Making a flow label or something unique - how to identify one flow from another

Question

We have historically used Process Builder and we use scheduled actions. Imagine every time someone buys something online we create a flow to send them an email in 48 hours to say thanks. Literally we will have 700+ scheduled actions waiting for up to 90 days. Our problem is that we cannot tell one from the next - which flow is for the person that bought the car versus buying soft drinks.

Now we are looking at Lightning Flow versus Process Builder and it looks like we may have the same problem. Anyone have any ideas on how to change something on the flow so that we can tell which one goes with which original triggering action?

It would be great to be able to change something dynamically, within the flow, like the label, so that when we list all the pending interviews we might get something like:

Purchase flow PUR-00001 Purchase flow PUR-00403

then we could tell which pending interview went with which purchase.

Answer 1

I would consider a slightly different approach. Define a custom object called something like PurchaseInfo. When someone buys something online, trigger with Process Builder (after Summer '20 is generally available, I recommend that you use Flow Builder instead of Process Builder). Have this triggered flow create a PurchaseInfo record.

Then create a second flow using Flow Builder's Scheduled Flow capability. Have it fire every night at midnight, query for PurchaseInfo records that meet the appropriate criteria (for example, SentFollowUp__C is false and DaysSincePurchase > 30, and then send the email.

This allows you to create reports that show you all the pending activity in the PurchaseInfos, plus the ability to do granular administration, like marking a PurchaseInfo as already sent to avoid it from getting an email.