Should you still learn Workflow Rules and Process Builder?

Author: Peggy Schael | Salesforce Trainer | WeLearnSalesforce

During Salesforce’s super event Dreamforce 2021, they have announced they will no longer develop Workflow Rules and Process Builder. 🤯 They are even planning to deprecate these two tools entirely. All their future development efforts will be all-in on Flow Builder.

Now let’s all take a deep breath. 🧘🏻‍♀️ You don’t have to freak out just yet, or ever. Salesforce knows that many of their customers have hundreds if not thousands of Workflow Rules and Process Builders in place. Moving everything over into Flow is not going to happen over night.

In this blog article, we will discuss the following:

What is going to happen?
What does this mean for you as a Salesforce Administrator?
How do you deepen your Salesforce Automation Knowledge?
Learn Workflow Rules
Learn Process Builder
Learn Flow Builder

What is going to happen?

Patrick Stokes, GM Platform of Salesforce, has announced the following pre-liminary timeline. This is an early announcement and may be changed (Safe Harbor):

Spring ’22 release (version 236): Provide Workflow migration tool
Summer ’22 release (version 238): Provide Process Builder migration tool
Winter ’23 release (version 240): You will no longer be able to create new Workflow Rules or Process Builders. BUT… you will be able to edit old existing ones.

Source: https://www.salesforce.com/plus/experience/Dreamforce_2021/series/Admin/episode/episode-15 (Go to 25:21 minutes to hear it for yourself)

All of this means, every Salesforce Administrator or other User who is involved in creating and managing automation tools like Workflow Rules and Process Builders, needs to know what each tool is and how it is set up. Because… you will need to be able to update and maintain them at the very least. Existing Workflows and Processes will be around for another while.

Even though the migration tools will be made available, it’s yet to see how reliable these are and how well they are going to work. If the company you are or will be working for, uses many complex Workflow Rules or Process Builders, the migration might not be as simple as running a migration tool. The more complex their Workflows or Processes are, the more time and budget will be required to perform the migration.

Now, what does this mean for you as a Salesforce Administrator?

First of all, no need to panic. You still have plenty of time! 😅 You have time to skill up and learn Workflow Rules, Process Builder as well as Flow Builder, unless you are already familiar and confident using each.

These tools are not rocket science, which means everyone can learn them. While Flow Builder is the most complex of the three, which may make you want to bang your head against a wall, Salesforce is also making it much more easy to use. Phew! With each new release they have and will be implementing more and more ready-to-use features into Flow Builder removing the need to use any code.

This means, Flow Builder will become really easy and most importantly fun to use. You’ll see, once you get started using it, it’s amazing what you can do with it.

How do you deepen your Salesforce Automation Knowledge?

Below are two options for you. One, if you are new to Salesforce, and another, if you are already experienced.

In case you are rather new to the whole Salesforce Administration world, you will need to learn your basics first. With the basic knowledge and skills, it’ll make it much easier to understand how automation tools like Workflow Rules, Process Builder and Flow Builder as well as many others, impact business processes managed through Salesforce’s user interface. These are very powerful tools and want to be set up in the right way, in the right context of the everyday Salesforce user experience.

Therefore, if you are a newbie, head over to Trailhead and learn all things Salesforce Administrator. We’ve put together a comprehensive Trailmix for you. It’s based on the official Salesforce Certified Administrator Exam Guide, however we’ve filled some gaps and added a little more logic to the order.

For those of you who prefer a bit more guidance, we have even collated everything into a well-structured easy to follow Salesforce Administrator Certification Video Course. It includes all the fundamental features and functionalities of the Salesforce platform including Workflow Rules, Process Builder and Flow Builder.

Source: https://www.welearnsalesforce.com/bundles/salesforce-administrator-certification-course

If you are already experienced and maybe even hold the Salesforce Administrator Credential, you may also want to consider refreshing your knowledge and dive deeper into advanced topics. Our Salesforce Advanced Administrator Certification Course would be the perfect addition for you.

However, if you really just want to skill up on Workflow Rules, Process Builder and Flow Builder, then you can simply focus your learning efforts on these recommended learning resources:

Learn Workflow Rules

Workflow Rules haven’t been receiving much love from Salesforce for a while. So you won’t find anything on Trailhead. But there’s plenty of resources available on Salesforce Help, plus they are pretty easy to set up:

Salesforce Help | Create a Workflow Rule

Learn Process Builder

Did you know that Process Builder actually uses Flow under the hood? Meaning Flow Builder has been around for much longer but used to be rather complex to be set up. Process Builder has a very intuitive user interface, and with Flow Builder receiving so many awesome upgrades, the transition to Flow Builder won’t be too hard. Here’s a nice Trailhead Project for you:

Trailhead | Automate with Process Builder

Learn Flow Builder

No need to be scared of Flow Builder. It will indeed require a bit more practice and patience. But it’s the most powerful of the three with the most capabilities. Here’s a great Trailhead Module for you to get started with Flow:

Trailhead | Flow Builder