Content last updated November 2022. Roadmap corresponds to October 2023 (Winter ‘24) projections.
Our forward-looking statement applies to roadmap projections.

Guide Overview

Looking to build forms on the Salesforce Platform? You’ve got multiple options, spanning the entire low-code to pro-code continuum. Representing low-code, Dynamic Forms in Lightning App Builder and screen flows in Flow Builder. Hanging out in the middle of the continuum is the ability to extend screen flows with LWCs. And representing pro-code is the LWC framework and its ever-growing library of base components.

Options are great, but how do you determine which one (or which combination) is the right option? That’s where this doc comes in.

This doc focuses on form-building options for working with records in Salesforce. You’ll see a similar assessment, focused on orchestrating automation logic within Salesforce in the Architect’s Guide to Building Record-Triggered Automation on Salesforce.

A bit later, we’ll go into depth on these use cases and more, including how to choose between click-based tools and code-based tools (and when to combine them), but here are the major considerations to start with when choosing between these three options.

Low Code --------------------------------------> Pro Code
Dynamic Forms* Screen Flow Screen Flow + LWC LWC
Custom Object on Desktop Available Available Available Available
Any Object on Desktop Roadmap Available Available Available
Any Object on Mobile Roadmap Available Available Available
Component Visibility Available Available Available Available
Field Visibility Available Available Available Available
Multi-Screen Form Not Available Available Available Not Ideal
Cross-Object Not Available Available Available Available
Logic or Actions Behind the Form Not Available Available Available Available
Dynamic Event Handling Roadmap Not Available Available Available
Pixel-Perfect Styling Not Available Not Available Available Available
Unit Testing Not Available Not Available Available Available
*Dynamic Forms is a feature of Lightning Pages. Lightning Pages are declaratively configured with the Lightning App Builder. As of the Winter ’23 release, Dynamic Forms is GA for Accounts, Opportunities, Contacts, and Custom Objects with the limitations outlined here.

tl;dr

Quickly, let’s elaborate on the takeaways and table above.

Keep in mind, your choice doesn’t have to be an either/or – you can combine the power of multiple options. For example, if you need both Flow’s built-in navigation system and the full styling flexibility that LWC offers, use them together.

What About Page Layouts?

You may notice that Page Layouts are missing from our comparison in this document. Moving forward, the recommended way to configure record detail pages is Dynamic Forms in Lightning App Builder using Lightning Pages. It’s been a long time since we enhanced page layouts, and that trend will continue. Here’s why.

As of the Winter ’23 release, Dynamic Forms still has some limitations. We recommend using Dynamic Forms wherever possible, and falling back to Page Layouts only when necessary. For reference, here are the high-level gaps we’re aware of and when we plan to fill them. As always, we welcome feedback in the Idea Exchange on the improvements that would be most impactful to your organization.

Timeline for Lightning Page & Dynamic Forms Enhancements
Support for the Account, Contact, and Opportunity objects GA as of Winter '23
Support for the Lead object Planned for Spring '23
Support on the Salesforce mobile app Pilot planned for Spring '23
Support for the Case object Planned for Summer '23
Support for additional standard objects Planned for Winter '24
Support in Community record pages Beyond October 2023
Configure tab visibility Beyond October 2023
Conditional formatting of fields Beyond October 2023
Conditionally make a field required Beyond October 2023
Conditionally make a field read-only Beyond October 2023

What About Performance?

Any performance considerations related to Dynamic Forms, screen flows, and LWC center on what framework those technologies themselves sit on. The ones that are based in LWC (besides, of course, an LWC) are going to outperform ones that are based in Aura. The LWC framework offers better performance because core features are implemented natively in web engines instead of in JavaScript via framework abstractions. If you’re not familiar give this blog post a read.

