Flow Basics | Bulkify Flows to Insert/Create Multiple Records

In this post, I will be showing how to Bulk Insert Records using a Flow in Salesforce. We will Bulkify Flow to create Multiple records of an object at once instead of creating them one by one inside a Loop. 

How to Insert Multiple Records in Flow (At Once)

Flow has a Create Records Element which can be used to Create/ Insert new Records for any object. Creating a single Record is straight forward and there is not much to worry about in terms of best practices. 

The tricky part is Creating/Inserting Multiple Records for a particular object at once. At least, it proved a bit tricky for me when I tried this for the first time. There are two ways I thought of doing it initially :

1. Using Create Record Element multiple times in a Flow. Either inside a Loop or otherwise.
2. Using a Single Create Record Element and pass all the new records to be created and create them at once.

Obviously, second way is the correct way!

NOTE : This article is showing Flow Bulkification while creating Multiple Records in a Salesforce Flow. If you want to see how to Bulk Update in Flows or Mass Update Records in a Flow then checkout this article for better understanding : Mass Update Records in a Flow

Never Use Create Records Element inside a Flow Loop. Never!

Before we move ahead, please remember this point always. Because, an easy way to Create/Insert multiple records is to use the Create Records Element inside a loop. But don't do it.

Never use a Create Record Element inside a Loop. Salesforce Governor Limits don't like it much and if we are dealing with a large volume of records, there's a good chance we will hit the limits. 

This kind of design is not scalable and will fail once we have more records to deal with and if there are any other automations(like triggers, flows etc.) running/getting fired within the same transaction. 

How to Avoid using Create Records Element inside Loops in Flow 

The best way to avoid using Create Record Element inside a Loop is to actually create a New Collection Variable of type Record to hold/store all the new records to be created and use a single Create Records Element at last for this Record Collection Variable.

This is called Bulkification of Flows or a Bulkify (Bulkified) Flow

Please Note: In order to try and showcase a Specific Use Case, I may have overlooked some of the best practises related to Flow Development in this article. Please make sure to follow these in real world scenarios and projects. Check some really important ones below.

Sample Scenario / Use Case

We need a screen Flow on Account Record Page. This Flow will be used create a new case for every contact for the Account. 

For every contact on an Account, we need to create a new Case. All Cases have to be created in one go.
Every case (one for each contact) should have the same Account Id i.e. should be associated to the same Account. Case Subject should be equal to Contact Name and Case Type should be Internal.

Note: This is a very basic scenario to explain the overall logic behind this Bulkification process. Same logic and design can be applied in any other scenario depending upon the actual requirement or use case.

Sample Data (Inspired by my latest favorite Netflix Series 'Dark')

Account Name : Dark
Contacts : Ulrich, Martha,Jonas, Magnus, Claudia

On click of Finish button in Screen Flow, system should create five Cases, one for each contact. All these Cases should be associated with Parent Account (Account : Dark)  and their subject should be equal to respective contact's name and origin equal to Internal.

Overall Flow Design

Solution and Explanation

Our Flow is a basic Screen Flow. It will be placed on Account Record page, so we can pass Account record directly to the Flow (Summer'20 feature) instead of only Account Id.

Please Note: The Screen Element in this Flow will have no real purpose. It will just be used to show the Flow on Account Page and provide a Button for the user to Fire the Flow. 

So First step is Create an Input Record Variable of type Object (Account) to pass Account Record from Page to Flow. I named this variable as AccountRecord. When we will save and activate this Flow and put it on a Lightning Record Page of Account, we will see this Variable name with an option to pass data into it from Page. 

Next, based on Account, we will Get all related contacts for that Account using Get Element in Flow. For our example, we will get those 5 records as per our dummy data.

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Tip: Always add a Decision Element after a Get Record Element to check if any records were returned or not. Flow should only execute further, if Get Records found any records.
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Now, we will have to Loop over these Contacts one by one and create a case for each of them.

Here comes the tricky part. When we will loop over contact one by one, how can we avoid to use a Create Record Element within the Loop. 
There are two steps needed to achieve that. Before, we can Loop over Contacts, we need to have two more Variables as shown below.

