The Future of Salesforce Flow – What Will Flow Look Like in 2034?

Those of us who love using Salesforce Flow to empower our teams to do their jobs better often speculate about what the next major update from Salesforce could look like. We optimistically discuss what hypothetical new features could be brought to us, how we could benefit from those features, and what our roles may look like when the next release drops.

I wanted to share some of my thoughts about what Salesforce may look like in the deep future, beyond just the next release. The world is changing, technology is changing, and our lifestyles are changing as well. Being a Salesforce Admin, Flow Builder, Platform Developer, or even Architect may look completely different in a decade’s time. We will likely even find that there are new major roles that don’t exist today. Before diving into the future, let’s first take a look at the past and how far we’ve come to date…

A Brief History of Salesforce Flow

Recently, I got to fantasizing about what the far future of a Salesforce Flow Builder could look like. Winter ‘24 brought about the first iteration of automatic Flow saving, which was later enhanced in Spring ‘24.

This got me thinking back to how I felt when Flow Builder replaced Cloud Flow Designer back in Spring ‘19. Being a modern tool, Flow Builder was semi-portable and could be run on mobile devices, such as iPads, which allows a whole new level of freedom for those who work with flow.

Spring ‘19: Flow Builder – Goodnight, Cloud Flow Designer

Cloud Flow Designer was the previous powerhouse tool, released in Spring ’12, that enabled admins and developers to build what was then known as Visual Workflows. It was enabled by Flash, which was discontinued on December 31st, 2020.

Flow Builder gave those with the Manage Flows permission the ability to work with flows in a much cleaner and simpler interface. Additionally, this no longer required users to install Flash to be able to work with flows.

Over time, Flow Builder would be enhanced to allow for more Flow Types and a better overall experience, eventually replacing Workflow Rules and Process Builder entirely as the go-to process automation tool.

Winter ‘24: Flows Save Automatically

One of the enhancements I referred to in the previous section was when flows began to save themselves after certain actions, making building flows less of a clunky process and offering Flow artists the ability to save them at more points in the building process.

The image below shows that the example Flow can be saved prior to the Create Records element being fully configured. Before Winter ‘24, the user would need to configure the element in its entirety before they could save the Flow.

Why is this important? Well, when we consider the busy life of a Salesforce professional and how many tasks they may be working on at any one time, configuring an entire Flow element may often get interrupted by an urgent call, someone tapping on their shoulder, or a meeting that snuck up on them!

This seemingly simple feature means that these distractions don’t cause wasted time – even spending just a few seconds or minutes configuring an element that is ultimately discarded adds up over the course of the day.

Spring ‘24: Enhanced Autosave – More Power, Less Clicks

Salesforce decided to give this new enhancement some superpowers in the very next release. In Spring ‘24, you can now save a Flow at ANY point in the building process without needing to finish configuring elements.

Similar to the previous release, when a user saved a Flow without setting required values they would be presented with an error message and an icon that sits above the incomplete elements.

In this example, the Flow artist has begun configuring a new custom error that the business requires but was abruptly called into a meeting. To avoid wasting the work they had already started, they simply saved the Flow where they were so that they could jump into the meeting and continue exactly where they left off when they returned.

Why is this important? Well, imagine you were working within Microsoft Word and hadn’t finished the paragraph you were working on when you received an urgent phone call. It wouldn’t make sense to restrict Microsoft Word users to only be able to save after they’ve finished a paragraph. Logically, you can simply click the Save button at any time and your document will be preserved in its current state.

This is the future of Salesforce Flow – we’re getting busier, and interruptions are not in short supply. The tools we use should be optimized for our fast-paced world. Years from now, we’ll look back at the days when you could only save a Flow at a certain point, the same way we look back at punch card computers – sure, they were great for their day, but we couldn’t imagine doing it now!

