Flow Highlights and Thoughts from True to the Core
What Did We Learn About the Future of Flow from True to the Core?
Just in case you didn’t know, this week was Dreamforce ’21. I know, I know, we all kept that really quiet didn’t we? Sarcasm aside, let’s talk about it.
I’m planning on doing more of a full review of Dreamforce ’21 sometime next week after I’ve had a bit more time to watch some of the content from the event. Being a UK resident I wasn’t able to watch all of the sessions because, well, I had to go to work and hopefully get some sleep as well. All that being said, in this brief post I want to talk about what was highlighted about Flow at True to the Core. Just in case you don’t know, True to the Core is a session that happens at Dreamforce and TDX where the Trailblazer Community can ask questions to executive level staff at Salesforce. True to the Core, or TTTC for short, is one of the highlights to many in the community. This time around TTTC started with a presentation that lasted around 20 minutes, with the questions for the panel starting at 21:04. So to get to what most in the community are looking for out of TTC, you will need to either sit through the first 20 minutes, or simply skip ahead. In this post I’m not going to cover TTTC in it’s entirety, just the two questions that were raised on Flow. If you want to see a more full overview of what was covered at True to the Core, then I would recommend checking out Lucy Mazalon’s blog at Salesforce Ben.
What I specifically want to focus on for this post is the two questions that were raised at TTTC. There were other topics covered, but I want to specifically talk Flow. The reason for this is because I flow, and also because I think this is such an important area of conversation for the Admin community right now. If you haven’t read it yet, let me encourage you to check out my blog post on the recent announcement regarding the retirement of Workflow Rules and Process Builder (check out the resources section below for that link).
So with all that preamble done and dusted, let’s dive into the questions.
TTTC Questions Covering Flow
There were two questions in all that focused on Flow, let’s look at them now.
Admin Support for Flows
The first question that was raised about Flow at TTC was regarding issues tied to Admins getting support on Flow when being requested to Salesforce.
As we go through support and we try to get help, often like Flow we’re told well that’s a Developer challenge, you have to have Developer support. It now is an Admin even under Admin certification and yet it’s a year away from being prioritised to be included in the support package. New features aren’t coming out in support that are beneficial, like macros and other things. So how can challenges that take years like that be escalated and solved faster for customers. Because I can’t advocate for Flow to be an Admin tool if Admins can’t get support.
This was the first question to kick off TTTC, and in my opinion it was a good question. Bret Taylor was the one to take this question, apparently it came as a surprise to him. However, a commitment was made to look into the issue with Jim Roth who oversees the support team. Personally for me, I’ve never run into this issue as I’ve never had to contact Salesforce to request support on Flow. However, with Flow now being officially an Admin tool the support that is offered by Salesforce should match the official stance that Salesforce holds. Meaning that support from Salesforce should not be responding to support requests saying something along the lines of “that’s a Developer tool”. The reality is that Flow is no longer just a Developer tool, and Admin support should include help around challenges with Flow. Hopefully this challenge will be something that will be addressed in the very near future.
Earlier on today, Bret Taylor did post a Tweet confirming that there will be support for Flow starting in December. This Tweet does refer to the support as “dev support” but it means that the support for Flow will be extended to Admins as of this December. This is a very quick and good move for sure.
Retirement Roadmap for Workflow Rules and Process Builder
The second question that was raised at TTTC was about the announcement that was made recently at the Winter ’22 Admin Preview in Release Readiness Live. This question was answered by David Schmaier and Patrick Stokes, and it focused directly on the big question many Admins in the community are asking … when will Workflow Rules and Process Builder be retired.
In full transparency here, I’m a little biased towards this question because this particular question was one that I submitted after seeing a Tweet asking for questions for TTTC to be submitted. Honestly, I was a little bit shocked to hear this question asked at TTTC. My reaction was essentially the GIF to your left. TTTC would’ve been viewed by at least a couple of million people live, and then possible a lot more on-demand.
So I was absolutely gobsmacked to hear this live, thinking to myself “holy crap, that’s my question”. Immediately I took to Twitter to share my surprise. But enough about me, what was the question and what was the answer to it?
