6 June 2024

Salesforce Process Builder retirement is less than 18 months away! Get all the details here

There’s not long to go. Salesforce^® Process Builder, central to many organizations’ digital processes and automations, is being retired in only a year and a half from the date of this article’s publication.

So, what do you need to know about the Salesforce Process Builder retirement? When is Salesforce retiring Process Builder? How should you start preparing for it? Why is this a perfect opportunity to transform your processes and get even more value from Salesforce?

Read on for all the important information:

Process Builder support finishes at the end of 2025

The final Salesforce Process Builder retirement date is December 31, 2025. This date, at the end of the Process Builder retirement timeline, marks the end of support. It’s the last step in a long and careful journey of phasing out Process Builder. There have been several milestones in this journey – for instance, since Summer 2023, customers have no longer been able to create new processes using Process Builder.

We first posted about Salesforce Process Builder retirement way back in 2021 when Salesforce initially announced the move. Now that the date is closer, we think it’s important to raise more awareness – starting with this article. We’ll be exploring why Salesforce retiring Process Builder is important and why it matters to you.

But first of all, some of you may be wondering: “What is Process Builder?” Even if you have already implemented Salesforce at your organization, you might not have heard the name before. So, let’s start there:

What is Process Builder?

First introduced in 2014, Process Builder is a workflow automation tool provided by Salesforce. It allows people to create automated business processes, often referred to simply as “processes” or “workflows”, all built using a point-and-click interface rather than code – making it a less expertise-intensive method.

Don’t know if your organization’s processes in Salesforce have been created using Process Builder? You can check with your in-house technical specialists (if you have any) or with your Salesforce Partner (if you have one). As an experienced, certified Salesforce Partner, VRP Consulting can always help if you need us. For now, there’s a quick check you can make that might help, and we’ll tell you about it next.

Were your processes created with Process Builder?

Here’s one way to tell if you might be affected by the retirement of Process Builder: if your Salesforce processes were created before 2019, there’s a high chance they were created using Process Builder (or Workflow Rules – we’ll explain more about that later in this article).

2019 was the year when Salesforce released Flow Designer – a pivotal point in the history of Salesforce process automation. Flow Designer revolutionized automation thanks to a higher level of flexibility and intuitiveness than had been possible previously, and its arrival was embraced by Salesforce professionals worldwide.

However, as stated previously, the only definitive way to find out if your processes were built with Process Builder is to take a good look at your Salesforce setup and/or speak to someone who knows it well – or engage professional Salesforce consultants to review it for you.

Salesforce is consolidating automation into Flow

We mentioned Workflow Rules earlier. This is an even earlier form of Salesforce automation that’s also being retired on the same date as Process Builder. Why are both these automation methods being retired? It’s because Salesforce wants all customers’ automations to happen via Flow.

Flows, built via Orchestrator, are the most powerful and flexible way to automate using Salesforce. That’s why Salesforce is consolidating automation under the Customer 360 Platform into Flow. You can find out more here. Next in this article, we’ll provide a brief rundown of the factors that give Flow the edge.

Why is Salesforce Flow the best method for automation?

Want a quick summary of why Salesforce Flow is better than using Process Builder or Workflow Rules? Here are the top eight key points, in no particular order

Better for complex logic and business processes
More user interactivity and guided processes
Flexible, reusable components and modularity
Native integration with external systems via several methods
More robust error handling and debugging features
Better version control and deployment options
Can use custom Apex code via Apex Actions or Apex triggers
Higher performance and greater scalability

As you can see, moving to Flow brings a wide range of very valuable benefits, and now is the best time to move all your Salesforce automation from Process Builder to Flow. It’s much more advisable to act now than after the end of Process Builder’s support (for reasons we’ll explain next) – and why not benefit from new, transformed processes as soon as possible?

If you’d like to learn more, our experts would be happy to talk about this opportunity, and explain the benefits of Flow, in greater detail – just get in touch.

Next, we’ll look at why we don’t advise keeping your Salesforce automation in Process Builder:.

What happens if you don’t stop using Process Builder?

If you don’t migrate your Salesforce automations from Process Builder to Flow, you won’t lose them. However, you won’t be able to create new Process Builder processes, you won’t be able to edit your existing processes and you won’t be able to rely on support or perform bug-fixes. The best way to future-proof your Salesforce investment is to move any Process Builder processes you have into Flow, instead of remaining on an unsupported feature any longer than you need to.

It’s not just about avoiding risk, however. In fact, this is an important opportunity to revamp and transform your processes. The new possibilities provided by Flow allow you to dramatically increase the value Salesforce offers to your organization, users and customers. Flow is a cutting-edge, modern process automation tool that’s fit for the needs of today’s connected, data-powered businesses and nonprofits – and Process Builder’s retirement is the perfect reason to make the switch.

When should you migrate off Process Builder?

If you’re reading this article in June 2024 (when it was published) you may be thinking “OK, but that’s a long while away. I’ve got plenty of time – why do I need to think about it now?” That’s a very good question. Here’s our answer:

It’s always a good idea to plan and budget for any changes to your organization’s technology as far in advance as you can, and this case is no exception. It’s advisable to get answers to questions like how long it will take to migrate from Process Builder to Flow, how much work will be involved, and what might the costs be if you’re engaging a third party’s assistance. That way, you can be well-prepared for the entire migration process and it will have a much higher chance of going without a hitch.

You will need to investigate factors such as the following:

How many Process Builder processes do you use?
Are all those processes in active use? By whom?
What is the complexity of the processes?
How many “nodes” does each process have?

If you don’t know the answers to these questions and don’t think you’ll be able to get them, don’t worry. We will be happy to help you get a clear picture of the effort, complexity and potential costs of migrating to Flow from Process Builder.

Need some help preparing for Salesforce Process Builder retirement?

Thank you for reading. We hope this article has been useful and helped you understand the upcoming Salesforce Process Builder retirement, as well as anything you need to do to prepare for it.

If you think you’ll require any assistance with anything we’ve explored here, or if you still have questions or need advice, we’re here for you. VRP Consulting is an award-winning, global Salesforce Partner, with hundreds of projects completed by our fully certified experts. We want you to have a smooth, successful transition from Process Builder to Flow, and we will be delighted to help you in any way you need. Just reach out to us today.

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About the Author

Dan Collis

Solution Architect, VRP Consulting UK

Dan is a Solution Architect and Senior Consultant within VRP Consulting’s UK team. He has more than ten years’ experience implementing the Salesforce platform as well as end-to-end knowledge of Salesforce roadmap management and project delivery.