Salesforce Administration – Sunshine and Other Unhandled Exceptions

Live Flow Loops Training 9/14 10:30am PT/ 1:30pm ET

Join me TOMORROW on Automate This, the Salesforce Admins series hosted by Jennifer W. Lee. Follow along with the written instructions as I show you how to build a flow loop!

Open this YouTube link up tomorrow at the right time and watch LIVE!

How to Use the Migrate to Flow Tool and Recreate Your Workflow Tasks

The Migrate to Flow tool can quickly move your Workflows to Flows, but it can’t recreate your tasks. I’m here to teach you how to do that.

In this how-to-video, you can learn along with the Salesforce Nonprofit User group in San Francisco, how to:

Use the Migrate to Flow Tool

Create a task in Flow (jump to this point in video)

Assign the task to user in a way that works in the sandbox and production (jump to this point in the video)

My section of the video is the first 30 minutes. Thanks to the user group for having me!

Learn more about migrating to flow on the Salesforce Admin’s blo g .

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:

Visual Studio Code: An Adventurous Admin’s Way to Move Metadata to Another Org

A few weeks ago I shared how to use a package to move metadata between unrelated orgs. That solution is perfect for sharing something you built with other people.

When you’re moving metadata between orgs that you control (related or not), try Visual Studio Code! Don’t worry about the “Code” part. You don’t have to read it or write it to use VS Code.

VS Code has lots of benefits that I don’t understand yet (somehow you can use it to move profiles and FLS). I will now teach you all I know. 1) How to deploy between two orgs. 2) How to paste in some code to deploy sections in Flows.

Huge thanks to Brian Ricter for teaching me how to do this!

Prerequisites:

Install Visual Studio Code. It’s free!
Install the Command Line Interface
Install the Salesforce Extension Pack

If you haven’t done any of those yet, complete this really helpful trailhead Quick Start.

Live Session 7/26 on Flow Error Handling

Join MVP Aleks Radovanovic (Okta) at Salesforce Labs Day on July 26, 8am PT as she discusses my* Salesforce Labs solution for Flow Error Handling.

Session Description: With Flow becoming the dominant declarative automation tool, business problems we are solving with automation are becoming more complex. We need to be able to build scalable Flows that are easy to maintain, upgrade and troubleshoot, but handling errors in Flows is not always intuitive and user friendly process. Flow Error Handling solution from Salesforce Labs helps Admins to discover Flow errors in faster and more straightforward way. In this session we will show how Admins can use this Salesforce Labs Flow solution to pinpoint exactly where the process went wrong and obtain crucial details of the recorded incident that will help with troubleshooting and fixing the problem in a timely manner.

Get the app from AppExchange h ere.

*Thomas George taught me how to handle flow errors this way when we worked together at Optimum Energy. I love that I got to share it with others through Salesforce Labs.

Use Stages in Screen Flow

Stages at the top of the flow screen show your users where they are in the process. It’s simple to set up this progress bar and adds some pizazz to your flow.

10 Steps to Get Started with Salesforce Flow

Here’s my ordered list to help you get started learning Flow. It includes short and long videos, Trailhead modules and projects, hands-on training and “your turn” challenges to help you stretch what you’ve learned.

Starred items I had a role in creating.

1. Watch 4 Short Videos*

Get a very basic understanding of flow and some of the more difficult to grasp concepts. (Watch the first 4 and come back to the loops video later).

2. Complete the trail Build Flows with Flow Builder

This gets you started in Flow Builder and applies concepts you learned in the videos.

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.

Show Records in Tiles in Experience Cloud

Allow experience users to select a record by clicking on a joy-filled image instead of choosing from a boring old list view. Spark joy by adding records to a CMS Collection and adding fields to the object for your image, tagline, etc. and creating a (behind the scenes) boring old list view.

This example is for a community foundation – a nonprofit that helps donors give their money to other organizations that match their passions, like the Seattle Foundation or the Columbus Foundation. Above we see a selection of LGBTQIA organizations and below Animal Welfare orgs.

Ready to start building? Let’s go!

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?