Back in 2019, we did a case study comparing the performance of the same functionality in Aura vs. in LWC. As a result of converting DreamHouse from Aura to LWC, not only was the development experience far more aligned with current web front-end development standards and patterns, but the performance gains are significant. Lab measurements showed gains in the range of 2.4 percent to 24.7 percent for cold cache and gains in the range of 31.83 percent to 63.32 percent for warm cache on the same two pages.

Now, which framework are our form technologies using? In other words, which form technologies benefit from this superior performance?

Most of this doc focuses on helping you understand what functionality and level of customization is possible with Dynamic Forms, screen flows, and LWC.

Navigating the Low-Code to Pro-Code Continuum

If multiple tools fit the bill, the decision comes down to which tool is the right one for your team. Introducing the Salesforce Architect Decision Guides on the Salesforce Architects blog introduces some aspects to consider when making that decision.

We won’t go into the details of each of those aspects here, but what we will do is interpret them for the specific tools this doc is assessing.

Specialized Skills: What percentage of your team is already an expert in the tools you’re comparing? How many makers are well-versed and familiar with LWC or Javascript? How about makers who are experts in Flow Builder or have expressed an interest in dipping their toes? Generally speaking, Dynamic Forms and Flow are more attainable for a broader population of people who build forms. Dynamic Forms is the most declarative form-building tool and will always be easier to learn than Flow. That said, the Flow team is committed to getting that bar as low as possible.

Delegation of Delivery: Just because part of your requirements require LWC doesn’t mean the entire solution needs to be built with LWC. Consider how you can build your solution modularly, such that the bits that require LWC are coded, and the bits that don’t are built in a low-code solution. Doing so maximizes the impact of a diverse team and ensures that each individual is solving problems appropriate for their specialization.

Maintainability & Long-Term Ownership: If you anticipate this form will be maintained in the future by pro-code team and your current team is highly familiar with Javascript frameworks, it makes sense to choose LWC as your solution of choice. If, on the other hand, low-code team will be responsible for maintaining the form, consider how you can make the solution as configurable as possible for that audience. Whichever tool you chose, organize your solution into composable units to improve maintainability and stability.

Diving Deeper

As promised, we’re diving deep into a variety of comparison points and functional differences between Dynamic Forms, Screen Flows, Screen Flows with embedded LWCs, and the LWC framework itself.

Low Code ------------------------------------> Pro Code
Dynamic Forms* Screen Flow Screen Flow + LWC LWC
Object Scope Single Object Available (Account, Contact, Opportunity and Custom Objects) Available Available Available
Cross-Object Not Available Available Available Available
Object-Agnostic Not Available Available Available Available
Form Scope Single-Screen Form Available Available Available Available
Multi-Screen Form Not Available Available Available Not Ideal
Location Lightning Record Page Available (Desktop) Available Available Available
Lightning Home or App Page Not Available Available Available Available
Communities Not Available Available Available Available
Embedded Snap-Ins Not Available Available Available Available
Utility Bar Not Available Available Available Available
Object-Specific Action Not Available Available Available Roadmap
Global Action Not Available Not Available Not Available Roadmap
Salesforce Mobile App Roadmap Available Available Available
Field Service Mobile Not Available Available (Object-specific action) Not Available Roadmap
Mobile SDK Not Available Not Available Not Available Roadmap
External Sites & Apps Not Available Available Available Available
Custom LWC Not Available Roadmap Roadmap Available
Controller Logic & Actions Not Available Available Available Available
Operation Within One Transaction Not Available Available Available Requires Apex
Operate Across Multiple Transactions Not Available Available Available Available
Integration Not Available Available Available Requires Apex
Modular Design & Reuse Not Available Available Available Available
Validation Respect System-Level Validation Available Available Available Available
Custom Field Validation Specific to this Form Available Available Available Available
Custom Form-Level Validation Not Available Not Available Available Available
Security Elevate User Permissions Not Available Available Available Requires Apex
Restrict Who Can Access Available Available Available Available
Restrict Allowed Locations Not Available Not Available Not Available Available
Interaction Design Conditional Visibility Available Available Available Available
Conditional Requiredness Not Available Roadmap Available Available
Conditional Formatting Not Available Not Available Available Available
Conditional Read-Only State Not Available Roadmap Available Available
Standard Event Handling (such as onblur, onfocus) Not Available Not Available Available Available
Custom Event Handling Not Available Not Available Available Available
Styling Org and Community Themes Available Available Available Available
Pixel-Perfect Styling Not Available Not Available Available Available
Layout 2 Columns Available Available Available Available
4 Columns Roadmap Available Available Available
Beyond 4 Columns Roadmap Not Available Available Available
Tab Containers Available Not Available Available Available
Accordian Containers Available Available Available Available
Translation Labels Entered in the Builder Roadmap Available Available Not Available
Labels in the Code Not Available Not Available Available Available
UI Test Automation Unit Tests Not Available Not Available Available Available
End-to-End Automation Requires Code Requires Code Requires Code Available
Metrics Page Views Available Available Available Available
Time Spent on Form Not Available Available Available Available
Track Form Completion Not Available Available Available Available
Track Success Rate Not Available Available Available Available
*Dynamic Forms is a feature of Lightning Pages. Lightning Pages are declaratively configured with the Lightning App Builder.

