Summer ‘21 seems to be a big release for automation (especially Einstein Automate). I’m like a kid on Christmas morning checking it all out!
One feature I’m impatient to unwrap and get my hands on is the new and shiny ‘Flow Orchestrator’ (Pilot). I can already tell that this is set to be my new favourite feature when it becomes generally available.
So what is it?
Salesforce has introduced Flow Orchestrator within its ‘Einstein Automate’ suite of features. It smooths the user and customer experience, through combining data from multiple sources with powerful automation and AI.
What are the Einstein Automate features?
Here’s the current summary from Salesforce which shows in a nutshell what sits within Einstein Automate:
The point of Einstein Automate is to make it simpler for businesses to ‘go digital’ quickly and smoothly. And offering the best possible experience for customers and users.
My understanding is that it is not a single product purchase to acquire these features but a set of features that have been designed to play nicely together. If you have an org that is on Enterprise Edition or above, you can play with most of these right now. The exceptions are Mulesoft Composer and OmniStudio. You’ll need to speak to your Account Executive to discuss pricing for these.
Flow Orchestrator
Back to (Midsummer) Christmas morning – the newest element in the list is Flow Orchestrator and it is currently still in pilot (so not available to those not on the pilot programme).
Don’t be deceived by its very short description in the list. I believe this could be a game-changer for admins out there who are working with multi-user interactions to get a process done.
Salesforce says:
“Built on Salesforce Flow, orchestrations can replace your existing approval processes and workflow-powered task chains. You can create multiple screen flows, one for each approval or task, and then create an orchestration that binds them together into an automated list customized to match your business processes.
Flow Orchestrator also simplifies your Lightning pages by only showing users the flow in the step that’s currently assigned to them. You don’t need multiple flow components on a single Lightning page. A single Flow Orchestrator Work Guide component displays the relevant flow to the correct user when it’s needed, no matter which orchestration it comes from.”
Image credit: https://admin.salesforce.com/blog/2021/introducing-flow-orchestrator-unify-your-complex-business-processes-without-code
I love the term ‘orchestrator’, it conjures up images of a conductor directing an orchestra of different instruments and players each contributing to the overall tune in their different and essential ways. Think of the customer (paying audience member), yourself (the admin/conductor), flow elements (the instruments), users (the players) all on the stage of Flow Orchestrator (The Albert Hall) contributing to the harmony of a beautifully constructed process!
Image credit: https://admin.salesforce.com/blog/2021/introducing-flow-orchestrator-unify-your-complex-business-processes-without-code
Possible Use Case For Flow Orchestrator:
Let’s say a customer has filled in a form on your website and this in turn has created a record in Salesforce with the basic information about their request. A record-triggered flow orchestration has determined that a customer service rep needs to call and clarify some details.
Lizzie is assigned a step within the orchestration. This guides her through a screenflow of questions which will fill in the required details for this part of the process. Lizzie receives a notification directing her to the work guide in the new record. Since Lizzie is assigned to this work step, it is not visible to any other user looking at that record.
Lizzie can get started immediately because the work guide displays the flow. She calls the customer, talks through and updates the record details within the flow and adds her own comments. This screenflow assigns Lizzie’s comments to an output variable ‘CustomerServiceCommentsOutputVar’ against the completed flow step that can be used later in the orchestration. The work on that record is done. There are no further tasks for her in the work guide at this point.
Now that Lizzie’s step is complete, the Orchestrator sees that it can resume and evaluate what needs to happen next. The details filled in by Lizzie revealed that the customer needs to return a product for refund. The orchestration flow determines that a return of this product requires authorisation from Finance. As a result, a new step is started which is an approval screen flow, and assigned to Danny. This flow has an input variable ‘CustomerServiceCommentsInputVar’ and we set up this step to pass the ‘CustomerServiceCommentsOutputVar’ into it. When Danny goes to the Salesforce record, he immediately sees what he needs to approve in the Work Guide component along with the customer service comments from Lizzie.
You probably got the picture by now. I know I have only scratched the surface so far. I can’t wait to dive deeper to really test what Flow Orchestrator can do…
[Written by Val Southern]
