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About Heather Rinke

CRM and Marketing Automation Strategist. Heather Rinke is 6x Salesforce certified and PMP, with 8+ years experience as a Salesforce and Pardot Admin. She has a a background in digital marketing and design, marketing/sales operations and process automation, and loves to use technology and strategy to help organizations exceed their goals. When not working, you can find her with her nose in a book, on a yoga mat, or anywhere outdoors.

Dreamforce Session Recap: Winter ’24 Marketing Cloud Release Highlights

Dreamforce 2023 has come and gone, and wow, it did not disappoint. Not only was this my first Dreamforce, I had the honor of co-presenting the Marketing Cloud Release Highlights session with two amazing members of Salesforce product team:  Ruth Bolster, product marketing manager, and Whitni Freeman, lead solution engineer.

In this session, we covered key Winter ’24 release highlights across each of the Marketing Cloud products:

  • Data Cloud
  • Intelligence
  • Engagement
  • Account Engagement 
  • Personalization

Here’s a recap of the Marketing Cloud Winter ‘24 release features covered…

Highlight #1: Segment Intelligence (Data Cloud)

Source: Salesforce

A new Data Cloud for Marketing feature, Segment Intelligence connects and harmonizes customer and marketing performance data — like revenue data, first party data, as well as paid media data — so you can understand how your segments are interacting with your marketing.

Using out of the box dashboards, you can see how segments are performing across channels, and gives you an executive understanding of how segments are performing across channels.

Plus, you can use Einstein to optimize existing segments, or create new ones based on performance data.

With all that data in one place this allows marketers to have a more holistic view of how segments are doing, without being bogged down by time consuming data management and reconciliation. And having those insights to optimize channel performance by segment – that level of visibility and adaptability means more impactful and relevant marketing campaigns, which leads to better marketing ROI. 

And the built in dashboards and connections means that marketers can get started right away!

This feature will be available for select customers starting in October, and will be available to all customers later this winter. 

Highlight #2: AI-Powered Segment Creation (Data Cloud)

Source: Salesforce

Another Winter ‘24 feature for Data Cloud for Marketing is Segment Creation. Powered by Einstein, this allows marketers to build complex segments using a descriptive prompt. 

So, for example, I can just tell Einstein “Big spenders in North America who made a purchase in the last 3 months and love hiking”, and it will generate the segment for me, showing what that segment looks like, and the attributes used.  

This means that marketers can build their segments without having to be a data scientist to do it. Being able to pull data based on specific criteria has often required technical knowledge of the data model to know where to look, and SQL skills to query the data to know how to access it. This feature will allow marketers to be more self-sufficient to get the data they need when they need it. 

This will be Generally Available in October for Data Cloud Customers.

Highlight #3: Intelligence GA4 Connector (Intelligence)

Source: Salesforce

As of Winter ‘24, Marketing Cloud Intelligence will have a built-in GA4 connector and pre-defined data sets available to ingest GA4 data. Marketing data is the foundation of Marketing Cloud Intelligence. Its data models, dashboards and guidance are built for marketers. There are already more than 100 native connectors available, and now with GA4 data connector this is a natural addition to the platform to have relevant marketing data in one place.

How this will work: When setting up data streams, GA4 properties will appear under the ‘Website’ dropdown. These new properties will be supported in API connectors as well as Marketplace apps.

Marketplace apps will replace previous UA 360 websites and support the new GA4 web properties, dimensions, and other fields for data retrieval. 

One thing to keep in mind: Due to the differences between GA4 and UA properties, the new connector will pull different, yet very similar, datasets into the platform when the GA4 property is selected, so your visualization may need to be tweaked when setting up the data stream for the first time. Marketplace will discontinue support of UA360 properties after the GA4 support begins. 

Highlight #4: Trigger Action on GA4 Data (Engagement)

Source: Salesforce

Marketing Cloud Engagement has some goodies in the Winter ‘24 Release as well. The first is Google Analytics 4 Integration, which lets marketers activate journeys based on Google Analytics 4 segments and events.

