate our employees and manage our growth, new releases of our
service and successful customer deployment, our limited history reselling non-salesforce.com products, and utilization and selling to larger
enterprise customers. Further information on potential factors that could affect the financial results of salesforce.com, inc. is included in our
annual report on Form 10-K for the most recent fiscal year and in our quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the most recent fiscal quarter.
These documents and others containing important disclosures are available on the SEC Filings section of the Investor Information section
of our Web site.
​ Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other presentations, press releases or public statements are not currently available
and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase our services should make the purchase decisions based upon features
that are currently available. Salesforce.com, inc. assumes no obligation and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements.
Safe Harbor

3. Kelly Hardebeck
Director of Professional Services, Cloud for Good

4. o How to KNOW if FLOW is the right process automation tool for the job
o Tips to help you build flows, maintain them and fix them when things go awry.
What you’ll get out of this talk

5. ​ There are 4 different process automation tools in Salesforce that Admins can use. What are they?
1. Workflow – can update fields on a record or its parent, create a task or send an email
2. Approval Processes – specifically designed around record approvals
3. Process Builder – can update fields on any related record, create records, send email, submit
for approval
4. Visual Workflow – can update fields on any records, create records, delete records, and more
Surprise Quiz!

6. 1. Do you need input from a user?
Does the user need to enter information or choose from a list before the automation can run
properly?
2. Do records need to be deleted?
3. Is the logic complex?
Visual Workflow has two features that are unique among Salesforce automation features:
1. Visual Workflow supports user interaction
2. Visual Workflow supports deleting records
Questions to ask yourself
Is Visual Workflow right for this task?

7. 1. The user needs to click a button or a link to begin the automation.
2. Updates need to happen on fields from any record.
3. More than if/then statements are needed in the automation.
Before you decide if flow is right for you, check out this handy guide on the Salesforce Developers
site.
Flow should be your tool of choice if…

8. 1. Draft the flow using the Step tool. Steps are not a waste of time. They can be converted to
screens with one click. Really.
2. Add descriptions. No excuses. Click the “Add Description” link. Your future self will thank you.
3. Use meaningful names for decision outcomes.
4. Fault everything. Create a generic error screen
5. Pretty it up! Use formatted text and full sentences

9. ​ Before you dive right in to making a flow, use the draft tools to design the logic and the screens.
Measure twice, cut once
Map out the process

10. What? Step elements are a waste of time?
You can go from step to screen with this
magic button.

11. Use the description field
Help your future self
Comic courtesy of xkcd.com
The description field is the best place to explain what each screen, decision, assignment, etc.
is for. It’s really important that you click the Add Description link and type out what each flow
element is for.

12. 1. When naming variables and constants, add the data type to the name so StudentName
becomes txtStudentName. This helps to distinguish it from other similarly named resources
and helps when mapping them in Record Create or Record Lookup operations.
2. Decisions ask a question (“Is product Y included in the order?”). Use that question as the
name for the Decision Element.
1. Give each Decision Outcome a meaningful name. (e.g., Product Y is not included)
Names are important

13. Data operations like Record Create or Fast Lookup can throw an error if they encounter an
unexpected situation and will display a generic unhandled fault error. Instead, create a single
screen to display any error messages and let the user know to contact you, the Salesforce
Administrator, with the info.
Use fault screens
Recover gracefully from errors

14. Fault Connectors
Recover gracefully

15. ​ You don’t have to live with black 12 pt Arial for all your flows. Flow supports formatted text.
Use formatting, validation and required fields
Make it pretty and encourage good behavior

16. Required and Validation
Encourage good behavior

17. Time to test
For testing purposes, give your variables
default values to simulate user actions.

18. Create a window into the flow
Use a screen element to show you the state of your flow during development and testing. Add all the
relevant variables and values entered by the user to help expose any issues with the flow.

19. You should now be ready to:
1. Decide if Visual Workflow is the right automation tool for the job
2. Draft your flow using Step elements
3. Convert Steps to Screens with meaningful names and descriptions
4. Fault all the things!
5. Make it all pretty and enforce quality data entry
6. Test things by using default values
7. Use screens to help debug
To recap…

20. Hopefully now you’ll know how to…

21. Thank you