Why your flows keep breaking
We’ve all seen what happens when someone ignores Salesforce Flow best practices. You build something that works perfectly for one record, but then a data load happens or a user mass-updates a list view, and suddenly the whole system crashes. It’s frustrating for the users and even worse for the admin who has to clean up the mess.
Look, Flow is basically visual coding now. If you treat it like a simple drag-and-drop tool without thinking about what’s happening under the hood, you’re going to run into trouble. I’ve spent years fixing “broken” flows that were actually just poorly designed. Here’s the thing: most of these issues are completely avoidable if you change how you approach the canvas.
Salesforce Flow best practices for bulkification
This is probably the most common mistake I see. People put a “Get Records” or an “Update Records” element inside a loop. It seems logical when you’re looking at it – for every item in this list, go find this other thing. But in the Salesforce world, that’s a one-way ticket to hitting governor limits. You’ll get that dreaded “Too many SOQL queries” error faster than you can blink.
Instead, you need to think in collections. Grab everything you need before the loop starts, or use the new features to handle the heavy lifting. If you’re struggling with how to move away from those old-school loops, you should check out how to handle bulk record processing in Flows. It’ll save you a lot of late-night debugging.
One thing that trips people up is simply gathering IDs. If you’re still looping just to build a list of IDs, you should start to use the Transform element instead. It’s much cleaner and way more efficient.
Stop over-complicating your trigger logic
So, when should you use a before-save flow versus an after-save flow? Honestly, most teams get this wrong. If you’re just updating fields on the same record that triggered the flow, use a before-save (Fast Field Update). It’s significantly faster because it doesn’t trigger another save cycle. But if you need to update related records or send an email, that’s when you move to an after-save flow.
I’ve seen teams try to cram every single business process into one giant, monolithic flow. Don’t do that. It’s a nightmare to maintain. Break your logic into subflows. It makes your automation easier to read and, more importantly, easier to test. If you have a piece of logic you use in three different places, make it a subflow. Simple as that.
Error handling and Salesforce Flow best practices
Here’s a specific opinion: a flow without a fault path isn’t finished. I’ve worked with so many clients who complain that their flows “just stop working” without any explanation. When a DML operation fails, Flow usually just throws a generic “unhandled fault” error to the user. That’s a terrible experience.
Always add Fault connectors to your data elements. At the very least, have it send an email to the admin team with the fault message. Better yet, log the error to a custom “Error Log” object. If you want to get serious about this, look into Salesforce Flow error handling for email automation to see how to keep your users in the loop without showing them raw system errors.
The best flows aren’t the ones that never fail – they’re the ones that tell you exactly why they failed when they do.
Watch your transactional boundaries
Flows run in the same transaction as the event that triggered them. This means if your flow is slow, the user’s save button is slow. If your flow hits a limit, the whole record save fails. Be careful with recursive updates where Flow A updates a record, which triggers Flow B, which then updates the original record again. You’ll hit a loop that eats up your CPU time in seconds.
Now, what about those heavy processes that don’t need to happen right this second? Use scheduled paths or asynchronous processing. If you’re doing a complex calculation that doesn’t affect the user’s immediate view, let it run in the background. It keeps the UI snappy and keeps your users happy.
Key Takeaways for Flow Design
- No DML in loops: Seriously, just don’t do it. Use collections.
- Pick the right trigger: Before-save for same-record updates; after-save for everything else.
- Build for errors: Use fault paths to catch issues before they become mysteries.
- Keep it modular: Use subflows to keep your main flows from becoming unreadable “spaghetti.”
- Filter early: Use selective filters in your “Get Records” elements to avoid pulling unnecessary data.
- Document everything: Fill out the description fields. Your future self will thank you.
Testing isn’t optional
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen a flow work for one record but fail when someone uses the Data Loader. Always test with bulk data. Grab 200 records in a sandbox and see if your flow survives. Check for null values, too. What happens if that Account Name is empty? What if the Lookup field is blank? If you aren’t testing the “bad” data, you haven’t really tested the flow.
Following these Salesforce Flow best practices might feel like extra work at first. But the reality? You’ll spend way less time fixing bugs and way more time building cool new features. Stick to the basics: keep it bulk-safe, keep it modular, and always, always plan for when things go wrong. That’s the difference between a beginner and a pro.