Object Impact

What objects will the form operate against? Just one object? Multiple objects?

Dynamic Forms Screen Flow Screen Flow + LWC LWC
Single Object Available (Account, Contact, Opportunity and Custom Objects) Available Available Available
Cross-Object Not Available Available Available Available
Object-Agnostic Not Available Available Available Available

If your form operates against a single Salesforce object, any of the tools we’re comparing will work. Things get a little more complicated with cross-object or object-agnostic forms. By object-agnostic, we mean inputs that don’t map to any Salesforce object. Perhaps your form represents a data structure that you’ll send to an external service, like Stripe or Docusign. Or perhaps you’re using several inputs in your form to calculate a value, and then committing that value to the database.

For both cross-object and object-agnostic forms, Flow is a solid option. The components available in flow screens are agnostic by nature, so you can choose what to do with that data behind the scenes. For example, use the data entered in one form to create multiple records behind the scenes, or use the data to perform other actions like generating Chatter posts, sending emails, or connecting to external services.

For simple cases, using existing LWC components like lightning-record-form can be a simple way to lower code needed to provide a robust solution. However, for scenarios where multiple objects are involved, Flow provides comprehensive control for all objects and removes the need for developers to traverse complex relationships and dependencies.

Form Scope

Do you need a single screen, or will the user need to navigate between multiple screens to complete a task?

Dynamic Forms Screen Flow Screen Flow + LWC LWC
Single-Screen Form Available Available Available Available
Multi-Screen Form Not Available Available Available Not Ideal

If you can get all of your user’s inputs from a single-screen form, start with Dynamic Forms. If you need more functionality than what Dynamic Forms offers, the choice between Flow and LWC depends on a few other questions.

If, on the other hand, your solution looks like a wizard, where the user navigates between multiple screens, think Flow. Flows come with a built-in navigation model, so you don’t have to build and maintain that yourself. The navigation is linear in nature, with forward-moving actions (Next and Finish), backward-moving actions (Previous), and a mechanism for saving the form for later (Pause). You can also build a form with non-linear navigation if it suits your purposes. For a great example of that, check out this Salesforce Labs package: Digital Store Audit.

Whether you’re building single screen or multi-screen forms, make sure that your forms are streamlined so that they’re easy for your users to navigate.

Location

Where do you want to embed the form?

