Workflow Rule
A Workflow Rule is a legacy Salesforce automation that triggered automatic actions when a record met specified criteria - field updates, email alerts, outbound messages, and tasks.
Definition
A Workflow Rule is a legacy Salesforce automation that triggered automatic actions when a record met specified criteria - field updates, email alerts, outbound messages, and tasks. Salesforce ended Workflow Rules creation in Winter '23 and retired the feature entirely on December 31, 2025; existing rules stopped executing after that date. Flow is the official successor, and Salesforce provides a Migrate-to-Flow tool to convert remaining Workflow Rules.
In plain English
“A Workflow Rule was Salesforce's old-school "when X happens, do Y" robot - set a trigger criterion, and it would update a field, send an email, or create a task automatically. Salesforce retired Workflow Rules on December 31, 2025; any org still running them needs to migrate to Flow, which is the modern replacement.”
Worked example
At BlueRidge Insurance, the legacy Workflow Rule "Case Critical → notify & escalate" fired whenever a Case was created with Priority = Critical: it sent an email alert to the support manager, flipped the Escalated checkbox to true, and created a 2-hour follow-up task for the on-call engineer. Ahead of the December 31, 2025 retirement, the admin team used the Migrate to Flow tool to convert the rule into a record-triggered Flow, validated the identical behavior in a sandbox, then deactivated the Workflow Rule - one of 38 such migrations tracked in their retirement project plan.
Why Workflow Rule matters
Workflow Rule was the original declarative automation tool in Salesforce, offering field updates, email alerts, outbound messages, and task creation triggered by record criteria. It coexisted for years with Process Builder (introduced in 2015) and Flow, but Salesforce consolidated on Flow as the single automation future - stopping new Workflow Rule creation in Winter '23 and retiring the feature entirely on December 31, 2025. Existing rules stopped firing after that date.
The official migration path is Flow, using the Migrate to Flow tool that converts most Workflow Rules into record-triggered Flows with minimal manual work. Flow covers every Workflow Rule action and adds capabilities the old engine never supported (loops, fault paths, subflows, invocable Apex, HTTP callouts). Teams that waited to migrate often faced concentrated pressure in 2025; teams that treated migration as a multi-quarter project - rule inventory, dependency analysis, Flow rebuilds, sandbox testing - crossed the deadline cleanly. Understanding Workflow Rule remains relevant for reading historical metadata, diagnosing legacy behavior, and appreciating why Flow's capabilities matter.
How to set up Workflow Rule
Workflow Rules are the legacy automation tool — Salesforce has retired them for new automation. You can't create new ones in newer orgs, and existing ones should be migrated to Flow Builder. This is here for understanding what's running on existing orgs, not as the recommended path for new work.
- Open Setup → Workflow Rules
Setup → Quick Find: Workflow Rules → Workflow Rules. If your org is post-2023 with Migrate to Flow enabled, you may not see a New button.
- Click New Rule (where available)
Salesforce has stopped allowing new workflow rules in newer orgs. Use Migrate to Flow to convert existing rules to Flow Builder.
- Pick the object
Workflow Rules are per-object.
- Set Rule Name and Description
Naming convention: what it does + when it fires.
- Pick Evaluation Criteria
When records are created / created and edited / edited and meet criteria. "Edited and meet criteria" only fires when crossing into the criteria — not every edit.
- Define Rule Criteria
Filter that gates the rule. Field-Operator-Value rows + filter logic.
- Add Workflow Actions
Field Update, Email Alert, Outbound Message, Task. Time-Dependent Actions live in a queue and fire later.
- Save → Activate
Inactive rules don't fire.
Created / Created and Edited / Edited and Meet Criteria. The third option is the most common.
Filter for which records the rule fires on.
Field Update, Email Alert, Outbound Message, Task. Apex is not directly supported — use Process Builder or Flow for Apex calls.
Fire X days/hours after the rule triggers. Live in the Time-Based Workflow Queue.
- Salesforce has retired Workflow Rules for new automation. Don't build new ones — use Flow Builder. Existing rules can be migrated via Setup → Migrate to Flow.
- Field Updates from a Workflow Rule can re-trigger the same rule, causing recursion. The "Re-evaluate Workflow Rules After Field Change" toggle controls this — leave off unless you understand the implications.
- Time-Dependent Actions queue based on the trigger time, not the action time. Editing the record after the queue is set may not move the action — investigate the Time-Based Workflow Queue (Setup → Monitoring) to see what's pending.
How organizations use Workflow Rule
Ran the Migrate to Flow tool across their 120-rule library over two quarters; the tool converted 92 cleanly and flagged 28 for manual Flow rebuild where Workflow Rule semantics did not map directly.
Used Workflow Rules for their contract-renewal alerts for years; their 2025 migration project rebuilt each rule as a scheduled-triggered Flow with improved error handling via fault paths.
Took the retirement as a chance to consolidate overlapping automations; the 47 pre-migration Workflow Rules became 18 Flows after de-duplication, measurably cutting admin maintenance load.
Trust & references
Straight from the source - Salesforce's reference material on Workflow Rule.
- Workflow RulesSalesforce Help
- Migrate to FlowSalesforce Help
Test your knowledge
Q1. What is the main advantage of using Workflow Rule over writing Apex code?
Q2. When should you consider using Workflow Rule in your Salesforce org?
Q3. What type of Salesforce feature is Workflow Rule?
Discussion
Loading discussion…