Thing I Learned: Flow Entry Formulas
Summary
In Salesforce flow entry formulas, fields used to not show up in the "Where is this used?" tool, allowing accidental deletion which could break automations. This was a known bug fixed in API versions around high 50s to early 60s, but older flows remain on legacy API versions and remain vulnerable. The key takeaway is to update flows to the latest API versions by saving new versions, preventing unnoticed formula dependencies from causing errors. It's a crucial maintenance task for Salesforce teams to keep flows reliable and avoid hard-to-detect breakages.
Takeaways
- Fields used in flow entry formulas may not appear in Where is this used? on old API versions.
- Update flow API versions by saving a new version and selecting the latest API to fix bugs.
- Deleting fields referenced only in formula entry conditions can cause flow runtime errors.
- Test flows thoroughly in sandbox after updating API versions before deploying.
- Legacy flows remain on old API versions until manually updated in Salesforce.
So here's one I learned the hard way: Until a few releases ago if a field was used in a flow entry formula it would not register with the Where is this used? button. And you wouldn't be prevented from deleting that field either. If you have flow entry conditions , built one field at a time in the builder, that would register show in Where is this used? as well as prevent deletion. But put the same conditions, with the same fields, into a formula and there are no guardrails. Yikes! So...first the good news: Salesforce has fixed this . I don't know exactly in which API version the fix rolled out, but flows on the last few releases do not suffer from this problem. (As of writing we are on API version 63, with 64 rolling out very soon.) The issue, in fact, should not occur for flows that use a version somewhere in the high-high 50s or early 60s. But just because your org has been updated to Spring '25, that doesn't mean that your flows have.