Dynamic Forms Screen Flow Screen Flow + LWC LWC
Lightning Record Page Available (Desktop) Available Available Available
Lightning Home or App Page Not Available Available Available Available
Aura Experience Sites Not Available Available Available Available
LWR Experience Sites Available Available* Available Available
Embedded Snap-Ins Not Available Available Available Available
Utility Bar Not Available Available Available Available
Object-Specific Action Not Available Available Available Roadmap
Global Action Not Available Not Available Not Available Roadmap
Salesforce Mobile App** Roadmap Available Available Available
Field Service Mobile Not Available Available (Object-Specific Action)*** Not Available Roadmap
Mobile SDK Not Available Not Available Not Available Roadmap
External Sites & Apps Not Available Available Available Available
Custom LWC Not Available Available Roadmap Available
*Flows can be embedded in LWR Experience Sites but do have considerations you need to keep in mind.
**Flows and LWCs are supported in the Salesforce mobile app, but the Salesforce mobile app doesn’t support all the ways you can embed flows and LWCs. For example, object-specific actions are supported in mobile, but utility bar items are not.
***The Field Service Mobile app does not support many of the latest Flow features as it is designed from an older Flow Engine and Screen Flow Runtime - it has special modifications for it to work offline.

Since they require a record context, Dynamic Forms are supported only in Lightning Record pages. However, Dynamic Forms aren’t supported in Experience Cloud pages. This limitation is in place because Experience Cloud doesn't use the underlying framework that Dynamic Forms depends on: Lightning Pages. We are definitely evaluating this as we do often hear feedback of wanting Dynamic Forms in Experience Cloud.

Roadmap Note: Today, Dynamic Forms are supported only for custom objects on desktop, but Salesforce is actively working on supporting them for standard objects and the Salesforce mobile app as well.

You can build flows that require a record context or flows that work globally. As such, you can embed flows in a variety of locations. For the record-contextual flows, that might be a Lightning record page, a Community record page, an object-specific action, or an Actions & Recommendations deployment. For the global flow, that might be the utility bar, other Lightning or Community pages, a snap-in, or an external application. Flows aren’t currently supported as global actions, but as a workaround you can wrap the flow in an Aura component.

LWC supports a high degree of reusability, since you are creating components and able to associate with targets via metadata across Salesforce, Communities, and even in Open Source Projects. LWC components can also be embedded inside of your own website via Lightning Out. LWCs aren’t currently supported as quick actions (object-specific or global), but – much like you can with flows – as a workaround you can wrap the LWC in an Aura component. LWC components can also launch flows with the lightning-flow component.

None of the form technologies covered in this doc are officially supported in Mobile SDK templates today. If Mobile SDK is paramount to your use case, you’re better off building your form in natively in your mobile application or building a Visualforce page. Salesforce Well-Architected has additional guidance available regarding form factor.

Roadmap Note: The Mobile SDK team is actively working on supporting LWCs within Visualforce pages.

Controller

What actions or logic do you want to be performed behind the scenes?

Dynamic Forms Screen Flow Screen Flow + LWC LWC
Logic & Actions Not Available Available Available Available
Operate Within One Transaction Not Available Available Available Requires Apex
Operate Across Multiple Transactions Not Available Available Available Available
Integration Not Available Available Available Requires Apex
Modular Design & Reuse Not Available Available Available Available

Dynamic Forms is perfect if you need to use the values in your form to create or update a record. For anything beyond that capability, you’ll need to leverage Flow or LWC. That might be a layer of decisioning or iteration, or you might generate Chatter posts or emails using the inputs from the form.

Flow offers standard actions for posting to Chatter, sending email, and interacting with Quip documents, so you don’t have to write code for these operations. LWC offers rich interactions with single records and related objects through the use of wire adapters that interact with User Interface API. LWC can also interact with multiple records when using the wire for getListInfoByName.

Both Flow and LWC integrate with Apex, so you can easily close the gaps in whichever solution you choose. For example, if you require filtering records from an LWC you can always use the wire adapter for Apex to create complex SOQL queries. If you’re swayed by the click-based story, consider Flow as a viable alternative to an Apex controller for your server-side needs.

