Flow Loops Just Got Simpler

Actually, I don’t know when this change happened, but I just noticed that Flow loops now only have four steps instead of five. The two assignments can now be consolidated into one.

You still have to add the record to a collection, but you can use the same assignment element.

Example 1: Update the record currently in the loop.

  1. Use a Get Records element to create a collection of records to loop through.
  2. Add a loop element
  3. Add ONE assignment element
    • Update field values for record currently in the loop.
    • Create a new record collection variable to hold the records you want to update.
    • Use the same assignment element to add the record currently in the loop to the new collection.
  4. Add an Update Records element to update the records in your new collection.

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Example 2: Create new records.

  1. Use a Get Records element to create a collection of records to loop through.
  2. Add a loop element
  3. Add ONE assignment element
    • Create a new record variable (not collection) to hold the values of the new record you want to create.
    • Assign field values to your new record variable.
    • Create a new record collection variable to hold your records that you want to create.
    • Use the same assignment element to add the record currently in the loop to the new collection.
    • Close the loop.
  4. Add a Create Records element to create the records in your new collection.

Previously step 3 involved two assignment elements!

Watch this recording on Flow loops.

This is how you would combine steps 3 and 4 into one assignment!

Log Email Sent Through Flow on a Contact Record

Shows the activity timeline of a contact record with one email message stored there sent at 2:46pm today with subject "Welcome to the family, Jemma!"
Log an email message on the contact record like this one.

When sending email from a contact record, it magically logs the message to your activity log. In classic, emails were/are automatically logged to the Activities related list. Well, flow doesn’t do that for you. Let me show you how to log it so you and your colleagues know when an email was sent to a contact.

After you add a “Send Email” action to your flow, add two more Create Records elements to the canvas. You will create records of these objects:

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Packages: Admin-Friendly Way to Move Metadata to Another Org

I build cool shit in Salesforce that I want to share with other people. How do I do that quickly and easily? I make an unmanaged package.

  • From Setup, search for and go to Package Manager.
  • Click New.
  • Fill out the form. Give yourself credit for creating the package and a way to get more information in applicable.
  • Don’t check “Managed.” By leaving it unchecked, you allow people who install it to make their own modifications.
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Get Salesforce Practice by Tracking Your Habits

Want more practice learning Salesforce? Don’t have experience beyond Trailhead? Build an app to help you track good or bad habits. This is a win-win-win: hone your app builder skills, improve your habits, and you’ll have a cool app to show off in job interviews.

Salesforce Skills Used

  • Create a custom object and fields
  • Create reports
  • Create dashboard components
  • Make it mobile friendly
  • Problem solving: how to turn real life issues into measurable data
  • Send email every 3 days with stats
  • Bonus: Screen flow for easy tracking

My version: Migraine Tracking App

Forget record-triggered flows or apex triggers. The real demons are migraine triggers. I want to build an app to track when I have one of my trigger foods and when I have symptoms.

I have a threshold for tolerance of delicious triggers. I can eat some chocolate, dairy or red wine without reaching the threshold and getting sick, but I don’t know what the threshold is. Can building my own tracking app help?

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Year End Tax Receipt for Donors

UPDATE 1/13/23: If you’re installing today from AppExchange, it’s a new version 1.4 that you can run by running a flow called Year End Tax Flow. New detailed instructions below. To install the new version, please uninstall the old version first! Go to Setup, search for “Installed Packages,” find “Year End Tax” and uninstall that.

Easy peasy list of all last year’s donations

Send your donors (contact records only) a tax receipt at the beginning of the new year listing all of last year’s donations. For Salesforce Nonprofit Success Pack users, this unmanaged package will generate a table for each donor listing the gifts they made last year. Use your own email to send a tax receipt by email. The table lists the amount, date and, optionally, the campaign name of each donation.

Package includes this sample template.

Thanks for the great app, just in time…Simple, easy, elegant, and just what we needed.

David, Eaglesrest.org
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Flow: Display Photo or Upload Photo

The flow will display either a photo or remind you to upload one. On any object!

How It Works:

The Flow looks for a file attached to that record with the title “SalesforcePhoto” (or another phrase of your choosing).

The File gets the title from the name of the file when you upload it. If you upload SalesforcePhoto.jpg, the title becomes “SalesforcePhoto.” You could also open the File details in Salesforce and change the title.

If that file is found, it’s previewed thanks to the work of Narender Singh, (of course)!

If not found, it asks you to upload a file from your computer named SalesforcePhoto and attaches it to that record. From then on the, the flow displays the photo!

We are using the app because constituents and donors are more than just a record, and seeing their faces humanizes the data.

Donna, Vote Solar
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5 Steps of Flow Loops

Repeat these steps whenever you need to look through a bunch of records

In less then 12 minutes, you’ll learn the five steps and be able to update the records in your collection.

Thanks to 100 Days of Trailhead for hosting this video on their YouTube channel and nudging me to make a follow up which will debut soon.

Continue reading 5 Steps of Flow Loops

Invocable Methods: How to Send Data Between Flow and Apex

Invocable methods used with Flow allow you to launch something in an admin friendly format that uses the massive power of Apex. For example, you have an intake screen that collects answers to a few questions, then you use Apex to loop through many related records dispersing those answers in places hard to reach from Flow.

Creating an invocable method in a nutshell: First you write an apex class with @invocable method (label and description) and whatever code you want the apex to do (easy, right?) Then make your Flow including your input and output variables. Then add an Apex action in Flow to send/receive those variables.

Here are some things I learned about sending data between Flow and Apex.

Invocable methods in Apex always receive a List and they return a List unless the return type is null. Read more under “Inputs and Outputs” here.

SentSent FromReceived by Received
Record Variable.idFlowApexList<Id> listOfIds
Record Collection VariableFlowApexList<List<Opportunity>> nameOfThis
List containing 1 sObject recordApexFlowRecord (single) variable
List of Lists of sObjectApexFlowRecord Collection Variable

This is NOT an exhaustive list at all. I didn’t try sending a record variable (not just the ID from Flow), but I assume that will work. There are also generic sObjects that are pretty special, but I didn’t try.

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Send Tables in Email in Flow – NPSP Example #2 Memorial Gifts

This is the second in a series on sending email with an embedded table of records of NPSP objects. The first post was a list of payments.

“Here is the use case: sending a family of a deceased relative one letter with all the names of people who have donated in memoriam. So, one letter to the family for many people who gave. Client is a large hospice so this is happening weekly. Open to different options — apps? exports & merge? other? Thanks!”

Rob asked in the Power of Us Hub, back in April

Well, I’m a few months late, but here you go, Rob. I made a Flow that sends out an email like the one below. I see now that you said “letter”…oops. Hopefully you figured out a solution by now, anyway!

Install this unmanaged package to try it out.

Continue reading Send Tables in Email in Flow – NPSP Example #2 Memorial Gifts