Salesforce offers a wide variety of tools to help you automate manual processes such as sending out emails, creating follow-up tasks, and updating records. All of this automation is designed to help users streamline processes, save time, and avoid human errors that come with performing manual tasks. In this article, we will take a look at Salesforce automations and how you can start automating your daily tasks today.
What Are the Benefits of Automation?
According to Salesforce’s own statistics, 1.3 trillion processes can be automated using Salesforce. To understand the significance of this, think about all of the manual tasks you perform every day. This could be something as simple as creating reminders or changing a field in a record. Now imagine how much time you put into all of these efforts – not just over the course of a day, but a week or a month. If you were able to automate some of these tasks, this would save you a good chunk of time that could be better spent, often leading to increased employee satisfaction and monetary savings.
Common automation opportunities include:
- Repetitive processes -Examples of repetitive tasks that can be automated in Salesforce include creating a follow-up task, sending a reminder email, or updating a record.
- Data hygiene tasks – Reviewing records manually for data hygiene issues, such as duplicates, can be tedious and time consuming. This is why you should automate report creation, duplicate merges and other data hygiene tasks.
- Things people are likely to forget – Have you forgotten to renew or cancel something? Sending reminders about time-dependent things you want to do later on can be helpful. For example, you can notify both the customer and sales representativebefore a subscription is about to expire, after the customer signed up, or regarding an action the customer needs to take.
- Copy + Paste tasks – If there are any tasks you ask your sales team to do that involves copying and pasting information, these would be great candidates for automation. For example, if a customer signs up, the sales representative needs to copy and paste data from one field in Salesforce to another.
- No skill required tasks – This includes things like sending pre-written “Welcome” emails, automated replies etc.
What Processes Can Be Automated?
The automation capabilities offered by Salesforce are based on two main categories: process automation (workflows) and data operations (data loading and cleansing). Let’s take a look at each of these processes in greater detail.
Workflow automation allows you to create automated workflows like creating notifications and assigning tasks to users. There is a wide variety of tasks you can automate with workflow automation such as:
- Creating or updating records and tasks
- Sending emails or texts
- Moving records to different queues
- Creating automated reports
Data loading and cleansing refers to processes which transfer data from outside sources into your Salesforce, cleanse data from duplicates, andmaintain large volumes of customer data. By automating your data loading and cleansing processes you can:
- Integrate data between Salesforce and other systems
- Consolidate duplicate records
- Run quality checks on data
- Schedule regular data updates
DataGroomr is particularry useful with this aspect of your automation efforts since it performs deduplication checks on your data before you import it into Salesforce. You can also schedule automated data quality checks.
What Automation Tools Does Salesforce Offer?
One thing you should know about automation in Salesforce is that you have a lot of options. Salesforce offers five main automation tools, each designed for specific types of automation, each designed to fulfill a specific business pupose.
Approvals Rules
The Salesforce approvals process automates the approval of applications in your organization. The approval process begins when a user submits an application through a public portal. Reviewers follow steps to approve or reject an application. For example, before a sales representative can send a quote, they may need to show it to their manager for approval, the manager may need approval from the vice president, and the vice president may need approval from the senior vice president. You can create approval processes in Salesforce that will lock the record, i.e. prevent perople from changing it as iit is sent up the approval chain. Approvals cna be made on the web version of Salesforce, on the mobile app and in emails as well.
Workflows and Process Builder
The Workflows toolkit is the old school, original processes builder. Although it has limited functionality compared to the other tools, it is reliable, fast, and easy to use. Workflows are great for things like creating and managing automated tasks, such as creating events and assignments, as well as sending notifications and emails. The good thing about Workflows is that they are easy to use and set up, and you can update or pause them as needed. However, Workflow rules are based on simple true or false outcomes, i.e. if the criteria for the workload is true, then the workflow will be executed and, if false, it will not. While there is some joy in simplicity, these Workflow rules may not be well-suited for complex processes.
