Comparing Multiselect values on two different objects in flow

Question

These multiselects are global picklists so they contain the exact same values

They are on two different objects which have relation so they can look between each other easy

A third object which can look up to both of these two source objects is where i need the magic to happen

I have language on the user record in a multiselect picklist as a custom field (not using the standard single select picklist on users)

On Account I have two custom language fields for primary languages and secondary languages (due to how my business operates it has to be this way)

On a custom object I need to have a flow look at the values selected on the user and go through the Primary language and then secondary language of the Account multiselects to see if there are any that match. If any match we will be doing nothing. If none match we check a box for interpreter needed. The user is the owner of the record we are working on.

What I imagine this looking like is grabbing all values from the user record and looping each one through the list of selected picklist values in the first multiselect, if no match is found loop through the second. Do this whole thing again for each language spoken by the user/owner. If no match is found there mark it as needing interpreter.

So how do I build this? Unsure how to properly get the multiselects into variable, do I want a list variable or should I assign each value out in text and create a text string so that the compare loop is a "Contains" with each value separated by ; ?

Looking for the theoretical steps on how this can be accomplished in flow.

@Lightning Flow Discussions

Michael Brown · Accepted Answer

Hi Dano, you should definitely be able to handle something like this with flow. Here's how you could potentially work around this. On the Account object, we first want to identify how many languages were selected in your multi-select picklist.

Multi-select picklists are saved as comma separated values, so for example:

English,German,Japanese

What you can do is create a formula in your flow that finds the number of selected values by:

LEN(TEXT(Secondary_Language__c))
- LEN(SUBSTITUTE(TEXT(Secondary_Language__c),",","")))+1

This basically takes the length of the original comma separated string, subtracts the length of the string where we substitute out commas, and adds one.

In that example above you would have:

LEN("English,German,Japanese") 
- LEN("EnglishGermanJapanese")
+1

This in turn equals

23 - 21 + 1 = 3

So now we know that 3 languages were selected. What you'll want to do is see if the Multi Select picklist on your user record includes these languages. So we know we need to check 3 languages so you can create an "unofficial" loop by doing the following

Create a Counter Variable that defaults to 1
Store the results of the multi-select picklist on the Account in a Text variable, let's call it SelectedLanguages
Have your flow go to an IF Statement. If the Counter Variable is less than the formula result above, it will go to Step 4.
Use an assignment element to find the first values. What you'll want to do is create a formula that uses the LEFT function to return the the value of SelectedLanguages from the first character until the First Comma (which can be done using the FIND function).
You can then use a Get Element to see if the User record includes this, and you'll want to track that in potentially a separate variable
After that, you'll want to Substitute out the first part of the SelectedLanguages variable, so that you can then go look at the next language.
Your flow would then increment your counter variable and would go back to your IF Statement and repeat this process
When the Counter variable is equal to the initial formula value, there should only be 1 language left, and you can just perform an includes off that.

I have to run to a meeting, so i can add more context to this later if any of this is confusing, just let me know. Essentially the flow would do the following:

1. Recognizes English, German, and Japanese were selected

2. Looks for the first selected language: English

English,German,Japanese

3. Checks if the user record includes english

4. Removes "English," from the selectedlanguages variable

5. SelectedLanguages is now:

German,Japanese

6. Repeats the previous steps for German

7. Finally, when Japanese is the only value remaining, we check to see if the user includes that language.

Robert Dick · Answer

Hi  @Dano Blevins https://trailblazers.salesforce.com/profileView?u=0053A00000E5HS1QAN !   Multi-Select Picklist values get stored as semi-colon separated values, and Flow works decently with them once you assign the field value to a Text variable (not a collection). From there, you can use the CONTAINS() operator against the variable, and/or use other Text functions to handle it.     I believe what you imagine should work, and I would suggest only 1 change to the concept - that I would take the 2 multi-select values and parse them into a single Text Collection, with some logic to keep duplicates out if necessary. I would then iterate over the individual languages, comparing them to the User's Multi-Select Picklist field value (also assigned to a Text variable within the flow) using the "contains" operator. Since you are essentially looking for  any  match, I would suggest having a Decision element inside the loop to exit the loop immediately when a match is found.

Comparing Multiselect values on two different objects in flow

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