A Fast-Paced World with New Technologies

The world is changing rapidly. In the last few days alone, we’ve seen insane advancements in the generative AI space with the popularity of ChatGPT, DALL·E, Suno AI, and Midjourney. We’re seeing these advancements make their way into the enterprise level with Microsoft Copilot and, of course, Einstein Copilot.

We’ve also seen powerful hardware advancements as well – mobile phones are more capable, affordable, and accessible than ever before, and mobile computers are giving professionals more power on the go and for a longer period of time. We even saw advancements in spatial computing with the Apple Vision Pro and Meta Quest 3, both of which can be used to run Salesforce in different capacities!

The way we work is also changing rapidly. In early 2020, the world was turned on its head, changing forever the way we all work. Teams are more spread out than ever before, education has been made more accessible, and our desktops and roles all look completely different.

This begs the question once more: What will the Salesforce Admin, Developer, Architect, and any other professional roles look like in another ten years’ time? Will we all be sitting around in multi-dimensional flows powered by headsets like the Apple Vision Pro? Or will we all be back in offices and need the ability to quickly save a Flow at a moment’s notice to engage in a new conversation? If it’s the latter, we’ll be super glad that Salesforce has made that easier!

The Future of Salesforce Flow

Flow has become the cornerstone of process automation on the Salesforce platform. We’ve recently seen the sunsetting of Workflow Rules and Process Builder, and with ongoing enhancements to the Flow Builder tool, we’re also seeing the replacement of some Apex use cases (to be super clear, Flow is NOT a ‘one-for-one’ replacement of Apex, but it is replacing SOME use cases).

So, what does the future hold for Flow? Beyond what has already been shared by Salesforce, or the winning ideas on IdeaExchange Prioritization, it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly what that future may be, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a bit of fun speculating!

I’ve already summarized what we’ve seen in terms of major updates to the Flow Builder tool in recent years, and as such, we can see a rough trajectory of where it’s come from and the direction it is currently taking.

We’ve seen the tool adopt modern internet architecture, mobile Flow Builder in the form of iPadOS support, and the recent ability to automatically save flows as you work. Summer ‘24 has brought about a number of new Flow types and templates as well, which make it easier for newcomers to pick up the tool for a specific job.

Knowing this, we might make assumptions about the direction Flow is going to take towards 2034. We may see a number of different Flow Builders, or at least one that adapts to your history or preferences.

AI-Generated Custom Flow Types and Templates

“Digital personalizations are no longer merely an option – they’re a necessity.” Jim Cramer

Imagine if you’re often using Flow to capture multi-page form input from your internal users for the purposes of internal feedback. One day, you’re tasked with capturing feedback regarding the recent company retreat that your team has been on. Instead of clicking “New Flow” and then selecting “Screen Flow” as you usually would, you’re presented with a new Flow type called “(AI) – Feedback Form”.

This isn’t a new template that you’ve created, nor is it a new Flow type that comes out of the box with Salesforce. Instead, it’s an automatically generated Flow type with a series of prebuilt Screen elements – the first being one that captures personal details about the person filling in the form with the ability to submit anonymous feedback, the second being a series of sample questions and responses, and the third a summary page that’s displayed at the end.

Spatial Flows – Leave the Past Behind

“Good design is obvious; great design is transparent.” Joe Sparano

This is a use case I thought up when pondering how tools like Apple Vision Pro may benefit Salesforce professionals. Picture yourself living in a world where editing flows in VR is the norm. You’re able to move elements around the canvas with your hands, and you can debug flows in three dimensions – walking around your room to dig deeper and see more information about each step in your Flow.

Your business asks you to remove some functionality from an existing Record-Triggered Flow and replace it with actions that align with recent legislation changes. After making, testing, and documenting the changes, you’re told that the removed functionality is actually still required for another 24 months, so you need to rebuild it.

In the current world, you could open up both versions of your Flows in different windows and rebuild accordingly. In the proposed 2034 futuristic Flow, you’d have the ability to turn around in the room and see the most recent historic version of your Flow right there behind you!

