Guide Users Through Your Business Processes with Flow Builder
Learning Objectives
After completing this unit, you'll be able to:
- Define a flow and list its key components.
- Describe the types of flow elements.
- Build a flow that creates a record and uploads files.
Get Started with Flow Builder
You may have heard several terms used interchangeably when referring to flows. As a reminder, the official terms are:
- Salesforce Flow—the product that encompasses building, managing, and running flows and processes.
- Flow Builder—a point-and-click tool for building flows.
- Flow—an application that automates a business process by collecting data and doing something in your Salesforce org or an external system.
In short, the Salesforce Flow product includes a couple of tools. One of them, Flow Builder, lets you create flows.
Flow Building Blocks
Every flow is made up of three building blocks.
-
Elements (1) appear on the canvas. To add an element to the canvas, click
where you want it to go.
- Connectors (2) define the path that the flow takes at run time. They tell the flow which element to execute next.
- Resources (3) are containers that represent a given value, such as field values or formulas. You can reference resources throughout your flow. For example, look up an account’s ID, store that ID in a variable, and later reference that ID to update the account.
Flow elements fit into four different categories.
Screen
If you need more out of your flow screens, like custom navigation or information displayed in table format, build or install custom Lightning components.
Take a Tour
When you build flows, you work from Flow Builder.

Canvas (2) The canvas is the working area, where you build a flow by adding elements. As you add elements to the canvas and connect them together, you see a visual diagram of your flow.
- Whether the flow is active or not.
- How long ago the flow was saved.
- Whether the flow has any warnings or errors. To see the warnings or errors, click the respective icon.
- To zoom in, press CTRL+=.
- To zoom out, press CTRL+-.
- To zoom to fit, press CTRL+Alt+1.
- To zoom to view, press CTRL+Alt+0.
- To zoom in, press Command+=.
- To zoom out, press Command+-.
- To zoom to fit, press Command+Option+1.
- To zoom to view, press Command+Option+0.
Build a Flow
From Setup, enter Flows in the Quick Find box, then select Flows, click New Flow, then select Screen Flow and click Create.
Add a Screen to Collect User Input
- From the canvas, click
.
- Click Screen.
- In the Label field, enter New Account.
- In Components, click Text.
- Select the first Text screen component and enter Account Name in the Label field. Select the Require checkbox.
- In Components, click Phone.
- Select the Phone Number screen component. Enter Phone Number in the Label field and Phone_Number in the API Name field.
- Select the footer under the screen components. On the right, expand Configure Footer. Under Previous Button, select Hide Previous. Under Pause Button, select Hide Pause.
- Click Done.
Add a Create Records Element to Create Records
The Create Records element uses the values from New Account to create an account record.- After the New Account element, click
.
- Click Create Records.
- For Label, enter Create Account.
- For How to Set the Record Fields, select Use separate resources, and literal values.
- In Create a Record of This Object, in Object, select Account.
- In Field, select Name.
- In Value, under SCREEN COMPONENTS select Account_Name.
- Click Add Field.
- In Field, select Phone.
- In Value, under SCREEN COMPONENTS select Phone_Number, then click Value. Make sure that your Create Records element looks like this.
- Click Done.
Create the Screen That Enables File Uploads
- After the Create Account element, click
and add another Screen element onto the canvas.
- In Screen Properties, configure these settings.
- Name the screen Upload Files in the Label field.
- On the right, expand Configure Footer. Under Previous Button, select Hide Previous. Under Pause Button, select Hide Pause. If you don't make that selection, users will be able to navigate back to the first screen and multiple accounts could accidentally be created.
- On the left in Screen Components, click File Upload.
- For API Name, enter accountFiles.
- For File Upload Label, enter Upload Related Files.
- For Allow Multiple Files, select $GlobalConstant.True.
- For Related Record ID, under VARIABLES select AccountId from Create_Account. The resulting value should be {!Create_Account}.
- Click Done.
- Save the flow. In Flow Label, enter Quick Account.
- Click Save.
As configured, this File Upload component lets users upload more than one file at a time to the created account.
Distribute Your Flow
Activate Your Flow
- from Setup, enter Flows in the Quick Find box, then select Flows.
- Click Quick Account.
- From the button bar in Flow Builder, click Activate.
Add Your Flow to the Home Page
- Create a home page.
- From Setup, enter Builder in the Quick Find checkbox, and then select Lightning App Builder.
- Click New.
- Select Home Page and click Next.
- Give the page a name and click Next.
- Click CLONE SALESFORCE DEFAULT PAGE, select Home Page Default if necessary, and click Finish.
- Drag the Flow component to the top of the right column.
- For Flow, select Quick Account.
- Click Save and Activate to save your changes and activate the page.
- Click Assign as Org Default and Save to assign this page as the org default home page.
- To see your flow in action, go to your Home page.
- Click Back to return to Setup.
- Click
, click Sales, then click Home.

Make Sure Your Users Can Run the Flow
Tell Me More...
- A flow interview is a running instance of a flow. When you distribute a flow, users interact with individual interviews of that flow.
- This unit walked you through a simple example of a flow. You can customize that flow to do much more. For example, enhance the Quick Account flow so that it provides values for more account fields, like Account Number or Ownership. Or use the same inputs to also create a contact and an opportunity.
Resources
- Salesforce Help: Flows
- Trailblazer Community: Salesforce Automation
- Trailhead Module: Screen Flow Distribution