It was announced over an Admin preview last week that we’re going to begin retiring Workflow Rules and Process Builder in favour of Flow. So to help ease the mind of the community, is it possible to clarify when we might be able to get some type of roadmap to help organisations plan for that migration.
David Schmaier talked briefly about how an end of cycle plan is enacted, essentially saying that Salesforce doesn’t make it a surprise. While I get what David was saying there, that doesn’t really answer the question that I raised. However, we did get a solid response from Patrick Stokes which was solid.
Patrick took to the stage to explain the planned steps right now in the retirement process, the first thing that needs to be mentioned here is that the principle of a forward-looking statement must be included here. Things might change as the work that Salesforce are doing on the retirement is carried out.
Here is the update from Patrick summarised in brief:
- Spring ’22 will see the release of a Workflow Rules migration tool.
- Summer ’22 will see the release of a Process Builder migration tool.
- Come Winter ’23 no new Workflow Rules and Process Builders will be able to be created. However, editing rights for Workflow Rules and Process Builders will remain active and available for System Administrators.
- Following Winter ’23 a determination will be as to whether or not a more formal end-of-life plan will be able to be enacted to fully retire both Workflow Rules and Process Builder. Expect more details to come on this decision at a later date. There will be at least a year before this decision can fully be reached. So expect to hear updates throughout the next year.
- The plan IS to ultimately get to a place where there is only one declarative automation tool being used by System Admins to create automation.
I think this answer was actually really helpful. With the sheer amount of Workflow Rules and Process Builders that organisations will be using, this transition to only using Flow must be handled very carefully. As an Admin who is soon to be moving into consultancy work, I very much appreciate this answer from Patrick (and I’m not just saying that because it was my question).
How Do These Updates Affect Admins?
OK, so now onto the important part. How does what was said at TTTC affect Admins going forward? Does it really have all too much of an impact to what we were already expecting following the announcement to begin with?
To be honest, I think TTTC achieved two key things:
- It pushed Salesforce support to begin actually supporting Admins with issues surrounding Flow as a tool they are expected to learn and use. Granted this support won’t start for a few months, but Admins who are being told to prioritise using Flow rather than opting for Workflow Rules and Process Builder should be able to get support from Salesforce when they need it. They shouldn’t be receiving responses saying that’s a developer issue. Flow is no longer purely a developer tool and support should match that. So this is a good achievement for sure. Let’s see what happens in December and see if this issue is truly resolved.
- The second thing TTTC achieved in my opinion is that it gives us a bit of a benchmark in regards to migrating Workflow Rules and Process Builders over to Flow. That target date being Winter ’23. This gives Admins a full 12-month window to make plans to migrate things across and to actually do the migrations needed. In full transparency, this could also serve as an excuse for some organisations to opt not to do a migration because of the fact that we will still be able to edit Workflow Rules and Process Builders after Winter ’23. However, this in my opinion would be a mistake. It is true that we have a little extra wiggle-room to help us avoid panicking about the migration, however, Salesforce have been consistent in saying that the goal is to move to one declarative automation tool (that being Flow). So to opt to avoid doing any migration because of this is in my opinion a little misguided and quite irresponsible. Admins should be planning to do a full migration of Workflow Rules and Process Builder, moving all of their automation into Flow. However, Salesforce also do still need to provide some more training content to help with these migrations.
So based off of this, what do Admins need to do in response to what was said?
- Admins should prioritise learning Flow if they haven’t already.
- Admins should put together a migration strategy for older automation.
- Admins should plan to migrate old automation to Flow by Winter ‘24.
- Admins should endeavour to create all new automation in Flow.
Closing Remarks
I’m sure many community groups will be looking to cover Flow in much more detail in the coming months. But hopefully this brief coverage on TTTC will help Admins understand a bit more about what is happening with regards to Flow and the retirement of Workflow Rules and Process Builder.
Did you watch TTTC? What were your thoughts on what was said about Flow, the changes to support for Admins along with the retirement plan for Workflow Rules and Process Builder. Let me know your thoughts in the comments section below or online via social media.
Expect more posts following Dreamforce to come over the course of the next week.
