In Salesforce, there are two flow parts: the building part and the execution part. Here are some interesting things to know about the latter.
Each time a flow executes, Salesforce creates an instance of the flow. The instance is a standalone unique copy of the flow, running within a specific context.
This context has a number of attributes, including
- The flow definition (the flow’s design)
- The flow version (the version being executed)
- A global unique identifier (GUID) for that instance
- A status (executing, completed, etc.)
In Salesforce’s verbiage, an instance of a flow is called a “flow interview”.
Sometimes users can pause an interview, and sometimes interviews fail while running. You can see these paused and failed interviews by going to Setup > Paused And Failed Flow Interviews.
What’s interesting is you can open a flow interview and see where the flow stopped or crashed. It’s the same as clicking “Debug” while building and testing the flow, which means you can see all the variables at runtime.
Further, when deleting unused versions of a flow, there cannot be any paused or failed interviews for that version.
The series continues tomorrow…
The takeaway
Understanding some of the technical elements of a flow during runtime gives you a better perspective of how to troubleshoot and resolve issues.