Create a Blank Collection Variable to hold/store all new Case Records to Insert

The first step is to create a New Variable of type Record (Object type Case). 
Enable it to have Multiple values (Collection). This variable will be our final list/collection of new Records (Cases) that we need to create/Insert at last. The name is "CasesToCreate"

Let's refer to this Collection Variable as Tray of Cases for better representation. When we create this variable, the Tray(Collection) is empty and has no records in it.

Please Note: This Case Collection Variable(Tray) can only store/have Records of Case Object only. This tray cannot hold/store any other type of variables/records or properties. To solve this issue, see the next step below.

Important : Create a Variable of type Record (Object : Case) to create a blank/dummy Case.

In last step we created a Blank Collection Case Variable (Case Tray). Now we need to fill this empty tray (Case Collection Variable) with new/dummy Cases one by one for each Contact in the Loop so that we can use the whole tray or collection variable to insert cases at once. 

Please Note Again: The Case Collection Variable(Case Tray) can only store/have Records of Case Object only. This tray cannot hold/store any other type of variables/records or properties.

So we will create one more Variable of type Record (Object type Case). This is only a Single Variable (not enabled for Multiple Values). 

This case variable will work as as dummy Case record for every iteration of the Loop and we will just change its properties/field values (Subject,Origin,Account) in every loop iteration and add into the Tray (Collection Variable). The variable name is "Case Individual Record"

Loop Element: We need to just loop over the Contacts from the Get Element. Loop variable is automatically created after Summer'20 so no need to create it.
Inside Loop, we will have two Assignment Elements.


First Assignment element is to Assign field Values of Subject, Origin and Account Id to the dummy case Single Variable which we had created ({!CaseIndividualRecord). The Contact name is fetched from Loop Variable as we are looping on Contact. Origin is set as Internal and Account ID is available from the Input variable of type Record and object Account which we created in First Step. This Account value is passed from Account Page to Flow.
Second Assignment is to add this dummy Case( with field values assigned from previous step) to the Case Collection Variable ({!CasesToCreate}) or Case Tray as we have referred to it here.

Here is a rough (literally) illustration of how it will work actually.

Things to note in this (apart from my bad handwriting and drawing) is that, dummy Case variable's field values are changed in every iteration and that dummy case is added in Case collection (Tray) variable in every iteration.

After Loop ends, for each Contact, we would have added one dummy case into the Case Tray as shown in the pic above.

At Last, using a Create Record Element, we will just insert the case records in the Collection Variable ({!CasesToCreate}) at once.

Checkout Videos below for detailed steps of Flow Creation. 

Please Note: The Screen Element in this Flow has no real purpose. It is just to show the Flow on Account Page and provide a Button to Fire the Flow.

Creating all the Variables needed in Flow

Get Element to Fetch Contacts

Screen, Loop and Create Element

Add the Flow on Record Page and Pass Record Value to Flow + Demo of Our Example : After Saving and Activating the Flow.

And we are done!

Note: Using this approach, we are following best practices to develop a Flow and are just ensuring that Flow won't hit governor limits when data is within accepted limits. We are in no way bypassing any of the Governor limits. To check different transaction limits in a Flow see this :https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=flow_considerations_limit_transaction.htm&type=5

Please feel free to reach out to me if this is still confusing or if there is a better way to do it. 

NOTE : This article is showing Flow Bulkification while creating Multiple Records in a Salesforce Flow. If you want to see how to Bulk Update in Flows or Mass Update Records in a Flow then checkout this article for better understanding : Mass Update Records in a Flow

Checkout all other Flow related Posts on my Blog here: https://www.accidentalcodersf.com/search/label/Salesforce%20Flow

Do share feedback or comments if you explore more on this feature or if you have any better ideas or scenarios. Thanks for reading. Hope this helps!

In other News, My Blog AccidentalCoderSf.com is featured in the TOP 50 Salesforce Blog List maintained by Feedspot. Checkout the Full List here: https://blog.feedspot.com/salesforce_developer_blogs/ 

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