If you’ve been around Salesforce for a while, you probably have a soft spot for Workflow Rules and Process Builder. Same here. But 2025 is the year we let them rest—gratefully—because Flow now does the job better, faster, and with far more empathy for how admins and teams actually work.

🌱 A Quick Trip Down Memory Lane

• Workflow Rules: the trusty “if/then” starter kit—send an email, update a field, create a task. Simple, reliable, but limited.
• Process Builder: the visual leap—stack conditions and actions, avoid quick Apex fixes, and empower admins at scale.

Both were milestones. Both hit ceilings—performance, execution order, and extensibility among them.

🔥 Enter Flow — One Automation to Rule Them All

• Performance & bulk safety: better handling for large data volumes and complex logic.
• Flexibility: loops, subflows, multi-object updates, invocable actions, HTTP callouts, and more.
• Visibility: clearer debugging, fault paths, and run histories make troubleshooting humane.
• AI assist: Einstein surfaces suggestions inside the builder to simplify logic and naming, reduce anti-patterns, and improve maintainability.

📅 Retirement Timeline (Where We Are in 2025)

• 2023–2024: creation of new Workflow Rules/Processes restricted; migration tooling matured.
• 2024: migration assistants stabilized for most common use cases.
• 2025 (now): Workflow Rules & Process Builder are in retirement mode. You can see legacy automations, but net-new innovation lands in Flow (including Orchestration and Einstein-in-Flow).

🧭 What You Should Do Next (Practical Plan)

1. Audit: In Setup, review Automation Home and export an inventory of Workflows/Processes. Note overlapping criteria.
2. Migrate: Use Salesforce’s Migration Tool to convert Workflows and Processes to Flows. Test in a sandbox first.
3. Consolidate: Merge scattered logic into fewer, well-structured Record-Triggered Flows per object (before/after where appropriate).
4. Harden: Add fault paths, entry criteria, and guardrails; document assumptions in Flow descriptions and element notes.
5. Optimize: Use subflows for reusable logic, enforce naming conventions, and leverage Einstein suggestions for simplification.

🧩 Quick Reference: Legacy → Flow

If you used to use…	Now do this in Flow
Email alert on field update	Record-Triggered Flow (After Save) + Email Alert action
Field update with formula	Before-Save Record-Triggered Flow (Assignment for performance)
Create task on condition	After-Save Flow + Create Records element
Multi-step criteria in Process Builder	Single Record-Triggered Flow with Decision elements + Subflows
Outbound message / callout	Flow HTTP Callout (named credentials) or Invocable Apex
Complex approvals	Flow Orchestration (stages, steps, work items)

🛡️ Governance & Performance Tips

• Prefer Before-Save for simple field updates—faster and more scalable.
• One Flow per object per context (where feasible) to avoid order-of-execution surprises; branch with Decision elements.
• Bulkify thinking: avoid SOQL/DML in loops; use collections and assignments.
• Name like a pro: OBJ_RT_Before_Update_LeadScoring_v1; describe entry criteria, assumptions, and owners.
• Log & learn: capture errors with fault paths, send admin alerts, and keep a simple runbook in your wiki.

🤝 The Human Side

It’s okay to feel nostalgic—Process Builder was the gateway to real automation for many of us. But focusing energy on one modern tool means faster innovation and less cognitive load. We spend less time remembering which tool did what, and more time delivering outcomes.

TL;DR: Retiring Workflow Rules and Process Builder isn’t just a sunset—it’s an upgrade to a single, smarter, AI-assisted way of building automations with Flow.

✅ Your Migration Checklist

• Inventory legacy automations (object, criteria, action, owner)
• Group by object & event; define target Flows (before/after)
• Convert in sandbox with the Migration Tool; review diffs
•  Add tests, fault paths, and admin alerts
• UAT with business owners; schedule a quiet cutover window
• Deactivate legacy automations; monitor logs and performance

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