Record-triggered flow
A record-triggered flow is a Salesforce Flow that starts automatically when a record of a chosen object is created, updated or deleted, optionally filtered by entry conditions. It is the declarative counterpart of an Apex trigger and, with Apex triggers, the current basis for record automation on the platform.
Trigger and entry conditions
In the Start element you choose the object and the event: a record is created, updated, created or updated, or deleted. Entry conditions narrow the records the flow runs for — all conditions met, any condition met, custom logic such as 1 AND (2 OR 3), or a formula that evaluates to true. Without conditions, the flow runs on every change to the object.
For updates, the flow can be set to run only when a record is updated to meet the conditions, rather than on every update of a record that already meets them.
$Record and $Record__Prior
$Record holds the triggering record's values and can be read throughout the flow. $Record__Prior holds the values immediately before the change; it is read-only, available only on update and create-or-update triggers, and its values are null when the record has just been created.
Before-save, after-save, scheduled and asynchronous paths
A record-triggered flow is optimised either for Fast Field Updates (before-save) or for Actions and Related Records (after-save). Only the after-save optimisation supports scheduled paths — work that runs at a time relative to the trigger or to a date field on the record — and the asynchronous path, which runs after the transaction commits and is the place for callouts.
A detail that surprises people
A change on another object does not trigger the flow, even when a formula field on the triggering object references that other object. Salesforce's own example: changing a contact's phone does not trigger a flow on Account, even if an Account formula displays that phone.
How aprity helps
aprity reads every record-triggered flow in the org read-only and documents it in business language: the object and event that start it, its entry conditions and the records it writes. It is shown in the per-object execution graph next to the Apex triggers and rules that react to the same save, and an impact analysis on a field lists the components that depend on it.
Related terms
- Before-save vs after-save flow — The two optimisations of a record-triggered flow: Fast Field Updates run before the save, Actions and Related Records run after it.
- Salesforce order of execution — The fixed sequence in which Salesforce runs flows, triggers, validation rules and other automation when a record is saved.
- Apex trigger — Apex code that runs automatically before or after records of an object are inserted, updated, deleted or undeleted.
Sources
Official Salesforce documentation this entry was checked against. Platform behaviour changes between releases; the linked page is the reference.