This new integration will include two key features in one:

  • Visual dashboards embedded within Engagement reporting so that marketers can see real time impact on revenue, AOV, and conversion metrics. 
  • Audience activation, which allows marketers to create engagement and re-engagement campaigns based on customer interactions using that GA4 data.
    • So for example, if you had a customer that viewed your product pages for backpacks and hiking boots, then abandon the session, you can use audience activation to trigger an abandoned browse journey.  This also allows you to get cross-channel insights across mobile, web, and email.

There is a fully paid version which includes both Reporting and Audience Activation.  There is also a free version that will feature the Reporting feature only.

Highlight #5: AI-Powered Email Content Creation  (Engagement)

Source: Salesforce

AI is coming to Marketing Cloud Engagement with Email Content Creation, including Typeface partnership!

Marketers can set up and specify personalities with brand voice and tone, and using natural language prompts can get draft ideas on subject, body copy and images. With the ability to give feedback on what works and what doesn’t this lets the model learn and improve over time.  

Marketers can consider this a tool to help them get a first draft in place. They still have control over the content throughout. They’re given choices based on their prompts, which they can use, like or dislike. 

That human element and judgment is a crucial part of the whole process.

Content Creation will be available in Marketing Cloud Engagement this October, and it is currently scheduled to be in Marketing Cloud Account Engagement next February

Highlight #6: Transfer Assets from Sandbox to Production (Account Engagement)

Source: Salesforce

Speaking of Account Engagement… With the Summer ‘23 Release  we saw the ability to move assets between business units, which is fantastic! But that still left a gap with sandboxes. Anyone that has used Salesforce sandboxes has been used to building and promoting configurations, and unfortunately that hasn’t been possible with Account Engagement sandboxes, which has been painful to work around. Any assets built in a sandbox had to be built again in production, which is of course time-consuming and also prone to error if something is missed.

In the Winter ’24 release, marketers can now copy assets from sandbox to production using Salesforce Flow. After installing the flow on your campaign, all you need to do is select your sandbox environment and your production environment, select your assets, and then copy it over. And this supports 8 asset types, including email templates, dynamic content, form handlers, custom redirects, custom fields, landing pages, and more.  

This allows for a more useful Account Engagement sandbox, to perform all asset testing and avoid conflicts – and all that test data – when trying to build in production. Not to mention saving time because you won’t have to build assets multiple times. You can even use this to set up a QA process, giving a subset of users access to build in the Sandbox only and then have another subset of users review the assets and push them to production when approved.

This was first mentioned in Erin Duncan’s post on Winter ‘23 Highlights for Account Engagement. 

Highlight #7: Real-Time Event Stream (Personalization)  

Source: Salesforce

With Winter ‘24 Release, Personalization will now include Real Time Customer Event Stream, a Lightning component that can be added to record pages, giving users a real-time view of the marketing assets that a lead or contact has interacted with. 

This gives sales and service teams better insight into the types of content their customers have been engaging with. They can then have more relevant and informed conversations with them about their current needs and interests, and provide a better overall customer experience.

Learn more about the Marketing Cloud release highlights

If you want to learn more about the Marketing Cloud release features covered, here are a few resources:

What do you think about these Marketing Cloud release highlights? Let us know in the comments.

Original article: Dreamforce Session Recap: Winter ’24 Marketing Cloud Release Highlights

©2023 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

The post Dreamforce Session Recap: Winter ’24 Marketing Cloud Release Highlights appeared first on The Spot.

By |2023-09-18T21:08:09+00:00September 18th, 2023|Categories: Marketing Cloud, New Features, Pardot, Release Notes, Salesforce Marketing Cloud|
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Salesforce Winter ’24 Release: Platform Highlights

It’s that time – Salesforce Winter ‘24 release notes are out! Here are the key Salesforce platform features marketers and Salesforce admins should know about.

20 Platform Highlights from the Salesforce Winter ‘24 Release

Highlight#1: Migrate to Hyperforce with Hyperforce Assistant (Generally Available)

If you haven’t heard, Salesforce is undergoing a modernization of their infrastructure with Hyperforce, and undertaking steps to move customer orgs to Hyperforce. To help prepare for the migration, Salesforce has made their Hyperforce Assistant generally available, and updated with improved features to help orgs get ready for the move.

