Automating Business Processes

Owned by Carla Locke
Last updated: May 10, 2022 by geevall
3 min read

You can automate business processes to save users' time and enforce consistency. Salesforce has point-and-click tools to easily automate your business processes. This page aims to explain if any of these processes can be used offline within Pulsar.

Four ways to automate business processes

A brief summary of the four Salesforce process automation tools follows. For more information about these tools, refer to Salesforce help - Which Automation Tool Do I Use?

Tool

Information

Tool

Information

Process Builder

  • Has a visual designer

  • Useful for multiple if/then statements

  • Creates records but does not delete them

  • Updates fields in related records

  • Invokes other processes, launches a flow, or submits for approval.

  • Posts to Chatter, sends email alerts, or sends a custom notification

  • Starts when records change, or when a platform event is received. Can be invoked by another process.

Flow Builder

  • Has a visual designer

  • Good for complex processes with multiple layers of evaluation

  • Starts with:

    • a button or link click

    • access to a page or tab

    • access from a utility bar

    • a process starting

    • an Apex call

  • Supports user interaction

  • Cannot invoke other processes

  • Can send outbound messages without code

  • Updates any record

Workflow

  • Good for a single if/then statement

  • Starts when a record is changed

  • Supports time-based actions.

  • Creates records for the Task object

  • Updates the record or its parent

  • Sends outbound messages without code.

Approvals

  • Good for a single if/then statement

  • Starts when:

    • A user clicks a button or link

    • A process or flow starts with a Submit for Approval action

    • Apex is called

  • Creates records for the Task object

  • Sends email alerts and outbound messages without code.

  • Updates the record or its parent

Which tools does Pulsar support?

Flow Builder Tool - Fully Offline if you are running Salesforce Field Service within Pulsar.

 

When creating flows using the flow builder, save them as the Field Service Mobile Flow type. Pulsar fully supports mobile flows for offline use. If you save the flow as a screen flow, your flow can not run from within Pulsar. The reason is simple. Salesforce platform doesn’t allow users with restrictive permissions to query flow definitions but SFS mobile flow is designed to workaround this limitation. This is why both Pulsar and SFS mobile can query the definitions and run them offline with the flow engine implemented to function completely offline within each of these apps.

If you wanted to recreate a screen flow to run within Pulsar, you can use Pulsar as a platform and HTML/Javascript or the Pulsar Settings Language (PSL) to create a custom Pulsar app to perform the same tasks offline. For more information, refer to:

Process Builder and Approval Tools - Offline Initiation

For the process builder and approval tools, you can initiate a process in Pulsar while offline. For example, you can use a custom button (Submit for Approval, for instance), and mark a checkbox field in the object indicating you would like to submit this record for approval. The process on the backend should be modified slightly to watch for this change to the field and kick off the process when you are online as the data syncs from Pulsar to Salesforce.

Workflow Tool - Custom Solution

If you want to use the workflow process automation tool with Pulsar when you are completely offline, you will need to create your pages or triggers using one of the two methods Pulsar has to offer. You can use Pulsar as a platform and HTML/Javascript or the Pulsar Settings Language (PSL) to create a custom Pulsar app to perform the same tasks offline. For more information, refer to:

Developer Tips

  • When using the flow builder tool, a good rule of thumb is that if your automated process works in the Salesforce Field Service mobile app, then it will work in Pulsar.

  • Coordinate offline and online record updates or deletes, to avoid overwriting data. This is just the reality of dealing with a completely offline/disconnected system. The backend needs to recognize the actions were already taken by Pulsar when offline and skip repeating these actions when the data syncs from Pulsar to Salesforce.

  • If you want to send emails as part of your automation process, you cannot really achieve this while offline. The emails will be automatically sent by the process the next time you sync Pulsar.

  • If you use Lightning pages, Visualforce pages, or Apex triggers in your process automation, they will not work with Pulsar. Refer to VisualForce, Lightning Components, and Apex Triggers.