A secondary question to answer here about the actions is whether you want to immediately commit them, or defer them to a particular part of your form. This is especially relevant if you’re in a multi-page form. Flow makes it easy to combine inputs from multiple forms (flow screens) and use them much later in the wizard (flow) to perform some operations. In fact, we recommend designing flows in just that way – perform actions at the end – in case the user bounces back and forth between screens, thereby changing their answers.

Do you need to control which operations occur in which transaction?

Transactions and governor limits are a way of life on the Salesforce Platform. If your use case is fairly simple, it may not be as important to control what transaction a particular operation occurs in. However, there are a few use cases where you might want to combine multiple operations into a single transaction rather than performing those across multiple transactions. Some examples:

When you use a Dynamic Form to create or edit a record, you’re only ever performing one operation, and that operation is always the start of a net-new transaction.

When building a screen flow, you have significant control over what happens in a given transaction. Screens and Local Actions act as boundaries between transactions. Here’s a high-level summary of how transactions are managed in the screen flow architecture.

  1. The end user interacts with a screen, and then clicks Next.
  2. The client posts a request to the API with the inputs.
  3. The API receives the request, and a transaction and database connection are opened. The API then then calls the Flow engine to invoke the request.
  4. The Flow engine takes over and follows the appropriate path in the flow definition – until it hits a Screen or Local Action node. The engine then returns information about that node to the API.
  5. The API creates a response object that contains the details of the next screen to render, and returns that object to the client. At this point, database changes are committed (cue the save order execution), and the database connection and transaction are closed.
  6. The client uses the API response to render the next screen for the user to interact with.
  7. Rinse and repeat.

In other words, screens “break” transactions. When that happens, any pending actions or DML are committed, the prior transaction is closed, and a new transaction starts.

Image of flow that performs several actions in one transaction.

The right design – which operations you group into a given transaction – is your call. Let's walk through a couple approaches.

Image of flow that performs each operation in a separate transaction.

On the left, you can see a flow that collects inputs across multiple screens, and then performs several actions in one transaction.



The flow on the right performs each operation in a separate transaction.


The Flow team recently introduced a new element: Roll Back Records. This element enables you to roll back an entire transaction if a single operation fails in a series of database operations.

Image of flow that creates, records, updates records, then creates more records.

Suppose you have a Flow that creates records, updates records, then creates more records — as illustrated in the next flow on the right.

In this scenario, if the first two elements succeed and the last fails, the first two DML operations will still create and update those records while the third will not.


Image of flow that uses the Roll Back Records element.

By using the Roll Back Records element, you can ensure the entire transaction is rolled back if all three operations have to occur in tandem — as seen in the final flow on the left.


For more details, check out these resources on Salesforce Help: Flows in Transactions and Flow Bulkification in Transactions. The Automated section of Salesforce Well-Architected also goes into more depth about Transaction Handling.


Your ability to control the transaction from an LWC comes down to the underlying services that LWC is using to perform its operations. If you’re using the lightning-record-form base component, the underlying operation (creating or updating the record) happens in a standalone transaction as soon as the form is submitted.

In general, these rules apply:

Do you need to integrate with external systems?

Both Flow and LWC support API integrations with an assist from Apex. Additionally, Flow supports External Services; this enables you to declaratively generate process integration building blocks. Anyone can integrate with legacy systems or web apps, as long as those services can be described with an OpenAPI-compliant schema. For example, you can generate actions for integrating with Slack or Google Sheets, and then configure your flow to post to a Slack channel or add a row to a particular Google Sheet. The end-to-end solution involves touching zero lines of code.

Regardless of whether you implement it with custom Apex or an external service, a callout is a callout. Here’s what you need to know.

  1. A callout can take a long time.
  2. When a callout is executed synchronously, it's performed while a database transaction is open.
  3. Salesforce doesn't let you keep a database transaction open if you have pending database operations.