If you’re starting your journey to make the jump to Hyperforce we have more details here: Prepare Your Salesforce Org for the Migration to Hyperforce

Permissions & Record Access

Highlight#2: Report on Custom Permission Set and Permission Set Group Assignments

This is the first of many ideas that were delivered in this release. With this update you can create a report type that you can use to report on which users are assigned specific custom permission sets or permission set groups, or look at all of the assignments by user. This is just for custom permission sets and permission set groups, no word yet on when this would be available for standard permission sets and standard permission set groups.

Highlight #3  What’s Enabled in a Permission Set More Easily (Beta)

Admins who have spent so much time trying to uncover the permissions included in a permission set are going to love this. Another idea exchange request, it’s now easier than ever to see the enabled object, user, and field permissions on one page. You can even see the permission set groups a permission set is included in!

Highlight #4 User Access Policy Filters Improved (Beta)

Until now you could create User Access Policies referencing only one permission set, permission set group, or managed package license in your user access policy filters. With this update you can reference a total of three, giving you more flexibility to define your policy criteria.

What to know more about User Access Policies? Jason Ventura covered this in the post Salesforce Summer ’23: User Access Management Updates 

Highlight #5 Report on Who Has Access to Accounts from Manual Shares and Account Teams

Admins and users will have a new way to understand better who has Read or Edit Access to an Account through Account Teams or Manual Sharing. By creating a report type it’s now possible to see which users and groups have access. Another idea was delivered!

Highlight #6 Report on Public Group Members

Another helpful report that’s going to save clicks! With this new custom report type, Admins will be able to more easily view which users, roles or groups are members of public groups.

Automation Updates

Highlight #7 Reactive Components now GA

With the general release of reactive flow screen components, admins will able to build more interactive single page applications, creating a more dynamic user experience.

Highlight #8 Create Custom Error Messages in Record-Triggered Flows

Another Idea Exchange idea delivered! Flownatics everywhere will be cheering for this. Now admins can customize the error that users see on record triggered flows. You can control one or more messages that will appear, what the messages will be, and when you want them to appear. You can even set them to appear as a window on the record page, or as an inline error on a specific field, similar to validation rules.

In the example below, you can see the Custom Error message element where I’ve configured 2 messages to appear if an opportunity has been created or updated and the stage is advanced and no Opportunity Contact Roles are found. One error will appear in a window on the record page, and the other will appear inline on the Stage field.

When active, the flow will display the configured error messages when the criteria has been met:

Highlight #9 Transform Your Data in Flows (Beta)

This is a new element for flow that lets users map data from a data source to a new target data destination. This can follow the HTTP Callout action that grabs data from an external location, and transforms the data before saving to a Salesforce object. Another use can be to transform field values while mapping from one object to another.

Highlight #10 Save a Flow Without Configuring Some Elements

How many times have you started to build a flow and have partially added elements, only to find you have to exit an element before fully completing the configuration. In the past you had to lose the partial configuration already completed, or add dummy data just to get the element to save, and remember to go back and update later. With this new feature, you now exit Start and Create Record elements before fully configuring them. According to Salesforce this is the “first steps to support saving a draft of a flow at any point in the building process”.

Highlight #11 Use Wait Elements in More Types of Flows

Marketers would be familiar with the ability to add a wait step in a customer journey (Marketing Cloud) or Engagement Studio Program (Account Engagement). The new Wait for Amount of Time and Wait Until Date elements are now available in schedule-triggered flows, autolaunched flows, and orchestrations. This adds more flexibility to being able to pause a flow interview for different use cases. The previous Pause element has also been renamed ‘Wait with Conditions’ for clarity.

Highlight #12 Flow Builder user interface moved to right panel

The element properties are now displayed in a panel on the right side of the screen instead of as a popup. So far this appears to be working for Start, Get, Create, Update, Transform (Beta), and Delete.

Highlight #13 Data Cloud Triggered Flows

For orgs with access to Data Cloud, you will be able to create new Data Cloud-triggered flows from the new Flow screen. After selecting Data Cloud-triggered flow, you will be prompted to configure your Start conditions specific to your Data Cloud object.

Highlight #14 Get Data Cloud Records More Easily in Flow Builder

Another Data Cloud related enhancement, admins can more easily choose between Salesforce objects and Data Cloud objects. Based on the choice more options are provided to specify the criteria.

