Process Builder, Workflow, and Flow

Salesforce provides several declarative tools to implement business processes and custom user experience Flows. End user operations such as creating, updating, or starting an approval process for a record can be customized through two tools, known as Workflow and Lightning Process Builder. When you need to implement a UI Flow that provides a wizard or interview-style user experience, you can use the Lightning Flow tool. This tool can be used to define more complex conditional business processes that need to read and update records. Automation Flows, or sometimes "headless Flows," are Flows that do not interact with the user and can be referenced within Apex code as well as Process Builder.

Lightning Flow lets you build engaging UIs but has its limits since it is not a programming language in a traditional sense. This does not mean, however, if you or your users hit a roadblock you have to abandon it. Lightning Components can now be embedded into Lightning Flow UIs to fill this gap when needed. This is just one of many areas in which including Lightning Components in your package can add value to the platform tools your customers have access to.

Process Builder is the successor to Workflow. It provides the same functionality plus additional features for updating child records, for example, and extensibility for developers. It is also easier for end users to build and visualize more complex processes with its more modern graphical layout. Though you can use both interchangeably, its best to focus on one or the other, making it easier to locate and maintain customizations.

As an application developer, these can be created and packaged as part of your application. Such components are upgradable (provided that they are marked as Protected). Typically, however, package developers tend to leave the utilization of these features to consultants and subscriber org admins in preference to Apex and/or Visualforce, where more complex logic and user experiences can be created.

Just as these tools can be used by administrators to customize their orgs, you may want to consider exposing your Apex-driven application business processes through Invocable Methods, to effectively extended the functionality available to admins through these tools. Put another way, this allows users of the Lightning Process Builder and Lightning Flow tools to invoke your application's functionality through clicks not code. We will be revisiting this in Chapter 10, Providing Integration and Extensibility.
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