It is also worth pointing out here that, as of winter 2023, Salesforce is no longer supporting new Workflow Rules processes. Also, Salesforce is phasing out Workflows completely and Workflows and Process builder rules will no longer be supported after December 31, 2025. This is why seasoned Salesforce professionals are migrating their automations to Flow.
Flow
Flow automation rules are among the most powerful. It’s mainly used to create wizard-style screens that guide users through sequences of activities and automatically update data throughout the process. Use Flow to automate data operations, such as data loading and cleansing, or integrating data from other systems into Salesforce. The downside of using Flow is that, since it’s more complex, it can be more difficult to troubleshoot issues when something goes wrong.
Entitlements
Entitlements are great for customer support automation rules. For example, if you have a rule like needing to provide a “Platinum” level customerwith a response within a specific time period or live support. Each process includes the logic necessary to determine how to enforce the correct customer service level. These kinds of SLAs can be managed with Entitlement rules where you can create milestones, set up reports and other time-based actions.
Apex
Apex rules involve writing custom code for any process you want to automate. Think about some of the most complex processes you want to automate like complex data operations or integration with third-party systems. Writing Apex custom code fills in the gaps where other automation tools offered by Salesforce just do not get the job done. Apex is highly customizable, powerful, and versatile. It can handle large-scale implementations with ease. Even though you do need to code, it has built-in support for unit testing that displays which sections are optimized and which aren’t.
The downside of course is that since there is coding involved, there is a learning curve to mastering Apex, which will delay the creation of automation rules. You will also need to create some test cases to make sure everything is working correctly, which can further delay implementation.
Salesforce Automation Best Practices
As mentioned earlier, automation is a win-win for businesses and customers. When businesses streamline their processes, they give customers the seamless and personalized service they’ve come to expect. Here are some best practices we recommend following on your route to process automation:
- Document your Flows – While this may not sound like a lot of fun, it is absolutely necessary to keep track of your workflows, especially for very complicated processes. Documenting your workflow allows the next person, or the forgetful future version of yourself, to understand the overall workflow’s objective. This will also help Flow designers create future workflows since they will have business cases to solve hard problems, and having those breadcrumbs is critical for maintaining the automation long term.
- Understand your current processes – Think about the current way of doing things and areas you are looking to make more efficient. This involves reviewing and evaluating current business processes to determine which are inefficient, redundant or prone to errors. The two main ways to accomplish this are by analyzing data and talking to people. This will give you an understanding of whether or not you can create a Flow to resolve a bottleneck or you might need to write some custom Apex code.
- Prioritize automation tasks – Identifying tasks that are good candidates for automation can generate a huge list of possibilities, and it’s not always obvious where to start. Ultimately, the decision should be based on what will make the biggest difference to your team and business. Consider starting with simpler problems and then working your way up to increasingly difficult challenges can build both competency and confidence.
- Establish clear roles – It’s essential to establish clear roles for the people involved in implementing, maintaining and working with automated process. You will need to assign responsibilities for making sure that things are done properly and that no steps or exceptions are overlooked. You’ll need to assign responsibilities for managing the automation technology’s inputs, overseeing results, handling exceptions and errors, and dealing with the output.
- Have a backup plan – Things don’t always go as planned, which is why it’s important to know what you’re going to do when things go awry. This plan can be as simple as ensuring that you have the option to revertg to the old, non-automated way of doing things.
Salesforce Automation Can Be Your Key to Business Growth
Building automations in Salesforce offers a powerful way to streamline business processes, increase efficiency, and enhance customer experiences. By leveraging tools like Flow, Process Builder, and Workflow Rules, organizations can automate repetitive tasks, reduce manual errors, and focus on higher-value activities. As Salesforce continues to evolve, staying updated on best practices and new features is key to unlocking the platform’s full potential. Whether automating data entry, managing approvals, or enhancing customer engagement, Salesforce automation is a crucial component in driving business growth and innovation.
