New Salesforce Flow Features to explore in Spring ’21

Salesforce Spring ’21 Release has made substantial improvements that will delight both customers and users.

1. Salesforce Flow
In this release, Lightning Flow is now known as Salesforce Flow and includes both Process Builder and Process Flow. Flow Builder and Lightning Process Builder are now called Flow Builder and Process Builder respectively.

a) Add the scheduled path to record-triggered flow
You can now add a scheduled path to run at a dynamically scheduled time after the triggering event occurs. You can schedule the time based on when the record is created, updated, or on a field value in the record. Scheduled paths on record-triggered flows can now accomplish the same goals as Process Builder or time-dependent actions in workflow rules.

In the diagram above, the flow consists of two paths. When an opportunity is created or updated, the flow runs these separate interviews at different times:

• Immediately after the opportunity is created or updated (1), the flow notifies the opportunity owner about the new or reopened opportunity.
• One week before the close date (2), if the opportunity is still in the Value Proposition stage, the flow emails a reminder to the opportunity owner.

The maximum number of scheduled-path interviews per 24 hours is 250000, or the number of user licenses in your org multiplied by 200, whichever is greater. One interview is created for each executed scheduled path on a record-triggered flow. Paths that run immediately don’t count toward this limit.

When a new or updated record triggers your flow to run, the scheduled paths are placed in a queue until their scheduled times run. You can monitor these and other pending automation on the Time-Based Workflow page in Setup.

Previously, the Time-Based Workflow page listed only time-dependent workflow actions. Now the page also lists these types of pending automation in the queue:

• Scheduled paths for record-triggered flows
• Scheduled actions for processes that are built-in Process Builder
• Time-based resume events for paused flow interviews

b) Refer to the Prior Values of the record that triggered your flow
You can now access a record’s prior values in Salesforce Flow after the record has been updated. The $Record__Prior global variable contains the record’s values immediately before the flow was run. This feature allows you to check for changes and calculate differences in your flow. You need the View All Data Permission in order to activate a record-triggered flow.

For example, to notify the Opportunity Team when an opportunity’s amount changes by 30% or more, compare the $Record.Amount to the $Record__Prior.Amount. To determine the percentage of the change, you can create a formula such as ({$!Record.Amount} – {!$Record__Prior.Amount}) / {!Record__Prior.Amount}. Use a Decision element to check the formula’s result and a Send Email or Post to Chatter action to perform the notification.

$Record__Prior is available in specific Flow Builder locations that read from global variables, including:

• Formulas
• Action input values
• Assignment values
• Decision outcomes
• Filters and individual field values when creating, updating, getting or deleting records

c) Send Rich Text emails from Flows
You can also send an email in rich text format by using a Send Email action, allowing you more options when sending an email from a flow. These options include bullets, bold or italic text, and embedded images. To send an email in rich text format, set Rich-Text-Formatted Body to true. There are also new run-time error improvements for Send Email actions to catch invalid email addresses and sender types.

d) Flow Debugging
With debugging tool enhancements, it is now easier to test and troubleshoot your flows. Many error emails now contain a link that will open Flow Builder, where you can check the interview’s path on the canvas and error details.

To open failed flow interviews in Flow Builder, you need the Manage Flows Permission. In a flow error email, click Flow Error: Click here to debug the error in Flow Builder.

Failed flow interviews for these flow types that are built with the free-form layout in Flow Builder are saved and available to open in Flow Builder:

• Screen flows’
• Record-triggered flows
• Schedule-triggered flows
• Auto – launched flows that aren’t triggered

Failed flow interviews don’t count toward data, file, or paused flow interview storage limits. When failed flow interviews are saved, they’re available for up to 14 days, then they’re automatically deleted from the database.

The names of flow elements in flow error emails and debug details in Flow Builder have been updated as follows:

• Fast Lookup is now Get Records
• Fast Update is now Update Records
• Fast Delete is now Delete Records

To debug schedule-triggered and non-triggered auto-launched flows directly on the canvas, click Debug on Canvas, as shown in the diagram below.

Optionally, enable Show query limits in debug details to show each data element’s limit consumption and DML and SOQL query activity in the debug details. Data elements include Create Records, Update Records, Get Records, and Delete Records.

To see the debug run’s path on the canvas, click Run. The debug details show the information that you enabled.