Highlight #15 Use Filters to Find Record-Triggered Flows Quickly

Orgs with increasing numbers of flows will benefit from this handy additional filtering capability that lets you zero in on the flows you’re looking for. You can now filter on flows by Status, Package State or Process Type.

Highlight #16 Migrate to Flow Updates

In the meantime, admins still working on moving legacy automations like workflow rules and process builder to flow may appreciate that the Migrate to Flow tool has been updated to accommodate more use cases:

If you’re in the process of migrating your workflow rules and process builders to flow, have you checked out our guide and tools to help with that migration? Check out Automation Facelift: Migrate Workflow Rules and Process Builder to Salesforce Flow

Cool Admin Updates

Highlight #17 Visualize Lightning Reports with Summary Formulas as You Create Them

I don’t know about you but I still struggle with using PARENTGROUPVAL or PREVGROUPVAL. In Classic there was a great feature that helped build the summary with these functions, and showed how they would work in your report. Now this feature is available in Lightning!

Highlight #18 Select Who Has Access To a Sandbox

When creating or refreshing a sandbox for your team to build or test a new configuration any active user in production could access the sandbox. Now, admins can limit access to specific users by adding them to a group. This then freezes all other users in that sandbox, so they can’t access it (unless you unfreeze them). Only the users in the group will be unfrozen automatically. And the “.invalid” won’t be added to their email addresses either. Bonus! Now, apparently this may not be immediately available when orgs are upgraded to WInter ’24. According to the release notes, this will be available “in production orgs when they’re upgraded to the Winter ’24 release starting in mid-October 2023.”

Highlight #19 & 20 Lead & Contact Intelligence VIews

Last but not least…. As part of Winter ’24 release, orgs will now have access to a more actionable lead and contact lists that can help users segment their leads, and take action to build their pipe and grow customer relationships. In one page you can create segments and view key metrics, prioritize important records, view activity history of individual records and make calls or send emails without leaving the list.

Other Notable Updates

Which Salesforce Winter ‘24 features are you excited about? Let us know in the comments!

Original article: Salesforce Winter ’24 Release: Platform Highlights

©2023 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

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By |2023-09-07T01:35:48+00:00September 7th, 2023|Categories: New Features, Release Notes|
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Prepare Your Salesforce Org for the Migration to Hyperforce

The introduction of Hyperforce is one of those revolutionary milestones for Salesforce customers. That’s because migrating to Hyperforce is going to give Salesforce customers options when it comes to storing their Salesforce data.

If you’re a Salesforce customer, then you likely store Salesforce data in one of the company’s massive data storage centers. With Hyperforce, Salesforce customers can store their data in public cloud storage centers.

This is huge for companies that operate globally as well as ones in highly regulated industries like financial services and healthcare. That’s because it’ll be easier to store data locally and comply with regulations surrounding data storage in countries around the world.

What is Hyperforce?

First introduced in 2020, Salesforce reimagined its platform architecture for the public cloud with the introduction of Hyperforce. It’s code-based rather than hardware-focused infrastructure that allows more agility within the platform. 

The Customer 360 platform can live on top of Hyperforce, and Salesforce customers will store their data in public clouds like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure, inside onsite servers, or within Salesforce data storage warehouses.

Migrating to Hyperforce

So, why is Salesforce having all customers move to Hyperforce? Well, for one thing, it’s a modernization of the platform to meet changing data demands. 

Salesforce will continue to maintain data warehouses they own to use when needed, but moving data to public cloud infrastructure is the most logical way forward. Imagine having better compliance capabilities, top-notch security, ultimate agility, and the power to scale up like a superhero. 

 Salesforce is all about respecting your privacy, too. So with Hyperforce, they’ve got your back.

  • Worldwide Wonders with Data: Hyperforce is like your personal travel agent for data. Go global while keeping control over where it hangs out — that’s a win-win for you and your customers.
  • Scaling Superpowers: With Hyperforce, growth is more than a dream — it’s a reality. Flexibility and sustainability are your new BFFs.
  • Fort Knox Security: Locking things up tight is Hyperforce’s jam. We’re talking about security measures that make your data sleep soundly, including encryption and zero-trust principles.
  • Privacy Party: Hyperforce comes with its own set of privacy standards, giving you the reins and a spotlight on your customers’ data.
  • Agile Adventures: Who needs downtime? Not us! Hyperforce keeps the party going with seamless releases, environments for testing and development, and an easy-peasy AWS connection.

