Salesforce.com – The Process Builder Pros and Cons (Part 1)

The tips for this month will be all based off of the new Process Builder of Salesforce that adds a whole new element to workflow in Salesforce.  Before you were limited to alerts, updates and emails with workflow, but with the Process Builder we can now create new child records, other objects and other tasks much more easily in a much more visual designer.

The PROS:

1. The Process Builder can combine multiple workflows into single process and can have chain of criteria (if-then statements).
2. It can associate multiple actions for each criteria.
3. It can have child records updated.
4. The builder can access apex code and simple tasks can be replaced with process builder.
5. Notifications can be applied to both chatter group and email alerts.

The CONS:

1. Criteria is if-else based and will not move to downstream criteria if top criteria is not met (subsequent criteria), however there is a recent change allowing for the process to re-evaluate.
2. The action cannot be re-used (with the exception of email alert) and needs to be redefined for every criteria. 
3. Editing a process (after creation) entails cloning and editing, you can not edit a process once it’s saved.
4. Some standard fields (activity due date) for instance are still not able to be updated if they cannot be updated via standard workflow.