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2016 | Buch

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Salesforce.com Lightning Process Builder and Visual Workflow

A Practical Guide to Model-Driven Development on the Force.com Platform

verfasst von: Jonathan Keel

Verlag: Apress

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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Über dieses Buch

Learn how to build logic into your apps by configuring Salesforce.com Lightning Process Builder and Visual Workflow software tools to meet the needs of your organization without the use of code. You will be able to build workflow diagrams on the Salesforce.com platform and perform complex logic. Individuals who have created workflow diagrams in other applications (e.g., Microsoft Visio) will feel very comfortable using these two tools from Salesforce.

If you find yourself in a situation where a standard Salesforce configuration does not meet your needs, you can always rely on a developer to extend the functionality through Visualforce and Apex code. What if you could take back that control and not rely on a developer or consultant? With two new technologies—Process Builder and Visual Workflow—introduced onto the Salesforce.com platform, you can accomplish much of what was normally handled with Apex code.

Lightning Process Builder and Visual workflow both allow for advanced logic that standard configuration such as Salesforce.com Workflow cannot do. Salesforce.com Lightning Process Builder and Visual Workflow details how these technologies can be used to:

Create a call center application that guides operators through a call with screens that change based on the caller’s responses.

Automatically submit approvals to speed up and streamline your business.Update related records for any object being modified, including standard and custom objects.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

Chapter 1. A History of Workflow and Graphical Development

Abstract

The one aspect of Salesforce.com that puts it over the top of the competition is the level of customization one can make to fit the tool into a company’s business process. This is by far better than how a lot of software works in which a company has to learn how a tool works and change its process to fit the tool. On top of all that, Salesforce.com does it with a cloud solution, meaning that the instance a company runs exists on the Internet to be accessed with a web browser and run on the Salesforce.com servers. No software is required to be loaded on an employee’s laptop, desktop, or mobile computing device. It’s truly a remarkable feat Salesforce.com has achieved by giving everyone universal access but at the same time distinct customizable instances for each of their customers.

Jonathan Keel

Chapter 2. Visual Workflow Basics

Abstract

Historically, Salesforce.com administration screens allow configuration through a series of web forms. That is, there would be a screen that you interact with by inputting data through a series of fields. Some fields would be required and some would be optional. Once the web form had at least the required fields entered, an administrator could move on to the next screen by clicking a button such as Next or Save. An administrator could also go back a screen by clicking the Previous button. Even a novice administrator will quickly find that most tasks in Salesforce.com follow this pattern of moving from screen to screen while performing data entry to configure apps, tabs, objects, workflow rules, and so on. Having the configuration of Salesforce.com set up as a wizard so that an administrator is guided through each step in the process helps to keep the amount of data entry from appearing too daunting. It also helps to break down each part of the setup process into manageable chunks.

Jonathan Keel

Chapter 3. First Flow

Abstract

We have covered a lot of information and have yet to actually create a single flow. You might have been wondering if you were ever going to get to the actual “how to” of this book, but alas here you are. Thank you for going through this journey of learning about graphical programming and the history of workflow in Salesforce. A major goal of this book—and something that I think makes it unique compared to any other book you will come across like it—is the goal to not just be a “how to” book. It is not all about walking through step-by-step instructions of building flows but instead to impart years of knowledge of development experience and apply them to developing flows. You see, while Visual Workflow is rather new to the Salesforce.com line of features, the concept of programming—whether it is through text-based code or graphical flows—remains the same. There are tried-and-true best practices and ways of thinking that can be a part of Visual Workflow development. These best practices can make the flows you develop easy to maintain and stand the test of time to be less brittle. Instead of going through all these best practices in one big swoop, we will instead start simply.

Jonathan Keel

Chapter 4. Creating a Wizard

Abstract

Creating flows in Salesforce can be a pleasant experience. As seen in the previous chapter, you do not need to do a lot of upfront work to prepare for building a flow. Once an individual becomes acquainted with the Flow Designer and all of the elements, it becomes extremely easy to just create a new flow without a lot of planning. Since Flow development is in a graphical development environment, it lends itself to being very flexible. You can build a flow, then add in new elements, remove elements, and rewrite the whole thing in minutes. It could seem like a dream that so much power and flexibility are there in one tool, but as the saying goes, “With great power comes great responsibility.”