How do I know it’s time for me to migrate to Hyperforce?

Currently, there is no publicly available migration schedule for Hyperforce, Salesforce is ‘regularly moving customers to balance our workload and modernize our systems.’

Admins of orgs scheduled to migrate will be notified via a Salesforce Product and Service notification, approximately two months and then one month before their migration date. In the meantime, you can check in with your account team to find out when you can expect to receive a notification that it’s time to migrate to Hyperforce.

Below is an example of the product notification Salesforce customers receive:



Learn more about Products & Services Notifications

If you’re notified that you are being migrated but the timeline is inconvenient for your team, you can contact your Salesforce account team (according to this FAQ article).

How to prepare for Hyperforce Migration?

Salesforce has implemented the Hyperforce Assistant in Setup to guide you through your upgrade. The Assistant has all of the latest information and checklist to prepare for the migration. 



For additional information, see the section What can customers do to ensure a smooth upgrade to Hyperforce? in the Hyperforce FAQ article. You can also request a trial org from your account team so you can test your setup and troubleshoot before you make the switch.

Get ready for to migrate to Hyperforce

It’s a matter of time before all orgs are migrated to Hyperforce. So in the meantime, start to think about how data storage location may affect your Salesforce org. For example, the move may affect endpoint things like Single Sign On, OAuth and JSON Web Tokens (JWT). 

Reach out to the team at Sercante to evaluate your data architecture and business goals to see how the migration to Hyperforce may affect your Salesforce org.

Original article: Prepare Your Salesforce Org for the Migration to Hyperforce

©2023 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

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By |2023-08-08T11:38:28+00:00August 8th, 2023|Categories: Data Management, Pro Tips, revive, Strategy|
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Displaying Account Fields on a Salesforce Opportunity Record Page

Salesforce opportunity record pages are great for displaying all of the key information about a particular record. But, what if you need to be working with and updating multiple related records at the same time, without flipping back and forth?

That’s where this hack for displaying account fields on Salesforce opportunity record pages comes into play. 

Salesforce Opportunity Record Page Example

Let’s say a sales rep is working on an opportunity, but some of the fields they need to see and update are on the account. 

If they only needed to view the information, using custom formula fields on the Opportunity referencing Account fields would have been sufficient. Because they also wanted to update this information while they were on the Opportunity record, an alternative option may be using an Object Specific Action with the Lightning Record Page.

How to Create an Object Specific Action

  1. From Setup, go to Object Manager > Account > Buttons, Links, and Actions
  2. Click New Action
  3. For Action Type select Update a Record
  4. For Label, enter a label that is appropriate for this purpose. For example ‘Update Account Details’
  5. Enter a Description outlining the purpose of this action. For example ‘Displays Account details to users from Opportunity record page’
  6. Click Save.

Edit the Action Layout

This is the key! This is where we decide what fields to display, and how they will be arranged.

  1. Once you have saved, you will be looking at the Action layout.
    • Note: you can also access this later from the Action page by clicking on the Edit Layout button.
  2. Just like a page layout, drag and drop the fields that you want to be visible.
  1. Click Save.

Add the Account Action Layout to the Opportunity record page

Now that we have the Action Layout we want, here’s where we connect it to the Opportunity. 

  1. From Setup, go to Object Manager > Opportunity > Lightning Record Pages.
  2. Select the Lightning Record Page you want to update.
  3. Drag the ‘Related Record’ component where you want it on the page.
  4. In the Related Record settings panel on the right, update the following:
    1. Header Label = the heading that will appear at the top of that layout on the page
    2. Lookup Field = Account
    3. Update Action = the name of the action you created above
  5. Click Save.

Now when looking at an opportunity, the related Account fields will appear on the Opportunity record page!

Editing Account Fields on the Opportunity Page

Unlike formula fields, these fields can be edited directly from the Opportunity. 