You could then choose either to refer to it and rebuild from scratch or, even easier, you could simply copy and paste from the old version to the new one by grabbing the old Flow’s elements and throwing them at the new one.

Basic, Standard, and Pro – Three Versions of Flow Builder

Today, Flow is the one tool to rule them all. We use it to create screen flows that interact with our users or automatically fire in the background when certain activities trigger it. One day, I suspect we’ll see multiple versions of the Flow tool that allow more and more use cases and tasks to be supported without overcomplicating the base version of Flow.

Consider OmniStudio: Some wonder if OmniStudio will fold into Flow Builder one day. While I like the idea and agree it has merit, I would be concerned about new Flow artists coming along and being completely thrown off if they’re using it for the first time and are having that much complexity thrown straight at them.

For this reason, I believe we’ll see multiple versions of Flow Builder in the future. Just as we currently can toggle between auto-layout and free-form on the Canvas, I believe we’ll be able to flick an “Advanced Mode” switch or something similar to be able to see more tools and functions in our toolbox. We’d then be able to see a Flow Builder with all the power of OmniStudio and MuleSoft Anypoint, but still handle simpler flows with simpler tools.

Conversational Flow Builder – Let There Be Elements!

Can you believe Siri was first released in 2011, well over ten years ago? Siri on the iPhone was where many of us first experienced a semi-decent digital virtual assistant. Since then, we’ve seen countless digital personal assistants, enterprise conversational helpers, and the recent boom of generative AI chatbots.

Salesforce has already promised a Flow AI tool using CodeGen, but what will we see 10 years from now? Could we potentially see our own personal Einstein icon in the Flow Builder that changes how we build? Will Flow continue to be a ‘point-and-click’ tool, or will it be a ‘speak-and-see’ tool that we simply bark demands at and watch them come to life in real time?

As usual, it’s really difficult to know exactly what the future may hold. That being said, I believe that we’ll likely see more of this in the near future. Text-to-speech is eerily accurate, and Large Language Models (LLMs) are helping computers to understand what we mean when we talk naturally better than ever before. The marriage of these two pieces of technology seems inevitable.

An Automation Utopia or Dystopian Nightmare?

I was recently on a call discussing the Salesforce app for mobile. The other person on the call mentioned their team’s concerns about enabling location services on their personal devices. While times are changing and there’s a lot more clarity being shared by mobile OS creators and app developers like Salesforce, it is still a valid concern that must be heard and carefully considered.

Then there’s the concern about robots taking human jobs. While we’ve certainly seen the workforce enhanced and empowered with all sorts of digital creations over the years, will we eventually be replaced by computers that can do our jobs faster and without error?

Time will certainly tell. I believe that regardless of the outcome, the best thing that we can do is to learn more about the up-and-coming technologies as they are developed. Staying ahead of the curve will certainly give us a better shot at understanding what’s next for our jobs.

Additionally, roles change over time. It wasn’t long ago that you’d likely never see a job title with “AI” in it, but today there are more jobs with this title. In the future, we may see more of our current tasks performed by AI, but this will also introduce new requirements and roles.

Summary: Final Predictions

This article is an example of what happens when you let your mind wander after reading the Release Notes. I highly recommend you take the time to do the same one day – it’s one hell of an adventure.

Jokes aside, the future of Flow is going to be exciting. There’s absolutely no way we can accurately predict the future landscape of the world, let alone a Salesforce process automation tool. We can certainly speculate about the next few years based on the direction in which the tool has been evolving in recent years, but the end result in a decade will likely be greater than we can imagine.

Some of my suggestions above were quite outlandish and arguably more of a hindrance than a help, depending on who you are and how you work. That being said, there’s one thing we can all agree on: The future of Flow is going to be exciting. I’m looking forward to the journey and all the fun we have along the way.