Workflow and Process Automation
This chapter covers declarative automation in Salesforce, centered on Flow, along with approval processes and the practice of building safely in a sandbox. Automation reduces manual work and enforces consistent business processes.
Flow, the primary automation tool
Flow, built in Flow Builder, is Salesforce's recommended point-and-click automation platform and the successor to the retired Workflow Rules and Process Builder. Record-triggered flows run automatically when records are created, updated, or deleted and meet criteria; screen flows collect user input; and scheduled flows run on a time schedule.
Approval processes
An approval process defines the steps, approvers, and automated actions for records that need formal sign-off, such as routing a large discount to a manager and recording the outcome. Unlike a validation rule, which only blocks bad data, an approval process orchestrates a multi-step review and decision.
Safe change management with sandboxes
Administrators build and test automation in a sandbox, a copy of the production org, before deploying to production where users work. This protects live users from untested changes and is the standard practice for responsible configuration and release management.