To edit the Account fields, click the pencil icon next to the Account field you want to edit. All of the fields in that section will become editable, and notice that the Opportunity fields are not. When done, click the Save button to save the fields in that section. These fields are edited separately from the Opportunity fields. 

Find Key Account Details on the Salesforce Opportunity Record Page

That’s it! Now the sales team can manage the key details on their Account and Opportunity in one place. All with a handy object-specific action layout and the flexibility of a Lightning record page.
Want to know how you can use this tip in your overall technology strategy? Reach out to the team at Sercante to start a conversation.

You can also check out these resources for more ways to make work flow between your sales and marketing teams:

Original article: Displaying Account Fields on a Salesforce Opportunity Record Page

©2023 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

The post Displaying Account Fields on a Salesforce Opportunity Record Page appeared first on The Spot.

By |2023-05-31T19:10:52+00:00May 31st, 2023|Categories: Data Management, Pro Tips|
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Automation Facelift: Migrate Workflow Rules and Process Builder to Salesforce Flow

With Salesforce moving to Flow as its go to low-code automation tool, and Workflow Rules and Process Builder planned for retirement, it’s a good idea to migrate your existing automations to Flow. Here are best practices to get started on this process BEFORE you begin migrating.

Reviewing Your Current Automation Stack

Depending on how old your org is, it may have a lot of legacy configurations from old or obsolete business processes that don’t mean anything for your organization today. Do you really need to bring all of that technical debt along in your migration process? Or would you rather have an opportunity for a fresh start with your automations?

Before jumping in and migrating all of your current automations, this is a good opportunity to develop a migration strategy so that the changes being made now will meet the current and future needs of your organization. 

Develop a Salesforce Flow Migration Strategy

STEP 1: Audit your current workflow rules and process builders

First, inventory your list of workflow rules and process builders and perform an analysis. Here is a template you can use for your audit (click File > Make a copy).

When looking at your current automation, consider the following questions:

  • Which automations are active?
  • What automations are still relevant?
  • How many automations are there per object?
  • How complex is each automation?
  • Can any automations be combined?
  • Which automations make updates to the same record that triggered it?

STEP 2: Decide Which Automations to Migrate

After completing the audit, you will have a better idea of the automations in your org, which are still relevant and need to be migrated, and which can be decommissioned. 

This is also a great time to decide on which you will consolidate. Candidates for consolidation are:

  • Automations on the same object with the same trigger criteria. For example if you have 3 workflow rules that trigger from a Lead Status change, these may be a good candidate for combining into a single flow.
  • Automations that include field updates on the triggering record.
  • Automations that have similar components that could be combined into a subflow that’s called from each flow.

STEP 3: Prioritize Your Migration Plan

As you assess the automations in your org, you will become aware of those that are critical vs nice to have, and which can be combined into a single well performing flow. Use this understanding to prioritize the workflow rules and process builders you want to tackle first.

STEP 4: Get Familiar with Salesforce Flow

If you’re not familiar with Flow, and the types of flows available, this should be your next step before jumping in, to help make informed decisions about your flow strategy.

There are many resources available to help you get started.

You can check out my recent blog post for more information and links to a few great resources. Or this one from Mike Morris that outlines a process to manage Salesforce campaign activation with Flow.

STEP 5: Decide on a Flow Strategy

Ok so you know what workflow rules and processes need to be migrated and which to tackle first. So how are you going to actually migrate them? 

Salesforce Migrate to Flow Tool
  • Salesforce provides a Migrate to Flow Tool to help with the process of migrating current Workflow Rules and Process Builder to flow.
    • Support for migrating Workflow Rules is generally available as of Summer ’22.
    • Support for migrating Process Builder is coming and estimated early 2023.
  • The tool is very easy to use and does pretty much all of the lift in the migration process, creating the flow with start criteria and each action, and even makes it easy for you to deactivate the old and active the new.
  • One consideration is that the current version of the tool will migrate each workflow rule into its own flow. So if you have 20 workflow rules and use the tool to migrate you will end up with 20 flows. Will this work for your org?
Third-Party Migration Tools
  • The UnofficialSF site has a tool called ConvertToFlow v2 that can be used to convert Workflow Rules and Process Builder. I personally have not used it but it has been recommended in the community.
Building Flows Manually

