Navigating Flow Errors as a New Salesforce Admin

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to David Simpson, Salesforce Admin at the 1916 Company.

Join us as we chat about his process for troubleshooting Flow errors and his unexpected path into the Salesforce ecosystem.

You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with David Simpson.

Why can Flow errors be so intimidating?

If you’ve ever received an emergency ticket from a user because they’ve encountered a Flow error, you know just how cryptic they can be. It’s not always clear at first glance what’s going on, or what your user can do to fix it.

What’s more, if you’re hearing about an error from a user, that means it’s made it to production. So now you need to start worrying about your testing and anything else that might pop up. And oh yeah, you need to fix the dang thing, too.

That’s why I was so excited to sit down this week with David Simpson. He’s doing a Dreamforce presentation about how to better navigate Flow errors and how to prevent them from happening in the first place.

Five steps to resolve a Flow error

David breaks down the process of fixing a Flow error into five steps:

1. Gather information about the Flow error. What’s in the error notification? Is it specific to a particular user or record?

2. Try to replicate the error in a sandbox environment.

3. Find the fix.

4. Test the fix in your sandbox, and test for any similar scenarios.

5. Push your fix to production.

David emphasizes the importance of communicating with stakeholders at every stage of your solve. You don’t need to share every single detail, but you want to make sure your user knows that you’ve identified the error, how long it will take to fix it, and if there are any workarounds in the meantime.

Reach out to the community

We also discuss David’s path from finance into the Salesforce ecosystem. He started out as a staff accountant, but when he was asked to take over some of the Salesforce administration duties, he realized he loved working with the platform far more than burying his head in spreadsheets.

Finally, I ask David about his top tips for getting better at solving Flow errors. He points to the Trailblazer community and Salesforce help articles as two of his best resources. However, he also suggests getting hands-on in a sandbox by trying to build things that might break. It’s a low-risk way to flex your problem-solving skills and will give you valuable experience for when a real error ends up in production.

Make sure to listen to our full conversation for more from David about how to solve Flow errors. And don’t forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast so you never miss an episode.

 

Podcast swag

• Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store

Learn more

• Navigating Flow Errors Session at Dreamforce

• True to the Core Deep Dive: Flow Testing and Debugging

• Test or Troubleshoot Flows With the Flow Builder Debugger

 

Admin Trailblazers Group

• Admin Trailblazers Community Group

Social

• David on LinkedIn

• Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn