Winter 23 #Flownatic Treasure Hunt

Another Salesforce release is just around the corner and it is time for the #TreasureHunt

As a true #Flownatic (and due to the quite limited time I am able to spend on it), I decided to focus just on the Flow Builder — after all, everyone who knows me, knows this is one of my favorite tools.

Native Data Table screen flow component

The ability to visualize data in a table format within a screen flow has always been a quite significant need. For quite some time the Flow Builder (and all of its predecessors) didn’t have a native way to do that. I remember the day I found the free custom screen component Eric Smith built and shared with the community — it was a true game changer for all my projects and all my clients.

Now, a new significant milestone is here — the Flow Builder introduces a native component for visualization of data in a table format! At this point, it is a Beta and for sure it does not have all the features many of us are already used to (with the component available on unofficialsf.com) but still it is a move we were expecting for so long.

Here are some very nice features of the Beta version of the native data table component:

• you could configure the data table component as Multi-Selection, Single-Selection, or View Only
• for the Multi-Selection data tables, you could even define the minimum and the maximum number of selected rows (which is very nice!)

• for the Single-Selection data tables, you could define if a selection is required or not (just optional)

• the configuration of which fields to be shown within the table is easy and intuitive (as well as the rearrangement). For each field in a column, you could configure a custom label as well as if you want to wrap or clip longer values (that might exceed the width of the column)

Here is what is still missing and some of the reasons, personally I would continue using the custom data table component for another release or two:

• when you select a lookup field to be shown as a column, it shows the ID of the related record and not the name of the record as a hyperlink. Imagine you have a list of opportunities for different accounts — when you choose to show the standard lookup field Account, it shows the Account Id. The same goes with Owner or other custom relationship fields. Maybe this is the biggest blocker for me, as it means you would need to create a formula field, resulting in a URL, and use it for visualization, in case you want to achieve a relatively native user experience.

• the look and feel of the table itself are not that similar to the tables of a related list for example
• It does not support inline editing, yet (I am sure this will come soon enough)

Enhanced Formula Builder in Flows

Within Summer 22 release a new formula builder was introduced for the Entry Conditions for Record-Triggered Flows. (Find out more about this in my blog post for Summer 22 Treasure Hunt)

Now, the same formula builder, which includes a “Check Syntax” is available also when you are defining Formula resources. No more formula syntax check just upon Save of the entire flow.

New query operators within the Data Elements (Get, Update, Delete Records) — IN/NOT IN

Another game changer is including the two new filtering operators for the Get Record element, which will enable easy getting of records that are part of another set of records or are not part of another set of records.

Here is a business example for this much-needed filtering operator — what if you want to get only leads that are included as campaign members of a specific campaign or just leads that are not included as campaign members for a specific campaign? Previously, you had some workarounds for that kind of business ask, but none of them were as easy as now.

Now, you need a text collection variable containing the IDs of the leads included in the specific campaign, which you could obtain with a Get of the Campaign Members, store the LeadIds in a text collection variable and you could just use the IN or NOT IN operator when getting the leads.

Note! This is still not available for the Logic Element “Collection Filter”

Screen Element — Wider Preview Pane

This one is very convenient, especially for screen flows you are designing to be used on Lightning Pages (not triggered by actions on record pages or in the Utility bar)

Update Records Element for Record-Triggered Flows

Within record-Triggered Flows, you could now easily select to update all (or a subset) of related records by just picking the relationship field and then adding additional criteria if needed.

I wouldn’t say doing this before was that big of a deal as well, as it was kind of easy to just add one more criteria (the lookup field to be the same as the record’s id), but probably this is a step to the migration tool for declarative automations built with Process Builder, as this was a feature used a lot in that tool.

Only for the fans of Flows with Auto-Layout

And finally two new things just for Flows with Auto-Layout. I’ve put these at the bottom, as I am still not that big a fan of the Auto-Layout and they do not excite me that much 😉

Collapsable Toolbox (bigger canvas) for Flows with Auto-Layout

With Winter 22 the Toolbox is hidden by default and there is a toggle button to show it/hide it, which generally results in a bigger (wider) canvas for the actual elements.

Cut/Paste elements on the canvas for Flows with Auto-Layout

With Winter 22 for flows with Auto-Layout, you could CUT and PASTE an element on the canvas. Considering the fact you do not have control over the connectors, this is a huge change for declarative developers who use the Auto-Layout and just want to change the position of an existing element.

Conclusion

In case you are curious to find out other treasures before the official Release Notes are published or just want to get first-hand experience with the Winter 23 release as soon as possible, register for a Pre-Release Org here.

The Release Notes will be available in a few days (August 17), review them and make sure you refresh your sandboxes before August 25, 6:00 PM PT in case you want to test out the new release with your custom configuration.

More information about the release plan is available in the Salesforce official blog.