The Ultimate Guide To Screen Flow and Auto-Launched Flow

In today’s fast-paced digital world, the automation of repetitive and manual business processes, tasks, and workflows is what moves the needles of business efficiency and productivity. 

In this respect, Salesforce Lightning Flow comes as an excellent choice and an out-of-the-box lightning platform. 

What is a Flow in Salesforce?

Salesforce Flow is an out-of-the-box application within the Salesforce platform that empowers users to automate complex business processes and accomplish simple or complex requirements by collecting data or records in your Salesforce org.

This Lightning automated tool performs various actions on collected data such as mapping values from one field to another or displaying the number of related records from a list, or sending the survey to different users without writing a single line of code. 

Users can choose the flow type based on their needs, but they must acquire the knowledge of Salesforce deployments and functionality to create the flow properly. Flow can also be used to manipulate data in different ways depending on the flow type selected.

Flow type allows the user to choose which elements will be displayed on canvas by applying the power of drag-and-drop functionality and how that flow will be used.

Salesforce Flows can be implemented in two ways:

1. Screen Flow -This flow type in Salesforce has a UI element within it and requires interaction with the user. This type of flow does not support the pause element.

2. Auto-Launched Flow -This flow type does not require any user interaction; it can be autolaunched when a record is changed while inserting, updating, or deleting. This type of flow does not support screens.

Steps To Create A Flow In Salesforce

Step 1: Login in your org and then go to Setup.

Step 2: Enter “Flows” in the Quick Find box and select Flows from the list.

Step 3: Click on the New Flow button to go to the flow type screen.

Step 4: On the screen, select a flow type and click on the Create button.

Step 5: Flow Builder will be displayed on which flow will be created. Now drag the elements you would like to use onto the canvas. There are three sections available on every flow type i.e., Interaction, Logic, and Data. 

Every element on the flow type represents an action that the flow can execute using the get record element to fetch all details of an object and using the Update record element to modify that record, displaying that record information on a screen.

Step 6: Merge the elements to determine the order of the execution at runtime. 

Note: You need to connect the start element to another element.

Step 7: Then, save your flow. 

Screen Flow – This type of flow requires user interaction as it has screens, local actions, steps, choices, or dynamic choices that let the user interact with the flow.

This type of flow can be accessed from a number of places: 

1. Flow actions
2. Lightning pages
3. Lightning community pages
4. Custom Aura components
5. Custom Lightning web components
6. Custom buttons or custom links
7. Web tabs
8. Direct flow URLs
9. Visualforce pages
10. Lightning Out
11. Embedded Service deployments

Screen flows don’t support Pause elements: The user can use Screen flow to run a workflow from case through a Subprocess in another flow and switch to different entry points inflow during the execution process. Screen flow enables a sequence of assignments to one user. 

Auto-Launched Flow With No Flow Trigger

Unlike Screen Flow, this Flow type does not require any user interaction and it can be automatically launched through Process builder, but it does not support screens, local actions, choices, or choice sets.

This type of flow can be accessed from a number of places: 

1. Processes
2. Custom Apex classes
3. REST API
4. Web tabs
5. Custom buttons or custom links
6. Visualforce pages

Auto-Launched Flow With A Schedule Trigger

This type of Autolaunch flow executes using a schedule but doesn’t support user interaction, screens, local actions, choices, or choice sets.

Properties of Auto-Launched flow with Scheduled trigger : 

1. Schedule-triggered flow will run only at a scheduled time and at the defined frequency.
2. To activate an autolaunched flow using a trigger, View All Data permission should be enabled and configured.
3. Maximum Scheduled flow interviews per 24 hours are 250,000, or the number of user licenses in your org multiply 200, or whichever is greater. For every record retrieved by scheduled flow, one interview is created. The user can track the number of records with FLOW_START_SCHEDULED_RECORDS event. 
4. If a scheduled flow is removed/deleted from the Scheduled Jobs then all future recurrences of that flow type would be canceled. To activate it, you need to deactivate and reactivate the flow again.

Auto-Launched Flow With A Record Trigger

This auto-launch flow makes several additional updates to the new or changed record of the database that launches the flow. The only elements supported by this flow are Assignment, Decision, Get Records, and Loop.

Properties of Auto-Launched flow with record trigger

1. The record-triggered flow executes once a record is created or updated.
2. View All Data permission should be enabled to activate an autolaunched flow that has a trigger.

• Records values that are associated with triggering records cannot be updated by this flow.
• Changing only the record owner in a flow would not launch record-triggered flows.

Comparison between a Screen Flow and Auto-Launched Flow

1.  The user can use the screen element in Screen Flow, whereas the screen element is not available in Autolaunch flow.

2. The user can call only flow type Autolaunch via the Subflow element in Autolaunch flow, while the user can call the flow of both type auto-launch and screen via the subflow element. 

3.ScreenFlow operates with the permission of the user who runs it; that means if you’re updating a new field or looking up a record in your Flow, you need to ensure that your viewers have access to any fields that flow is using to return value; otherwise, you’ll receive an error message.  There will not be any permission issues in Auto-launched Flow as it runs under the ‘system’ context that grants full access.

Conclusion

In a nutshell, Flow in Salesforce is a robust business automation tool that can manipulate data in Salesforce in many ways to automate your organization’s repetitive and mundane business processes.

Flow is a fantastic tool within the Salesforce platform that seamlessly automates a wide range of workflows and tasks from the simple to complex by collecting data and performing operations in your org or an external system. Flow enables the user to fetch, delete, update, and create records on multiple objects. 

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