Flow Trigger Explorer in Spring 22

Andy Engin Utkan January 23, 2022

4 78 4 minutes read

Hey everyone,

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The Spring ’22 release is just around the corner, and that means it’s time to dive into the latest Flow updates. Every release, Salesforce rolls out new features that shape the way we build automation, but this time, they’ve thrown in something unexpected: Flow Trigger Explorer and Trigger Order functionality. These two additions are game-changers for those of us who rely on record-triggered flows, giving us more visibility and control over execution order.

If you’ve ever felt frustrated by not knowing the exact order in which your flows execute, or worried about conflicting automation, these features will be a big relief. Instead of guessing which flow runs first, now you have a clear interface to see all flows on an object, filter them by type, and even control their execution sequence. That’s a huge leap forward.

What makes this particularly interesting is that it arrives amidst ongoing debates in the Salesforce community about whether admins and developers should stick to just one before-save and one after-save flow per object. With these new tools, Salesforce is making it clear: multiple record-triggered flows can work together effectively—when managed correctly.

Let’s break down these new features, how they work, and why they matter. If you’re ready to take your flow automation skills to the next level, keep reading.

What is the Flow Trigger Explorer?

What is the Flow Trigger Explorer? It sure sounds like the next blockbuster movie by Dwayne Johnson. It has an impressive title. But in reality, it is a browser that shows you all active and inactive flows in your Org triggering on a specific object. You can filter the list by the trigger method: Created, Updated, or Deleted. And the list is separated into three sections titled fast field updates (before-save), actions and related records (after-save), and asynchronous flows.

This is how it looks on screen:

New Trigger Order Functionality

The Flow Trigger Explorer is a great tool for visualizing flows, but the real power comes with the Trigger Order functionality. Before this release, when multiple before-save or after-save record-triggered flows existed on the same object, Salesforce controlled the order of execution automatically. This meant admins and developers had little to no influence over which flow ran first. But now, with Trigger Order, we can explicitly define the order of execution for these flows, eliminating unpredictability.

Here’s how it works:

Every before-save and after-save record-triggered flow can be assigned a number from 1 to 2,000 within the Advanced Settings of the Flow Builder.
The lower the number, the earlier the flow executes. For example, a flow with a trigger order of 5 will execute before a flow with a trigger order of 50.
If two or more flows share the same trigger order number, Salesforce will execute them in the order they were created or last modified.
Trigger order does not impact scheduled paths, asynchronous paths, or flows triggered by platform events.

Why is this significant?

This functionality arrives at a crucial time when many in the Salesforce community have debated whether we should limit each object to only one before-save and one after-save flow. While some admins and architects prefer this approach for simplicity, Salesforce has never officially enforced such a rule. Instead, they’ve now provided tools to manage multiple flows more effectively rather than restricting them.

One of the biggest concerns about multiple flows was unpredictable execution order. If a record had multiple record-triggered flows running on it, their order of execution was unclear, sometimes leading to unintended outcomes. With Trigger Order, that uncertainty is removed—you can now structure flows with precise control, ensuring predictable results while maintaining flexibility in your automation strategy.

This feature empowers admins and developers to build modular, scalable, and organized flows without worrying about execution chaos. If you’ve ever hesitated to use multiple flows because of sequencing concerns, this update should give you the confidence to expand your automation capabilities.

Understanding How it Works

Flow automation in Salesforce just got a lot more powerful with the Flow Trigger Explorer and Trigger Order functionality. These updates don’t just add new bells and whistles; they solve real challenges that have frustrated flow builders for years. No more unpredictable execution order. No more uncertainty when managing multiple record-triggered flows. Instead, we now have a built-in way to visualize, organize, and control how our flows run.

This is a big step forward for the platform, and it opens up new possibilities for structuring automation. If you’ve ever hesitated to use multiple flows on the same object because of execution order concerns, now is the time to rethink that strategy. With the right approach, these features allow you to build more modular, maintainable flows that work exactly as expected.

But don’t just take my word for it—see it in action! I spent the weekend experimenting with these features, testing different configurations, and documenting the results. I even broke a few things (for science, of course) to really understand how this works. Now, I’m sharing that knowledge with you in a video that walks through the Flow Trigger Explorer and trigger order settings in detail.

Click here to watch it on the Salesforce break YouTube channel.

https://youtu.be/KgrLwa_oJeY