Jonathan Keel

Chapter 5. Salesforce Data and Loops

Abstract

The flows created so far have covered several techniques of dealing with business processes that one might run into in the real world. From a simple linear flow to a flow that branches out depending on user-selected choices, a lot can be achieved with what you have learned in the last chapters—although everything covered so far has not dealt with a scenario of having multiple records to work and iterate over while a flow is in the process of running.

Jonathan Keel

Chapter 6. Call Center Application

Abstract

All these elements are at your fingertips and give you some real power to develop applications that normally would require Apex code. Now they can be developed graphically. They can be easily understood because the flows created are edited and viewed as diagrams. This helps in making these flows easily maintainable.

Jonathan Keel

Chapter 7. Lightning Process Builder Basics

Abstract

Visual Workflow gives an extreme amount of power to the Salesforce administrator or developer to create software graphically. It is very flexible as well. Every twist and turn with the flows we have created so far is greeted with a configuration window that ensures that the element placed on the Canvas behaves exactly how we want it to behave. Not only that, but the connectors between all those elements can be wired, removed, and rewired to our heart’s content. With that power and flexibility comes more complication though. On one hand we have standard Salesforce Workflows, which are very simple to create but also very simple in what they are able to do. Then, on the other hand, we have this sweet new technology from Visual Workflow that puts a development environment in our hands to achieve what we could only achieve before from Visualforce and Apex programming.

Jonathan Keel

Chapter 8. Cross-Object Updates with Lightning Process Builder

Abstract

One of the most useful features that sets Lightning Process Builder apart is its ability to update fields on objects related to the main object being worked with. So while Salesforce Workflow can be configured to work with a Case object and then have an update performed on a field on that Case, it cannot be configured to update the related Account if the requirements arose to do so. This is because Case has a Lookup field for relating to an Account.

Jonathan Keel

Chapter 9. Approval Process with Lightning Process Builder

Abstract

It offers features that were only available to Apex coding, specifically Apex Triggers. There are more areas that Lightning Process Builder can be used to augment though. What about approval processes? Does Lightning Process Builder offer any features around approval processes? What are the capabilities and limitations? These are questions we will answer. In the past, when a Salesforce administrator set up an approval process he or she had to go through a lot of steps to define how it functioned. Once complete, the Salesforce administrator then depends on an individual to click an Approve button to start the approval process he or she had defined. With all the work the put into setting it up, the administrator still depends on an individual to start the approval process.

Jonathan Keel

Chapter 10. Calling Autolaunched Flows

Abstract

Ideally, by now you are getting more and more excited about the possibilities that you have to get tasks completed faster than ever.

Jonathan Keel

Chapter 11. Notifications with Lightning Process Builder

Abstract

How do users know about the actions that are going on behind the scenes in a process created in Lightning Process Builder? Much of the time there may not be a requirement to let them know all the gory details of the internals of a process, although sometimes there are requirements to notify users of certain actions taken. What if we had a need to create a new record and then notify the user that the new record was created and he or she is the owner? What if we need to notify a group of users and not necessarily just one? Maybe there could be an instance in which they are not even notified when the process completes. There could be a requirement to postpone the notification to a later date, such as a couple of days or weeks in the future. Can that be handled with Lightning Process Builder? The answer is yes.

Jonathan Keel

Chapter 12. Extend Visual Workflow and Lightning Process Builder with Apex

Abstract

Although these two tools have a huge breadth of features, they cannot account for every single requirement that Salesforce customers from across the globe may have. In those instances it may be necessary to use Apex in order to augment the current capabilities of flows and processes.

Jonathan Keel

Chapter 13. Production Deployment—Giving the People What They Want!

Abstract

We have come a long way in understanding how to develop using Visual Workflow and Lightning Process Builder. By this point you should have a good grasp of not only building flows and processes but doing so in a planned manner using time-tested software development principles. Those principles we covered include gathering and understanding requirements and then using them to design what is to be built. Finally, the design can be used to implement the flows and processes with Visual Workflow and Lightning Process Builder, respectively. All the hard work put into designing and developing should be shared with others! We need to let the world see these great ideas put into motion. To do that they need to be available for your Salesforce users to see, use, and interact with.

Jonathan Keel

Backmatter

Titel: Salesforce.com Lightning Process Builder and Visual Workflow
verfasst von: Jonathan Keel
Verlag: Apress
Electronic ISBN: 978-1-4842-1691-0
Print ISBN: 978-1-4842-1690-3
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-1691-0