If you have identified automations that can be combined, or are migrating process builders, you will no doubt build some flows. Before clicking that New Flow button, decide on:

  • Will this be a ‘Before Save’ vs ‘After Save’ record-triggered Flow?
    • Will the flow make an update on the same record that triggered the flow? If yes then a Before Save flow may be the best fit for better performance.
    • Will this flow be invoking an action or creating/updating related records? Then you will want to create an After Save flow.
  • Is there an existing flow with the same entry conditions? Can it be updated to include the logic you are currently migrating?
  • Is there an existing flow that has the same components involved? Can those components be converted into a subflow to be used in each of the flows?

Step 5: Build your Flow(s)!

Now that you have completed all of this awesome prep work, you are ready to roll up your sleeves and get building!

Questions about using Salesforce Flow? 

Let us know how you’re using Salesforce Flow in the comments section, or reach out to us with any questions.

We’re here to help!

Original article: Automation Facelift: Migrate Workflow Rules and Process Builder to Salesforce Flow

©2022 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

The post Automation Facelift: Migrate Workflow Rules and Process Builder to Salesforce Flow appeared first on The Spot.

By |2022-08-06T00:16:00+00:00August 6th, 2022|Categories: Marketing Automations, Pro Tips, revive, Strategy|
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An Introductory Guide to Salesforce Flow for Marketers

Marketing and sales teams have a lot on their plates. Marketing is focused on generating interest and qualifying leads, and the Sales team is focused on closing deals and securing business. 

Both teams benefit from working together to make sure they are focused on the right people at the right time, by streamlining the handoff and ensuring data quality every step of the way. To help with this, marketers have the power of Marketing Cloud/Pardot automation tools, which can tackle a lot of work. 

But when it comes to more advanced data wizardry and support for unique processes and actions like related record creation, marketers have another powerful tool that can help. 

Enter — Salesforce Flow!

Wait, what is Salesforce Flow?

Salesforce Flow is a powerful declarative automation tool that can be used to automate complex business processes without developer skills. Flows let you build customized user experiences and can save time by making sure the right actions are completed at the right time.

And, because they are declarative (relying on clicks, rather than code), Salesforce Flows are easier to manage than a developed (e.g. Apex) solution.

Flow is the future for Salesforce declarative automation 

Sound familiar? You may have heard Salesforce Flow discussed a lot in the community recently. For one thing, Salesforce has really gone all-in with enhancements to Flow that let you do way more than ever before.  

Not to mention, Salesforce has announced plans to sunset Workflow Rules and Process Builder, two of its legacy automation tools. For this reason, you should use flow for new process automation, and companies should consider migrating existing (and relevant) processes to Flow.

Sounds cool, right? Now you’re probably wondering, how do I learn more about Flow? 

We’ve got you! Here is a high-level overview on the basics around Salesforce Flow.

Marketing Uses of Flow

Now that you know a little more about flows and how they work, it’s time to explore how marketing teams can use Flow.

Below are just a few ideas, but the possibilities are endless! 

  • Managing Salesforce campaign activation
  • Creating a custom task series for Sales
  • Standardizing Campaign Member Statuses
  • Capturing lifetime prospect scores
  • Guiding a rep through a outbound calling “wizard” with branded messaging
  • Initial customer onboarding steps when an opportunity closes
  • Automating field values based on another field
  • Automating Lead Conversion (with the help of Apex)
  • Setting the Marketing Data Sharing field value to control when Leads/Contacts sync to Pardot and, if using multiple Pardot Business Units, which Business Unit they sync to

Flow Building Basics

This section covers what you need to know when building a flow.

We recommend you build and test your flow in a Sandbox environment. After testing and validation, deploy to production.

Flow Types

First, there are four core flow types that are most commonly used:

Screen Flows

When to use Screen Flows:

  • When you need a wizard-like screen interface that users can interact with to view/add/update information, create records, etc.
  • Good for customizing user experience and guide them through process steps

How Screen Flows are launched:

  • Common uses include launching from an action button or displayed on a Lightning record page.

