Salesforce Retired Process Builder — What That Means and What to Do Next
If you've been putting off the Process Builder migration, the clock has officially run out. At the end of 2025, Salesforce retired support for Process Builder and Workflow Rules — two tools that have powered automation in Salesforce orgs for years.
This is not a small change. And for small businesses running on legacy automations they've never had time to revisit, it's a problem that needs attention now.
What Exactly Happened
Salesforce announced the retirement of Process Builder and Workflow Rules as part of its long-term push to consolidate all declarative automation into Flow Builder. The timeline played out over several years:
- 2022: Salesforce announced the retirement roadmap
- 2023–2024: New features were added exclusively to Flow; Process Builder stopped receiving updates
- End of 2025: Active support for Process Builder and Workflow Rules officially ended
"End of support" doesn't mean these tools immediately broke on January 1, 2026. Existing automations may continue to fire in the short term. But they will no longer receive bug fixes, security patches, or compatibility updates — and they are increasingly at risk of breaking as Salesforce releases new updates to the platform.
Why This Matters for Your Business
If your Salesforce org has Process Builder automations or Workflow Rules that you've never migrated to Flow, you are running on infrastructure that Salesforce no longer maintains.
Here's what that means practically:
Broken automations with no support. If a Process Builder automation breaks after a Salesforce platform update, Salesforce will not fix it. The fix has to come from you — by rebuilding the automation in Flow.
Silent failures. Process Builder automations don't always fail loudly. They can stop firing without any error message, meaning you won't know a lead routing rule broke until you notice leads aren't being assigned.
Security exposure. Unsupported tools don't receive security patches. In a CRM that handles customer data and sales pipeline information, this is not a theoretical risk.
What Flow Builder Offers Instead
Flow Builder is objectively more powerful than Process Builder. The migration isn't just a compliance exercise — it's an upgrade.
With Flow, you can: - Build multi-step automations with branching logic that Process Builder couldn't handle - Create screen flows that guide users through complex data entry processes - Schedule automations to run at specific times (not just on record changes) - Use AI-powered features like Einstein to generate flow logic from plain language prompts - Build subflows that can be reused across multiple automations
If you've been frustrated by the limitations of Process Builder, Flow Builder is the answer you've been waiting for. The learning curve is real, but the capability ceiling is significantly higher.
How to Audit What You Have
Before you can migrate, you need to know what you're working with. Here's how to find your existing legacy automations:
- Go to Setup in Salesforce
- Search for Process Builder — review all active processes and document what each one does
- Search for Workflow Rules — same exercise
- Note the object each automation runs on, its trigger conditions, and the actions it takes
This audit often surfaces automations that nobody remembers building, that no longer serve a useful purpose, or that conflict with other automations. The migration is a good opportunity to clean house.
Migration Approach: Don't Just Translate, Redesign
The temptation when migrating is to do a 1:1 translation — take each Process Builder automation and rebuild it exactly in Flow. Resist this temptation.
Your automations were built at a point in time when your business worked differently. Some of them may be doing things you no longer need. Others may be doing things that conflict with each other. The migration is your opportunity to redesign your automation layer properly — with clear naming conventions, documentation, and purpose-built logic.
A few principles: - Build one flow per process, not one giant flow that does ten things - Document everything — add a clear description to every flow that explains what it does and why - Test thoroughly before going live — use a sandbox and run through real-world scenarios
The Timeline
If you haven't started this migration, start now. The longer you wait, the more risk accumulates. A single platform update could break a critical automation — lead routing, client onboarding, billing notifications — at the worst possible time.
For most small businesses with a moderate number of automations, a proper migration and redesign takes anywhere from a few days to a few weeks depending on complexity. It's not an insurmountable project, but it does require focused attention from someone who knows both the old tools and Flow.
Not sure which automations in your org need to be migrated? Book a free audit and we'll inventory your existing automation layer and give you a clear migration plan.
