As an #AwesomeAdmin, I love Flow. Salesforce Flow that is. With its flexibility and powerful actions, it turns non-coding awesome admins like me into rockstars in the face of our businesses. So, when MuleSoft Composer for Salesforce hit the scene, introducing itself as an admin-level solution to integrate systems, looking and feeling like Salesforce Flow, I had nothing but stars in my eyes. I couldn’t wait to try it out and start building my first Composer flow.
You might be thinking, “Wait, admins can integrate systems?” Yes, fellow awesome admins, you can — and MuleSoft Composer enables you to do so! MuleSoft Composer is a no-code solution that allows you to integrate systems, move data, automate processes, create and update records, and so much more with clicks not code. It’s a game-changer for all of us. Please note, MuleSoft Composer is a paid subscription solution.
Getting started with MuleSoft Composer took some adjusting, as I wanted to treat it just like Salesforce Flow. While they share some concepts and are both referred to as a flow, they do think a bit differently. Here are three steps that will help you succeed when creating your first Composer flow.
They say the pen is mightier than the sword, and that logic still holds true here. Before diving into designing a flow within Composer, it helps to first identify your goal and then write out the logic to accomplish it. Composer can listen for record changes, record creation, loop through records, and evaluate if/else statements. But the interface is linear and it helps to draw out your model first. It’s very easy to overcomplicate the design if you treat it like Salesforce Flow. Here’s an example diagram I’ve sketched out for updating Salesforce product records with NetSuite product information, when the the NetSuite product is flagged for Salesforce.
Breaking the sketch down, I start with my goal in mind and identify the trigger. Since my trigger is filtering for the data I want to use, I can move on to grabbing the Salesforce product records that will eventually be updated. However, I don’t want to sift through all the product records. I want only those that match the NetSuite product that triggered the flow to start, so I apply that filter in my “gets” step. Great, I have the records that triggered my flow and the Salesforce products I want to update. Now I need to pair up the matches before I pass data from the NetSuite product to the Salesforce product records. I call this “looping my gets.” It might not feel intuitive, but like the case in Salesforce Flow, there could be multiple records meeting your trigger conditions at the same time, and the loop function allows you to iterate over your found records to pair up with the triggering record. Once you find your pairs, simply identify your final action(s). In the sketch, this is an if/else statement. I want to update the Salesforce product record only under certain conditions. The if/else statement allows me to hone in on just those conditions and update my record if they’re met.
With the design in mind, it’s time to build! Even though you access Composer in your production org, that doesn’t mean you have to test in production. In line with admin best practices, Composer flow allows you to connect to a sandbox org to test, tweak, and optimize before going live. Composer flow takes this a step further with a test button, which allows you to build a little at a time. I love this feature. It makes it easy to prep a single record and evaluate the flow as you build it out. Did the trigger fire right? Did the right records get scooped up? Did the if/else conditions fire correctly? The test feature allows you to see where issues arise (or ideally, do not!) and review your test results in real time. Every day, Composer flow is getting better, including the descriptive reasons why a step in your flow might fail.
Now it’s time to deploy. Good news! In just a few clicks, you can simply change your connection over to production and activate it. That’s right, you don’t have to rebuild your flow once it’s ready to go. Think of it as the ultimate change set. Just change your destination from the sandbox to production in a few clicks and you’re ready to go!
Bonus Tip! If you’re having trouble knowing where your flow is getting stuck, insert Slack posts along the way. Think of it as bread crumbs for you to follow! This is a hack shared by a MuleSoft Composer Community member and it’s great! Simply add an action to post a Slack message to yourself after certain critical steps in your flow. Take it one step further by customizing the message to say where in the flow you are. In this example, I’m sending myself a Slack message to let me know Composer evaluated the IF statement before firing the next step and updating existing Salesforce records. Don’t have Slack? No problem. You can post to Microsoft Teams or even Google Sheets.
I know I get by with a little help from my friends! The MuleSoft Composer Community is a wonderful place to get help and support not only from fellow admins but also from the Development and Product Management teams. The community is chock-full of resources and training sessions to keep you informed of the steady stream of enhancements and best practices.
As an awesome admin, it’s exciting to have this awesome power in our hands to build integrations in just a few clicks. We’re no longer bound to IT resourcing or timelines. We can help our businesses run even faster and more agile than before, which frees up IT to manage and support enterprise-level systems and projects. It’s a win-win for us all!
Till next time admins, happy Salesforcing!
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