Use Cases:

  • Walkthrough of creating a lead or opportunity
  • Quick start of setting up accounts
  • Agent phone script guidance
  • A “card” displayed on a record page displaying related record information in rich text, or showing an image when a lead is hot. (see screenshot)

Record-Triggered Flows

When to use Record-Triggered Flows:

  • An autolaunched flow that runs in the background when a record is created, updated, or deleted.
  • It’s this type of flow that replaces the functionality of Workflow Rules and Process Builder.

How they are launched:

  • Launched Independently, when a record is created, updated, or deleted and meets entry conditions

Use Cases:

Schedule-Triggered Flows

When to use Schedule-Triggered Flows:

  • Background process that runs at a specified time and frequency (daily, weekly, or one-time)

How they are launched:

  • Launched Independently, based on set time and entry conditions

Use Cases:

  • Create or update records in batches
  • Delete obsolete data periodically
  • Send email alert to Marketing if Lead is hasn’t been actioned by Sales

Autolaunched Flows

When to use Autolaunched Flows:

  • An automated process that is triggered by another process, like another flow, process builder, Apex or API.
  • Good for situations when you have a repeatable set of tasks that may be called by more than one process (called a subflow).

How they are launched:

  • From another process

Examples:

  • Error handling subflows, like having a more user-friendly message that appears if you experience an error.
  • A utility flow that handles task creation for different record triggered events

This handy chart can help to determine which type of flow to use:

which type of salesforce flow to use

Building Salesforce Flows

Ok, so now we know the types of flows we can build. Now let’s take a closer look at what goes into building them.

Flow Builder

Flow Builder is the place where you build and test your flows. There are three key areas in the builder:

  • The Toolbox is where you create and manage all of the elements and resources that go into your flow. More on that shortly.
  • The Canvas is where you build your flow by adding elements using the (+) tool. 
  • The Button Bar at the top lets you view flow information, and test/debug, save and activate your flow. 

Flow Building Blocks

The main building blocks for building Salesforce flows are:

  • (1) Start – This is where you decide how and when the flow is going to start! Options are dependent on the type of flow — most relevant for Record Triggered or Scheduled flow types — but this can be very important to making sure the flow starts when it should.
  • (2) Elements – These are what you add to the Canvas to build out your flow. While the full list can be found here, several common elements include:
    • Get Records
    • Create or Update Records
    • Decisions
    • Actions
    • Loops
  • (3) Connectors – These define the path a flow will take, and which element to execute next.
  • (4) Resources – These are the pieces that store information that are used by Elements throughout the flow. Examples of these are variables that store field values, formulas or choice sets. 

Tips on Building and Updating Salesforce Flows

  • Copying/Pasting Elements – You can duplicate elements which can be a time saver if you need a similar element somewhere else in the flow. Simply click on the element and select Copy Element, then click the (+) in the place where you want to paste the copy, and click Paste Copied Elements. 
  • Extending Flows – Using the components available on the AppExchange and UnofficialSF.
  • Save often – While building a flow it’s a good idea to Save your flow often so you don’t lose any work. You can perform a quick save on Flows that haven’t been activated instead of having to save as another version.
  • Be sure to activate when ready! – Once you’re ready to run the flow live, remember to activate it.
  • Opening existing Flows – Clicking on the flow name on the Flows page will open the Active flow. If you have saved a new version of the flow but haven’t activated it, you need to go into View Details (click the arrow to the right of the flow in the list view) to view and open the newer inactive version.

There are many more best practices to building flows that are highly recommended.

I’ve built a Flow! What’s next?

Once you’ve built your flow it’s important to debug and test your flow to make sure it’s running the way it’s expected to. 

When you have tested and are happy with the results, then you can deploy to production. If you’re using a changeset to deploy, make sure you activate the flow in your production environment!

Where to learn more about Flow

This article is just the tip of the iceberg of flow related content. There are A TON of great resources out there. 

Here are a few to get you started:

Let us know how you’re using Flow in the comments section, or reach out to us with any questions.

Original article: An Introductory Guide to Salesforce Flow for Marketers

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The post An Introductory Guide to Salesforce Flow for Marketers appeared first on The Spot.

By |2022-06-24T20:55:00+00:00June 24th, 2022|Categories: Getting Started, revive, Setup & Admin|
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