“Like that’ll ever happen.” I can still remember typing those characters when a colleague told me that Salesforce was planning to retire Workflow Rules & Process builder in favour of Flows. Both had been around for years and are widely used, Salesforce couldn’t just remove them from the thousands of orgs that rely on them? I was partially correct.
Salesforce is planning to depreciate Workflow Rules and Process Builder and migrate users to Flows. While there is a migration plan in place from Salesforce, your organization needs to take precautionary steps to avoid short and long-term disruptions.
Currently, all three tools provide overlapping functionality for creating automated workflows in Salesforce. These various competing options can cause confusion with different admins, consultants and developers preferring their own approach. Multiple tools can also complicate the development of the core product and slow down the release of new automation enhancements.
Salesforce has stated that by unifying around a single automation tool — Flows — Salesforce will be able to focus new innovations in one area and it will aid with community development.
In fact, Flows, as the newest automation tool, already offers some enhancements over Process builder and Workflows.
Salesforce certainly sees Flows as the future and so will continue to invest in their development including filling gaps in functionality. But even now there are aspects where Flows are better than the alternatives and so you may desire to migrate to Flows sooner.
With these characteristics in mind, it makes sense that Flows have been prepared as the next-generation tool for Salesforce automation.
In some ways, the process has already begun as Process Builder and Workflow Rules haven’t received updates recently. In the next Salesforce releases, several updates are coming to aid in your migration process.
Currently, there is no word on when or even if existing Process Builder and Workflows Rules automations will cease operating but no company wants to be in the position of being stuck with an existing process that needs updating.
While we wait for Salesforce to release its migrations tools, the only option is to manually recreate your existing automations as new automation in Flows. Depending on the number and complexity of automations you have, this could be a considerable amount of time, not to mention the challenge of replacing process builder and workflow rules functionality which currently doesn’t exist in Flows.
We have started new internal training programs on both using flows as well as converting Workflow Rules and Process Builder automations into Flow in preparation for their retirement. Our team of experts can help you assess whether it is worth replacing an automation now or if it is better to wait for Salesforce’s migration tool and potential flow improvements. To discuss your options, get in touch and we’d be more than happy to help you plan and execute your migration to Flows.
Author
Mark Hartnady
Head of Architecture
VRP Consulting UK
Mark Hartnady is one of our global architecture leaders, based in our London office. Mark has been working with CRM solutions, with a particular focus on the Salesforce platform since 2012 and has been instrumental in transforming enterprises with scalable, extensible solutions in the Manufacturing, Automotive, Hi-tech and Media sectors.
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