Other enhancements related to flows include Building multicolumn Screens, Control Revisited Screen Component Values, and Access Complex Merge Fields from Loops.

2.Salesforce CPQ
The improvements made to Salesforce CPQ in the Spring ’21 release include smoother amendment and renewal service upgrades, background contract amendments, and a change to ensure correct price rule configurations.

a) Make a Smooth Switch to the Large-Scale Amendment and Renewal Service
Users can now complete amendment and renewal transactions regardless of which amendment and renewal service they use. Previously, if field names on your contracts were long, you couldn’t switch from the Legacy Amend/Renew Service to the Salesforce CPQ Large-Scale Amendment and Renewal Service.

b) Continue Working While You Amend Contracts
Previously, while a contract amending process was in progress, you had to stay on screen while it was running. A new setting is now available to allow the process to run in the background, improving user experience and options.

From Setup, in the Quick Find box, enter Installed Packages, and then select Installed Packages. Click the Subscriptions and Renewals tab. If Use Legacy Amend/Renew Service is selected, deselect it, and then select Amend Contracts in Background.

c) Contract larger orders in less time
In the new release, sales reps can now contract orders with twice as many line items as they could previously. The number of line items depends on your org’s configuration.

3. Salesforce Billing
With Salesforce Billing, configure how invoice lines are created when you use a bill through date override, and map financial information to customer accounting and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems

In this new release, Salesforce has added the billing rule field Period Treatment for BTDO, to control how Salesforce creates invoice lines when a Bill Through Date Override value creates a partial billing period. Previously, Salesforce Billing created only one invoice line covering the partial period and any remaining full periods.

In the Spring ’21 release, Salesforce Billing now activates standalone orders and their child standalone order products at the same time. Previously, when you activated a standalone order, Salesforce Billing didn’t activate its order products. Users had to activate the standalone order products on their own or through automation.

Additionally, standalone order products no longer require as much editing after creation. Now, when you create a standalone order, its child order products inherit the product’s charge type, billing frequency, and billing type. If any order products were related to a product with a product consumption schedule and rates, the order products also receive order product consumption schedules and rates.

4.Advanced Approvals
Previously, approval managers accessed the Advanced Approvals package in Salesforce to approve or reject a sales rep’s approval request. Now in the Spring ’21 release, you can implement approval and rejection API in an outside platform so that your approval managers no longer must access Salesforce during the approval process.

Advanced Approval API is available as long as the Salesforce setting Disable API is unchecked. This setting is unchecked by default. To access it, from Setup, in the Quick Find box, enter Custom Settings, and then select Custom Settings.

5. Salesforce Meetings
Enhance sales reps’ interactions with prospects and customers with tools that help them prepare for meetings and engage attendees like never before. Two new functionalities are coming as a preview, which you will be able to try as a beta, pilot, or preview.

a) Meeting Digest
The Meeting Digest provides insight about who’s in a meeting, shows relevant activities, reminders about meeting invitation responses, and helps reps ensure that team members are aligned going into a meeting.

b) Meeting Studio
The Meeting Studio has a unique camera and presentation view to keep attendees engaged during virtual meetings. Reps are able to show their camera and presentation in the same window to keep meetings flowing and bypass any awkward transitions when switching the content to share next. In addition, there are also updates on High-Velocity Sales which includes Call Coaching with video calls, Call Coaching dashboards, and cadence rules.

From Setup, in the Quick Find box, enter Meetings, and then select Settings. Verify and indicate that you have a syncing
solution enabled, such as Einstein Activity Capture or Lightning Sync. Then turn on Salesforce Meetings and assign the Salesforce Meetings permission set to the users who you want to have access to the Meeting Digest tab.

Reps launch Meeting Studio directly from the Meeting Digest tab on an event record. If an associated meeting link such as Zoom or Google Meet is available for the meeting, Meeting Studio and the meeting open in separate browser tabs.

6.Tableau CRM
Einstein Analytics is now known as Tableau CRM. Integrate data between your business and Tableau CRM more seamlessly with Data Prep enhancements. Create and manage dashboards more efficiently with reusable components (generally available). And improve your Einstein Discovery predictive process with models built outside of Salesforce.

Make decisions today based on forecasts for tomorrow with Time Series Forecasting (pilot), and push Tableau CRM data into your business operations with Snowflake Sync Out (generally available) and the .csv Data Prep output node.

