Start Element Formulas

Hello folks,

How cool are the brand new start element formulas?

One of the best use cases for it is the Record Type criteria. You can now check for the RecordType.DeveloperName or the RecordType.Name in your start element. This was not possible before. You either had to hardcode the RecordType.Id or defer the criteria to a decision element, making the flow less efficient.

What else can we do with start element formulas?

When you want to trigger your flow in case the triggering object record is created or updated, and you want to build sophisticated criteria, then the formula entry conditions are ideal for this purpose.

A popular use case is the auto-naming of records when a new record is created. For example, you can append the Industry picklist value to the Account name using a before-save flow.

Here is the formula resource that does that:

The difficulty is when you want to trigger such flow on create and update. If you don’t build your flow carefully, you will append the same thing to the name multiple times based on multiple updates. You will need to check whether the auto-name logic ran before if you want to avoid this outcome.

Here is the start element formula that ensures that:

I recommend you go and play with this functionality yourself if you haven’t already. You will like it. It is super powerful.

This is the only area where we have a function, a logical operator picker, and a syntax check button within flow.

If you have comments on this topic, please join the discussion on Twitter or LinkedIn.

Enjoy.

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