The main limitation to keep in mind is the danger of what we call a dirty transaction, where you perform a create, update, or delete operation and then, in the same transaction, execute a callout. This pattern isn’t allowed because of consideration #3, which of course exists because of considerations #1 and #2.

You can work around this limitation by breaking the transaction. Remember that screens and local actions both reintroduce the browser context, which breaks the transaction. Although you could use screens and local actions when working with external callouts, we recommend enabling Transaction Control in invocable advanced settings. Transaction Control is a feature of invocable actions that let you automatically end the transaction before a callout is made. You can enable Transaction Control by selecting Always Start a New Transaction in the Advanced section of an invoked action.

Image that shows how to enable Transaction Control in the Advanced section of an invoked action.

The impact of callouts on the transaction is less complicated with LWC. Generally speaking, you’ll perform your data operations using the Lightning Data Service (LDS), and then use an Apex controller to make the external callout. This design protects you from dirty transactions, since the LDS call is isolated in its own transaction separate from the Apex callout.

For more in-depth guidance about Apex Callouts, External Services and data integration capabilities in general, see Architect's Guide to Data Integration with Salesforce.

What are your requirements for reusability and modularity?

Dynamic Forms doesn’t support reuse. Each Dynamic Form is tied to a specific Lightning record page for a specific object. Though you can assign that Lightning record page to multiple apps, profiles, and so on.

Much like you can write libraries, utilities, and components that are intended to be used across multiple other components, you can apply similar design patterns when creating flows with the power of subflows. Save your flows in smaller, more modular buckets, and then call them from other flows by using the Subflow element. If your design calls for it, you can build a flow that both stands on its own and is useful as a subflow of another one.

Flows and LWCs can both be built for reuse, such that you can embed them in a variety of locations including external sites and Lightning Out applications. When you design your solutions to be composable you get additional benefits like adaptability and stability.

Validation

What are your validation requirements?

Dynamic Forms Screen Flow Screen Flow + LWC LWC
Respect System-Level Validation Available Available Available Available

All technologies that attempt to create or update a record adhere to system-level validation – whether those are classic validation rules or custom validation built into an Apex trigger. No matter what technology you use to perform a record change, every change goes through the save order. That means in addition to validation rules, the record change is processed by any number of before- or after-save flows, before or after triggers, escalation rules, assignment rules, and more. If you haven’t already, now’s a good time to bookmark and familiarize yourself with the Apex order of execution.

Inputs on a flow screen are by nature unbound, so the screen itself doesn’t natively adhere to system-level validation associated with a particular object. Whatever values you use to create or update records, however, are processed by the save order, which means they pass through the object’s system-level validation.

Dynamic Forms Screen Flow Screen Flow + LWC LWC
Custom Field-Level Validation Specific to this Form Available Available Available Available
Custom Form-Level Validation Not Available Not Available Available Available

Just like page layouts, Dynamic Forms let you set requiredness and read-only state at the page level. However, you can’t override system-level settings.

Flow provides flexibility for customizing validation on a form’s inputs. While some checks are performed in the client (like flagging missing required fields or incompatible values), none of the client-side validation blocks the user from trying to navigate. The real validation happens on the server. When a user clicks Next, Flow sends the inputs to the server for validation. If any inputs are returned as invalid, navigation is blocked and the appropriate error is displayed. The server validates the inputs by checking:

  1. The input’s requiredness setting, or whether the entered value is compatible with the underlying data type.
  2. Custom validation on that input: Several standard components (Checkbox, Currency, Date, Date/Time, Long Text Area, Number, Password, and Text) support custom validation on a per-screen basis. Supply a Boolean formula expression and an error message to display when the formula expression isn’t met.
  3. Custom validation on the underlying component: If you’re building a custom LWC for a flow, add your own validation code to the validate() method.