Push your prepared dataset Account, Opportunity, and custom object data into any Salesforce org from Tableau CRM with the Tableau CRM Salesforce Output connector and Data Prep. With your prepared data back in Salesforce, you can integrate external data, apply the suite of Salesforce automation tools to act on the data, and allow non-Tableau CRM users access to the data through reports and dashboards.

7.Manual Sharing
In the Spring ’21 release, it is now possible to share records to a user or group of users in Salesforce Lightning. There’s no need to switch to Salesforce Classic to be able to share records. With manual sharing, you can manage who the record is shared with and any associated records. Manual shares are available only for accounts, opportunities, cases, contacts, leads, and custom objects.

8.Salesforce Anywhere
Salesforce Anywhere now includes all features from Quip for Customer 360. Salesforce Anywhere Advanced helps in making faster, smarter decisions in the context of your Salesforce data. Keep data at the center of your teamwork with live Salesforce data in your documents, spreadsheets, templates, and messages. Quip for Customer 360 is now combining with Salesforce Anywhere to deliver even more features under the Salesforce Anywhere brand.

Create a document wherever you are in Lightning Experience and link it to a record. With the New Document global action, users can take freeform notes in the context of their Salesforce data. From Publish Layouts in Setup, add the New Document global action to your Salesforce Mobile and Lightning Experience Actions section.

Also, with dynamic Salesforce data mentions, templated fields added to an embedded template always align with an object’s available fields and are always in sync with Salesforce. As a result, there’s no more risk of incorrect mail merge syntax and mail merge that doesn’t line up with record fields.

Additionally, create different company galleries to meet your business needs, such as one for Global Sales and another for Client Management, and then publish your custom templates to them. Your teams can easily find the templates that they need and know that they’re admin-approved. With Template Library management in the Quip Admin Console, you can see all your private templates, and when they’re ready to share, publish them to company galleries. Your templates stay organized, and publishing and deleting templates is a breeze. You can even manage who has access to your private gallery templates.

9.Experience Cloud
Community cloud is now known as Experience cloud. It includes portals, websites, help centers, forums, and mobile apps.
When you’re creating a forum, portal, or any other digital experience, you’re building an online site. So, instead of saying community, we now call it site.

To access your sites from Setup, in the Quick Find box, enter Digital Experiences, and select All Sites.

Below is a summary of the key terminology changes:

10.Opportunity Products
The Spring ’21 release gives your sales teams more flexibility to track information on opportunity product records. If a sales rep wants to track two delivery locations in a related list for an opportunity product record, it is now possible to do this by creating an object relationship and a page layout.

Go to your object management settings, create a lookup relationship between any standard or custom object and Opportunity Product(Opportunity Line Item). Make sure the related list and lookup fields are added to the page layouts where they are required.

11. Pardot
Some of the enhancements for Pardot in the Spring ’21 release are listed below.

a) Quickly clone Campaigns with Related Assets
When you want to create a campaign with the same related records as an existing one, you now have quick access to more types of records. You get an enhanced Clone with Related tool for campaign records that includes Marketing Link, Marketing Form, and Landing Pages.

b) Analyse Email Content Performance with Custom Reports
Now you can select email content as the primary object for custom report types. And you can select the list email object as a related object. Marketers can then create reports that show email content performance and engagement. For example, a report can show engagement statistics by email content record.

b) Analyse Email Content Performance with Custom Reports
Now you can select email content as the primary object for custom report types. And you can select the list email object as a related object. Marketers can then create reports that show email content performance and engagement. For example, a report can show engagement statistics by email content record.

In Setup, search for Report Types and create a custom report type using Email Content as the primary object. Add list email as a related object to get more report options for all list emails, including emails sent from the email content record.

c) Specify a Link for Completion Actions in Pardot Emails
Marketers can now set a specific link to trigger a completion action on emails, giving them more control over their email sends. Previously, any link clicked in the email triggered the defined automated action.

Key Dates

The main release dates are on Jan 16th, Feb 6th, 12th & 13th. You can go to Salesforce Trust and select your instance name and click on Maintenances, this will show you when the Spring ’21 release will be deployed on your org.

Those are some new Salesforce Flow enhancements to note in Spring ‘21 – some signaling major steps in the right direction for Flow to replace Process Builder almost completely as the default automation tool of choice for Salesforce admins.