Flow Builder is Salesforce's modern, unified automation tool — and since Salesforce retired Workflow Rules and Process Builder for new automation, it's the tool every Admin needs to master.
The Flow Types
Screen Flow
Guides a user through a multi-step interactive process with input screens — used for things like guided data entry wizards, or a structured intake process for a support request.
Record-Triggered Flow
Runs automatically when a record is created, updated, or deleted — the direct replacement for what Workflow Rules and (most of) Process Builder used to do. Can run before-save (faster, for field updates on the same record) or after-save (for actions involving other records).
Scheduled Flow
Runs on a recurring schedule (e.g., daily) — useful for batch-style housekeeping tasks, like flagging opportunities that haven't been updated in 30 days.
Platform Event-Triggered Flow
Runs in response to a Platform Event — useful for event-driven automation, including reacting to events from external systems.
Autolaunched Flow (No Trigger)
Runs when explicitly invoked — from Apex, another flow, a button, or an API call — rather than automatically on a record change.
Choosing Before-Save vs. After-Save (Record-Triggered Flow)
This trips up a lot of beginners:
- Before-save flows are faster and should be used when you're only updating fields on the same record that triggered the flow (e.g., calculating a formula-like field). They run before the record is committed to the database.
- After-save flows are needed when your automation needs to touch other records, send emails, or call Apex — because those actions require the triggering record to already be saved.
Using before-save when possible is a meaningful performance best practice.
Flow Best Practices
- Bulkify your flows — never put Get Records, Update Records, or Create Records elements inside a loop. Collect data into a collection variable first, then perform one bulk DML operation outside the loop.
- Use subflows for reusable logic — don't rebuild the same 5-step approval-check logic in three different flows.
- Name elements descriptively — "Update Opportunity Stage" beats "Update Records 2" when you're debugging six months later.
- Add fault paths — every element that could fail (DML, Apex actions) should have a fault connector so failures are handled gracefully, not left to fail silently or crash the transaction.
- Avoid recursive triggers — a record-triggered flow that updates the same record type it's triggered by can cause infinite loops if not carefully designed with entry conditions.
- Test with bulk data — a flow that works perfectly for one record can still fail at 200 records if it's not bulk-safe. Test with Data Loader-style bulk updates before deploying.
Debugging Flows
Use the Flow Builder's built-in Debug feature to step through execution with real (or test) data, and check Flow Interview logs or debug logs when troubleshooting production issues — don't guess at what went wrong.
Where Flow Fits in Your Learning Path
Flow Builder is a core Salesforce Admin skill, covered in depth (with real, hands-on building) in our Salesforce Admin Training course, alongside validation rules and approval processes.