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Associate Flows to Records with Process Builder

Process Builder is a point-and-click automation tool that lets you design processes that kick off when a new or updated record meets specific criteria. After you create, test, and activate your flows, associate the flows with a record by building a process. Use Process Builder to create a process that, when triggered, creates a RecordAction. A RecordAction represents an association between a flow and a record that kicked off the process. When the process is triggered, a RecordAction is created.

Associated flows for a record show up in the record’s Guided Action List component, ready for your users to start. Keep in mind that flows you associate to records using Process Builder override any default channel-specific flows you specify in the Guided Action List component.

To create a process, follow these steps.

  1. Define the process properties.
    The process properties uniquely identify your process.
  2. Configure the process trigger.
    Every process includes a trigger, which tells the process when to start. How you configure that trigger depends on what type of process you’re creating.
  3. Add process criteria.
    Define the criteria that must be true before the process can execute the associated actions.
  4. Add actions to your process and create a record from the process.
    After you define a criteria node, create a record from the process when criteria are met. Actions are executed in the order in which they appear in the Process Builder.

    Flows is a supported Action Type in Process Builder. This type is different from creating a RecordAction. The Flows Action Type supports only flows that don’t have screens, and is invoked immediately when the process is triggered. Creating a RecordAction doesn’t invoke the flow; rather, it associates a record with the flow so that your users can run it.

    Note

    To associate flows to records, you must create a RecordAction.

    Important

    Specify the following.
    • Action Type: Create a Record
    • Record Type: RecordAction
    Set field values for the Create a Record action.
    Field Type Value
    Flow Picklist Specify the flow you want associated to the record.
    Order Number Specify the order of the flow among all flows associated with this record. Flows are ordered in comparison to other flows in their pinned or unpinned region. If two flows have the same order, then the flows are sorted by their last modified date.
    Parent Record ID Field Reference Specify the record associated with the flow. For most use cases, select the ID for the object you’ve selected for your process trigger. For example, if you used the contact object, set the value to [Contact].Id.
    Pinned Picklist Specify whether the flow is pinned to the top or bottom of the Guided Action List component. Users can’t delete pinned flows from the Guided Action List, however they can be deleted using the API. To display the flow between pinned flows, use None. Users can delete flows that use None because they aren’t pinned.
  5. Activate your process.
When your criteria is met and your process runs, the flow you specified is associated to the parent record.

Example

Create a process that adds a flow for users to verify a contact’s information, like their address and email, for additional changes when their phone number changes.
  • Choose the contact object and start the process when a record is created or edited Screen shot of the Process Buidler start screen.
  • Create criteria for when the [Contact].MobilePhone field changes Screen shot of the criteria window with specified changes.
  • Add a Create a Record action and specify RecordAction for the Record Type
  • Set field values for the record, pointing to your Verify_Information flow and the parent record IDScreen shot of the create a record window with specified changes.

Activate the process to automatically add the Verify Information flow to the contact when the contact's MobilePhone field is changed.