The Picklist ?? Apex/Flow Hybrid Automations, User Access Policies, and MVP Nominations Are Live!

Every Monday, we’ll be delivering our top headlines – highlights from the previous week for you to enjoy with a cup of coffee! ??

The Power of Two: Creating Hybrid Automations With Apex and Flow?

When it comes to automating business processes, you’ll often find yourself standing in front of two doors: Flow for quick, no-code solutions, and Apex for the more complex stuff like integrations or custom logic. But how about opening both doors???

Businesses can benefit from a thoughtful mix of the two tools – leveraging Flow for its simplicity and Apex for its powerful customization. This hybrid approach ensures that Salesforce automations are effective and scalable for future growth, with automations that are both practical and easy to manage.?

Hybrid automation is all about finding the right balance. Knowing when to use Flow, when to rely on Apex, and how to connect them can make a big difference in how well your processes work.

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Salesforce User Access Policies: The Complete Guide?

It’s always worth seeing what Salesforce’s out-of-the-box functionality can help with. User Access Policies is a relatively new feature and a great example of something that can make life easier for Salesforce Admins.?

In simple terms, User Access Policies are the out-of-the-box way to automate the actions admins must take to ensure that users have the access they need based on predefined criteria (think: assigning or removing Permission Sets or Package Licenses). These not only make the process less time-consuming for admins, but also ensure there’s less chance of users not having the correct access to perform tasks in Salesforce as they join a company or change roles.?

By leveraging the out-of-the-box capabilities that User Access Policies offer, Salesforce professionals can forget about having to build custom automations from scratch, and focus their time and energy elsewhere.

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2025 Salesforce MVP Nominations Are Live!?

It’s time to vote for the ecosystem’s “Most Valuable Professionals” – an annual opportunity to officially recognize and commend trailblazers that go above and beyond to share their expertise and uplift those around them.?

Anyone from the Salesforce community can nominate or be nominated, but to be considered for MVP status, individuals must demonstrate expertise, leadership, and generosity. Winners will be awarded a 12-month term, which is evaluated every year.?

• Nominations: Submit your nominations before February 7, 2025.?
• Review: Nominations will go through a multi-phase review process between February and April.
• Announcements: New and renewed Salesforce MVPs will be announced in June.

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5 Reasons to Pay Attention to Salesforce Hyperforce in 2025?

Who remembers Hyperforce? Back in 2020, Salesforce introduced a unified cloud infrastructure – the next step in Salesforce's infrastructure journey, with the tech giant moving away from private data centers into a partnership with public cloud infrastructure providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS).?

Then, in November 2023, Salesforce announced that they would expand their use of AWS – including compute, storage, data, and AI technologies – through Hyperforce to enhance services like Salesforce Data Cloud. A year later, Salesforce talked about their ongoing partnership with AWS, with customers continuing to benefit, and more innovations and regional support planned for 2025.?

Founder and CEO Groundwork Apps and CloudBites podcast host, Paul Battisson , shared his thoughts about Hyperforce:

• The migration has been a huge technical achievement that has not been widely recognized.
• There will be more capacity and “brain power” available to focus on innovations like Agentforce.??
• It will strengthen the integration between Salesforce and AWS.?
• It simplifies products and services by leveraging AWS infrastructure.?
• In combining Salesforce and AWS capabilities, possibilities open up for new functions and products.?

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Salesforce Flow Formula Limitations and How to Solve Them?

As mentioned earlier, Salesforce Flow is a great tool for automating business processes, but adding formulas into the mix can prove tricky, not to mention, frustrating.?

You might run into limits you didn’t expect, such as how long a formula can be or how hard it is to debug. However, with a little creativity, you’ll find that you can navigate around these issues. Here are a few handy workarounds:

Formula Length:

• Limitation: Salesforce formulas in flows have a character limit of 5,000, which can become a problem when dealing with complex business logic. If your formula exceeds this limit, you won’t be able to save it.
• Solution: Break your logic into smaller, reusable pieces by using multiple formulas or variables. You can also rely on decision elements and assignments to handle parts of the logic separately within the flow. This approach not only keeps you within the 5,000-character limit, but also makes your flow easier to manage, debug, and maintain over time.?

Limited Debugging Support:

• Limitation: Debugging formulas in flows can feel like solving a puzzle in the dark. You can’t directly see what’s happening with intermediate results, which makes pinpointing issues tricky when your formula doesn’t behave as expected.
• Solution: Shine some light on the process by using temporary variables to store intermediate results. You can then add a screen element to display these values or use the debug log to track what’s happening step by step. This way, you’ll have clear visibility into how your formula is working and where things might be going off track.

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