Process Step Settings: Connection Points

Connection points allow you to link different processes (not sub-processes) so they can be shown together in the Process progress component and Gantt chart.

Go to Process builder. Open Step Settings (1) and expand "Connection Points" (2). Click "add" link (3) to open connection point config popup:

There are different types of connection points are:

  • Lookup
  • Relationship
  • Junction Lookup
  • Junction Relationship

What of them can be used in particular situation depend on relations between Data Source Objects:

Processes data source objects should have lookup relationship to be linked via Connection point.

Lookup connection point

Initial: you need connection point from process at object A to process at object C. These objects may be different or it may be the same object. Object A has a lookup field looking at Object C.

Go to process on object A, select a step where other process will be connected to, and create a custom data field with with these properties:

  • Type = Connection Point
  • Source = Lookup
  • Relationship = object C
  • Process = process on object C to be connected

When Process is selected, a versions list will appear (4). You can select any of available process versions or leave default "All versions" there.  This feature will allow only instances started on specified version to be connected, or any (and even all instances started for the same record on the different versions of the same process, if connected process allows duplicates between versions).

  • Selection of process versions in connection points is Available from version 6.0
  • This feature is working for all types of Connection Points
  • Only Primary versions of connected processes will be shown in the Gantt chart
Relationship connection point

Initial: you need connection point from process at object A to process at object C. These objects may be different or it may be the same object. Object C has a lookup field looking at Object A, so, records of A have related lists with records of C.

Go to process on object A, select a step where other process will be connected to, and create a custom data field with with these properties:

  • Type = Connection Point
  • Source = Relationship
  • Relationship = object C
  • Process = process on object C to be connected
Junction Lookup connection point

Initial: you need connection point from process at object A to process at object C. But these objects have no relations between them. You need to have/create some intermediate object B, that will have lookups to both A and C:

Go to process on object A, select a step where other process will be connected to, and create a custom data field with with these properties:

  • Type = Connection Point
  • Source = Junction Lookup
  • Relationship = intermediate object B
  • Field = lookup to object C
  • Process = process on object C to be connected

Start both connected processes on objects A and C, see connection points on process A. You will not see any connected processes C until create record(s) on object B whose lookups will look at proper records at A and C.

You can create records on B in advance - then processes on A and C will be connected automatically when started on proper records, which are targets of lookups on records of object B.

Junction Relationship connection point

Initial: you need connection point from process at object A to process at object C. These objects have no direct relations between them, but there is intermediate object B, that has the following properites:

  • Object B has lookup to object A
  • Object C has lookup to object B

So, relations between objects look like C → B → A (where is a lookup). In this case record of object A has a list of records of object B (Related list), and record of B has list of records of C:

Go to process on object A, select a step where other process will be connected to, and create a custom data field with these properties:

  • Type = Connection Point
  • Source = Junction Relationship
  • Relationship = intermediate object B
  • Junction Relationship = object C
  • Process = process on object C to be connected
  • Start both connected processes on objects A and C and see connected instances on process A.
  • You will see connection points on process A. You will not see any connected processes C until create record(s) on object B whose lookups will look at proper records at A and related list contain record(s) of object C. After create for these junction records you will see all instances of process C, that were started on records, which have lookups to records of B, which have lookups to record A being observed.
  • If you modify records on B or C to make both lookups B → A and C → B look at process instances strated, proper process instances will be connected to record A automatically.

You can create records on B in advance - then processes on A and C will be connected automatically when started on proper records.

How to see connected instances

After all necessary records has been started, connected instances will be shown automatically in these following places.

Process progress component:

  • Go to process details page (or any other page where this process progress bar is shown, e.g., record page)
  • Select necessary record to see it's progress bar
  • Find a step with connection icon (5)
  • Click on connection icon - list of connection points will be shown (6)
  • Click on needed connection point in the list - a connected process popup will be shown (7) with the list of connected instances (8)
  • Click "View" button (9) on the necessary instance to open it's progress bar, or "View All" button (10) to open all of them. Click menu (11) items to open only specific instances.
  • To show several connected instances at once check needed checkboxes (12) and click "View" button (13) at the bottom of popup  ( available from version 5.0 ).
  • Progress bar for connected instance(s) will be shown (14).

If you open some connected instances, checkboxes (12) will be checked for proper records in the popup (7) when you open it. If you uncheck some of these checkboxes, progress bars for proper connected instances will disappear form the progress component.

You can load all connected instances by clicking proper button (15) in parent process progress bar menu ( available from version 5.0 ).

Also, connected instances (all or active only) can be loaded automatically if proper option was selected in Progress Component Settings of process (16)  

( available from version 5.0 ).

Gantt chart (connected instances, surely, will be shown for started processes only) in both View (17) and Edit (18) modes:

Progress dashboards - custom (19) and automatically generated for process (20):

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