Process Builder Cannot Reference Related Object Name in Criteria

Question

So this is a really strange Process Builder bug that seems unavoidable, wondering if I'm missing anything.

I have a process with criteria that references the name of a related object:

[User_Account__c].Service_Profile.Name = "Admin"

The idea is that when the name of this object (related by lookup field) is set to "Admin", a record update will fire. Simple, right? Not really. When the record is updated this message is received:

"The flow failed to access the value for myVariable_current.Service_Profile__c.Name because it hasn't been set or assigned."

So, it acts like it is running before update, and doesn't have a value to reference. That would seem odd enough, since basic workflow rules could do this, and yet it gets stranger. If I change the criteria to reference an even further removed object:

[User_Account__c].Service_Profile.Service.Name

..then it fires and updates just fine. So clearly it has a value that it can access.

Now, I change the criteria yet again, to this:

AND( ISCHANGED([User_Account__c].Service_Profile__c), [User_Account__c].Service_Profile__c.Name = "Admin")

THEN the update will also fire, but if delete the value from Service_Profile__c and save, then I get the same "The flow failed to access the value for myVariable_current.Service_Profile__c.Name because it hasn't been set or assigned." message again!

Any idea what is going on? Thanks!

Answer 1

Figured this out with some help eventually, the needed criteria looks like this:

AND(
      ISCHANGED([User_Account__c].Service_Profile__c),
      NOT(ISBLANK([User_Account__c].Service_Profile__c)),
      [User_Account__c].Service_Profile__c.Name = "Admin"
      )

Basically, needed to add some criteria that would stop the process from referencing [User_Account__c].Service_Profile__c.Name when [User_Account__c].Service_Profile__c was going to be null in the equivalent of Trigger.new.