Take A Trip Down The River With Salesforce Flows

When something moves from one place to another in a fluid fashion, we say it “flows.” Rappers use the phrase to describe an unscripted rhythm scheme. It is when one thing logically and elegantly connects to the next until it arrives at its destination. Flowing is what rivers do. They wind along a defined path, unable to be deterred. In other words, it is automatic.

Salesforce Flows work much in the same way, only they automate business practices, making them fluid, creeping along a determined path until they arrive at a terminus — a desired result. Much like a river, they are unfaltering, elegant and fluid and they require a source.

The Wellspring

Although Salesforce Flows has a myriad of automation applications, two of the most common are screen flows and autolaunched. They allow businesses to customize automation to a businesses’ needs by allowing them to circumvent the use of a developer and allowing users to fill out information in an intuitive way. Salesforce users trigger automatic action or intake information easily.

Flows allow for precise, custom-tailored automations for any need, whether the company is large or small. Often — but not always — these solutions are low-or-no-code. Essentially, Flows collects and sorts data then performs tasks using that data, either within Salesforce or in an external system.

Initially, flows were one of Salesforce’s multitude back-end automation tools within, but Flows has since evolved. They are now a powerful tool capable of working with both internal and external data, guiding users through complex tasks, automating routines, and much more. Flows have cemented their place as the default tool for automating tasks declaratively within Salesforce, and its function will only continue to grow.

Flowing Downstream

Flows are the most powerful tool for declaratively building custom UI components. This is largely because the learning curve on creating a flow is low, making it easy. With an intuitive interface, and point and click tools, businesses can automate without having to learn any coding.

Let’s say you want to display all your Salesforce accounts on a single screen. With Salesforce Flow, it is as simple as going to the flows page, clicking on “create a new flow” and selecting your accounts. Something that would have taken hours with traditional methods, takes just a few minutes with Salesforce Flows.
Automation and ease of use are the name of the game. Every company is looking for them. As companies grow, they look for more ways to automate any element of their business and make already existing elements smoother. Because of this, Flows are a great tool for businesses looking to automate and speed up their internal processes, and the uses will continue to grow as Salesforce continues to develop Flows.

A Guide Along the River

From a high-level, the value of a partner comes into play when considering the value — or capability — of a Flow. There are so many things Flows can do, an experienced partner can look for ways that automation could help clients and suggest ways to bring value to how companies put that automation into practice. Seeing such benefits can prove difficult for a business not deeply knowledgeable of Salesforce Flows and its capabilities.

Let’s say a client wants to be able to enter all the information about all their customers. By understanding that a Flow has the capability to take in — in a comma-separated spreadsheet —  a bunch of their customer data and parsing out that data and creating, say, five hundred contact records from the spreadsheet, the partner has potentially saved the client hundreds of man hours.

This has immense value to companies, and it is only achieved with a guided path, set forward by an experienced partner. So, whether your company wants to flow like a rapper — artistic, too cool for school — or like a river — fluid and winding — get Salesforce Flows.