Category / Process Automation

by JessieRymph

Learn Flow Loops Video

Join me for a Salesforce.org webinar Intro to Flow on Thursday, Apr 9, 2020 9:00 AM – 10:00 AM PDT. Register here.

Remember back when there were community events and conferences? I had the honor to speak at Cactusforce in Phoenix in January — highly recommend this small event! So many MVPs, so many recognizable experts in one small event. And the weather was great.

Session Description: Flow Loops unlock incredible power previously held only by devs. Without using any code, Admins can create an automated process to loop through all related records and take actions based on what is found there!

Towards the end of the video I talk about Spring ’20 amazingness with Flow that you can read more about here and here.

Go Ahead: Loop Through that Collection in Flow – Jessie Rymph from Marisa Hambleton on Vimeo.

 

by JessieRymph

Simple Before-Save Flow

Here’s a real quick intro to the Spring ’20 Before-Save Flow feature. Find in depth information on this topic from Jennifer Lee and Jodie Miners.

Basic gist: 

  1. Double click into the Start element and indicate to launch Flow on new record created (in this example).
  2. Use a Decision element to see if this record meets criteria.
  3. If so, use an Assignment element to update the field values. There is no “update records” – you just use an Assignment.
  4. Access the values of the Record by using $Record.Field__c when choosing a resource or variable.
  5. You cannot access $Record.Id because it doesn’t have an ID yet! It hasn’t been saved.

Continue reading →

by JessieRymph

Spring ’20 URL Hack Explained

Spring ’20 brings us a revised version of a classic admin’s old favorite: the URL hack, the ability to pass field values via the URL. Let’s try it now with a custom button.

Read the release notes: Navigate to a Record’s Create Page with Default Field Values.

Use Case

The Ugly Dog Adoption Agency wants to click a button on the Animal record (parent) to create a new Treatment Plan record (child), and have a few fields automatically filled in. In this video, I start on the dog Grover’s record and click the button to create a new Treatment Plan. The lookup fields Animal and Vet Assigned are pre-populated.

Continue reading →

by JessieRymph

Delete Opportunity Contact Roles for Deceased Contacts

Cover image of fictional book

Don’t forget to handle your technical debt in the afterlife.

Question: When a contact dies, how can you use Flow to delete their Opportunity Contact Roles for open opportunities? Answer: With a Loop!

Here’s the unmanaged package.

Use common sense. Install and test thoroughly in a sandbox! You’re deleting records! I made it really quickly and did not test thoroughly!

Here are the requirements as posted by Ashlynn on the Power of Us Hub:

“I am trying to set up an autolaunched flow to remove Opportunity Contact Roles from open opportunities with deceased contacts. (For example, we are soliciting a major gift from a couple, and one of them passes away before the donation is received.) I have successfully configured a process to remove the deceased contact from acknowledgement for that gift when it comes in, but for the sake of clean data I would like to also automatically remove their OCR from the opportunity record. I am coming up with ‘unhandled faults’ and hoping since this is only my 2nd flow ever that someone will be able to see an obvious error with my configuration.

Continue reading →

by JessieRymph

I just said I don’t want any email!

Hip hip hurray! My unmanaged package Unsubscribe Link is now available for free on AppExchange! This package will allow your constituents to unsubscribe from all emails for your organization. Email with link to unsubscribe from all emails at the bottom.

The package includes an automatic confirmation email, but you can turn that feature off. Watch the video below and/or follow these instructions: Continue reading →

by JessieRymph

Flow Basics for Nonprofit Admins

Jessie speaking at Dreamforce

That’s me living my dream while the audience listens on headphones.

Learning how to build a Flow is like interacting with a volunteer who…needs some extra help. Through these videos, I explain some of the trickier flow concepts for admins: “get records” and “record variables.” I was lucky enough to give his presentation at Dreamforce 2019.

Good news: in this version I have unlimited time so I’ve shown all the steps in detail.

More good news: this presentation doesn’t actually utilize anything specific to nonprofits so it’s suitable for you Sales Cloud folks as well.

You’ll find a quick summary of the flow here.

Continue reading →

by JessieRymph

We’re Speaking at Dreamforce!

Critics who viewed our sessions at Forcelandia called them “Hilarious!” “Informative!” “The best!” If you’re coming to the big event, don’t miss out!

Flow Basics for Nonprofit Admins 

Wednesday, 12pm Westin St. Francis with Salesforce.org staff Jessie Rymph

jessie headshot

Flow is a powerful automation tool that walks users through screens, updates multiple objects at once, and reaches distantly related records all with clicks-not-code. By learning Flow, nonprofits can surpass the limitations of Process Builder and harness the power of code without actually having a developer on staff. In this session, we’ll demystify record variables, “get records”, and other elements that are often unfamiliar to non-coders. Participants will walk away with an understanding of the *why* behind each step in the flow creation process!

One Process to Rule Them All

Thursday, 11:30am Moscone West with MVP Maya Peterson

maya

One process to rule them all, one process to find them, one process to bring them all and in the invocation bind them. As a best practice Salesforce now recommends restricting your org to one record-change process per object. Truly a tool of great power. In this session you’ll learn tricks to manage process criteria nodes using Custom Metadata Types, Custom Settings, and Custom Permissions. No harrowing trip to Mount Doom required.

by JessieRymph

How to Include an Unsubscribe Link, Revised

2/15/20: Instructions and set up worksheet updated for Spring ’20.

1/9/20: Download the set-up worksheet to use with the instructions. 

12/16/19 Download the app now on the AppExchange! 

Allow Recipients to Unsubscribe from All Emails

Follow this tutorial to include an unsubscribe link in promotional emails sent from Salesforce. This post gives you some reasons for considering this feature.

When the recipient clicks to unsubscribe, a flow will look for all contacts and leads who have this as their preferred email address (if you’re in NPSP) or in the Email field. All contacts or leads who meet that requirement will be marked “Email Opt Out.”  The email address owner will receive one confirmation email immediately.

Please try this in your sandbox, developer org or Trailhead playground first! 
Continue reading →

by JessieRymph

Winter ’20 Flow Improvements & Disappointments

Oh man…so much good stuff in the new release. And a real bummer.

Add a lookup component in Flow

I’m really disappointed about this. I was confusing “lookup” with “search.” I want to search for any record I want and get a list returned. Nope. I can search using any lookup field I already have. This is good, but not quite what I was thinking.

RIP Bailey Bones, my beloved companion of 14 years.

Unsatisfying use case : A dog turned in at the animal shelter has a microchip number (text field) which I want to use to search for potentially matching dogs. I want to look up a dog in my flow then process their intake at the shelter.

  • Possible solution: I could do this if I had the microchip number in the name of animal, like Bailey 238392, and I looked it up to the animal record from say, an adoption record. It has to already be a lookup field.

Satisfying use case: Let’s say I am processing an animal record for adoption. From the animal’s record, I can lookup the Contact record of the person who is adopting the animal as part of my animal adoption flow.

Note: you can do a work around for this kind of search. Thanks Jenwlee.

Continue reading →

by JessieRymph

Was it worth my time to automate that? On the AppExchange!

Thanks to everyone who expressed an interest in my June 5, 2019 post “Was it worth my time to automate that?” The solution is now available on the AppExchange from Salesforce Labs! Check it out!

Have you ever wondered:

  • How much time am I saving with this automation?
  • How many times has this process ever fired?
  • Was the time I spent building this thing worth the investment?
  • Are the people who requested this automation actually using it? If not, who is?

Continue reading →