Salesforce needs no introduction because it is unarguably one of the leading platforms responsible for customer relationship management. From offering automation to productivity, it impacts every aspect of business processes, workflow, and customer relationships.
Automation of business processes is usually the outcome or feature of Salesforce workflow. Companies wish to achieve workflow automation in order to:
- Eradicate manual tasks
- Align and straighten out their business processes
- Main data integrity and sanctity across channels and platforms
Salesforce development services will help you extract benefits from this lucrative and diverse platform by following some key practices.
Brace yourself for an enlightening and enriching read of best practices to accomplish seamless automation through Salesforce workflow.
We will categorically go through some paramount practices that will result in optimized Salesforce workflow, efficiency, and performance across different departments, channels, and operations.
What is a Salesforce Workflow?
We will try establish some concrete concepts of the Salesforce workflow before plunge directly to the best practices of Salesforce workflow.
With Salesforce workflow, you can automate specific business processes by developing certain rules that are based on some criteria, circumstances, and actions.
These rules trigger predefined actions such as email alerts, notifications, field updates, task creation, etc., whenever the set criteria are fulfilled.
It is pivotal to note that Salesforce Essentials is designated and designed, especially for small businesses and companies with limited and essential features like workflows. Whereas, Salesforce development services address the complex and elaborate needs of a huge enterprise.
These services are known to implement more advanced solutions, like Salesforce financial services cloud workflows. These are specifically for verticals and fields like banking, insurance, and wealth management.
Best Practices for Salesforce Workflow Implementation
Now we will get to the fun and most exciting part of today’s article which is best practices that guarantee Salesforce workflow efficiency.
1. Clearly Define Business Requirements
Not only the foundation but also the success of any workflow lies in understanding and comprehending business processes with utmost clarity. How does one understand business processes?
It requires the identification of avenues where automation could produce maximum impact and value for the company. Then, map out the areas or processes you aim to automate. It is pertinent to note the flow of information across teams and departments for your clarity.
The role of stakeholders is very important in this regard because engaging them would help you fully grasp the concept and understand the business problem at hand that you wish to eliminate with automation.
If you being a business owner are not sure about how to proceed with this step, then seeking professional assistance with Salesforce consulting services is advisable.
Consultants can help you define parameters, implement workflows, and tailor them to your needs. By doing so you can align workflow with your business goals, vision, and strategy.
2. Leverage Standard Features Before Customization
Salesforce comes with an array of capabilities and features, and automation is one of them. These include Workflow Rules, Process Builders, and Flows. So, start off by using these standard automation features to your benefit before directly jumping to custom solutions and development.
A few benefits associated with standard automation tools include heightened and robust functionality to meet business needs and lesser complexity of processes that come with customization.
If we take the example of Salesforce financial services cloud, it comes with built-in workflows and automation features that are suitable for financial sector or institutions.
Likewise, Salesforce professional services are meant for businesses for situations where customization of workflows is imperative.
3. Choose the Appropriate and Right Automation Tool
Salesforce is a medium for automation and its each feature serves a distinct purpose. You must also know under what conditions and when to use different variants of Salesforce workflow, Workflow Rules, Process Builder, or Flow Builder.
- Workflow Rules: Straightforward, simple, and hassle-free automation tasks.
- Process Builder: It offers complex automation capabilities.
- Flow Builder: It is considered one of the finest and most advanced automation tools that caters to multi-step processes and sophisticated logic.
There are several reasons why an appropriate tool must be selected and chosen for each scenario. These tools are a way to ensure efficient and scalable workflow and help in the automation of compliance-associated tasks.
4. Design for Simplicity
Basic and number one rule for designing workflows should be to keep them as simple as possible to avoid the burden and unnecessary headache of troubleshooting.
When you reduce the number of conditions and steps in each automation, you are able to pull off a modular approach that breaks down large processes into manageable smaller segments.
The aim of keeping workflows simplified is to decrease the number of errors and the risk of running into problems. This makes it easier for administrative staff and developers to update, upgrade, and modify the workflow.
You can even hire Salesforce developers who are well-versed in designing workflows to help you with workflow automation to keep the process simple, straightforward, and hassle-free.
5. Test Your Workflows Thoroughly
Testing your workflow allows you to see how every practice, action, and task operates under real-world scenarios. Workflow development process relies heavily on testing and its advisable to test them in a sandbox environment before the deployment process begins.
With thorough testing you can in-time reduce the likelihood of errors, discrepancies, and disruptions, which hinder business continuity and operations.
6. Document Your Workflows
Workflow documentation is an ideal practice but is usually omitted in most cases and companies. It is to be noted that it can lead to long-term maintenance of your Salesforce instance.
Documentation helps existing and future admins and developers to understand the logic behind each automation. It assists with the onboarding of new employees and team members as well.
7. Optimize Workflows
People often misconstrue workflow implementation as a one-time thing, which couldn’t be more wrong. It is not a one-time effort as you constantly need to optimize and improve the performance and identity of certain areas. This practice is meant to improve accuracy and relevance.
For more clarity on optimization and assistance with monitoring, you can ask for Salesforce development services and consulting services to add extra assurance.
8. Plan for Future Growth
It is good to focus on short-term goals, but one must never lose sight of future and long-term planning. Salesforce workflow always needs to be implemented with the future scalability of your business in hindsight.
Make sure it has enough room for stretching and accommodating new changes as time progresses and new criteria, actions, and triggers get added to the business processes.
This planning is done to ensure that your Salesforce workflows are effective and efficient despite new changes and business expansions.
Employing Salesforce development services facilitates such changes and prevents heavy overheads down the road as the company undergoes changes.
Some Final Words
Effective Salesforce workflow automation has the ability to change businesses and their key operations. From automating entire processes to improving productivity, they:
- Streamline workflows
- Enhance customer experiences
- Heighten customer relationship management efforts
These practices are the formula and recipes for success for an organization as they help understand your business needs, reduce the complexity of business process, and maximize their potential. You can enhance your Salesforce development investment with these practices, which are focused on both the long- and short-term.
For augmented outcomes, you can also incorporate Salesforce consulting services into your strategy to elevate your approach and have better guidance on Salesforce automation. You can also seek help for specialized clouds like Salesforce Financial Services Cloud and Salesforce Professional Services.
A well-constructed, planned, and designed workflow is the one that helps you move forward and keeps a futuristic mindset. Only then you can guarantee success in your Salesforce environment. If you find yourself bewildered by this concept, contact Xavor and get everything sorted out in the blink of an eye.
If you want direct talk contact us at [email protected] for a free consultation session to see how we can help you unlock its potential.