On the LWC side, most base components perform their own client-side validations. For example, lightning-record-form respects system-level requiredness, but not page-level requiredness. For your custom components, you can build your own validation mechanisms.

Fields that require users to input data should appear early in your forms. Whenever possible, validate user inputs on the client side before forms are submitted. For more best practices on streamlining your forms, see the forms guidance in the Engaging section of Salesforce Well-Architected.

Security

What are your security requirements? Should the form check the user’s access before performing certain operations? (This is especially important when building for guest users)

Dynamic Forms Screen Flow Screen Flow + LWC LWC
Elevate User Permissions Not Available Available Available Requires Apex

Do your users have field-level security to see this field? Do they have permission to create records for this object? What about access to this specific record, based on your org’s sharing rules? When something runs in user context, Salesforce enforces those access checks. Users can run a case update form only if they have the ability to update cases, the appropriate field-level security, and access to the record in question.

But what if you don’t want to grant users a particular permission? What if you want users to be able to perform a particular operation when they're using your form, but not through any other form or interaction? That’s where system context comes in. System context is a way to elevate the running user’s permissions for the duration of the session, so that the user doesn’t need, for example, Update access to the Case object to successfully complete your case update form. This is especially useful for unauthenticated communities. Instead of granting guest users dangerous abilities, set your form to run in system context. Of course, system context is a double-edged sword and you should use it only when necessary. When a form runs in system context, every single CRUD operation bypasses object- and field-level security & sharing – not just the specific operation you care about.

Note that system context has no bearing on who Salesforce considers the actor – the name you see in the Last Modified By field. For each operation that your form performs, such as the case update, the actor is the running user even if the form runs in a different context.

Best practices:

  • Leave the flow to run in its default context unless you need to elevate the running user’s access for a specific operation.
  • Avoid running flows in system context for guest users for security reasons.
  • If the flow performs a variety of operations and not all of them require elevated access, use a subflow to isolate the operations that should run in system context.

Additional Notes:

Do you want to control who can access the form?

Dynamic Forms Screen Flow Screen Flow + LWC LWC
Restrict Who Can Access Available Available Available Available

If you need control over who can access your form, you can often look to the container you’re embedding your form in. For example, you can assign Lightning pages to be available for particular apps, record types, or profiles. If particular inputs in your form are sensitive, use visibility rules to further control what is displayed to whom – this feature applies to both Dynamic Forms and screen flows.

You can restrict a flow to particular profiles or permission sets, much like you can an Apex class or Visualforce page. By default, flows are unrestricted, which means that any user with the Run Flows user permission can run them.

For more details and best practices on guest user permissions see:

Best Practices:

  • If you’re exposing a flow to guest users, grant the guest user profile access to only the flows they need. It is possible to add Run Flows to the guest user profile but we consider that a dangerous practice.
  • Be especially careful with flows that operate in system context. We strongly recommend you restricting such flows to a particular set of users, since they have fewer checks and balances in place to protect your data.

For LWCs, you can check the running user’s permission assignments to confirm if they have a particular standard or custom permission. Directly from JavaScript, you can import Salesforce permissions from the @salesforce/userPermission and @salesforce/customPermission scoped modules. Or you can use Apex to check the same.

Do you want to control where the form can be embedded?

Dynamic Forms Screen Flow Screen Flow + LWC LWC
Restrict Allowed Locations Not Available Not Available Not Available Available

Once a screen flow is activated, it’s available in all the locations that screen flows are supported, regardless of whether you intended it to be available everywhere or not. That said, Flow Builder supports multiple types of flows that have screens. The bread-and-butter type is Screen Flow, but there are a few other specialized types that are restricted to specific locations. For example, the Field Service Mobile App only supports - you guessed it - Field Service Mobile Flows. The same goes for Contact Request Flows, which are supported only in Experience Cloud.

Regardless of the flow type, the individual making the flow has no control over where the flow can be embedded. The flow will be available in every location supported for that flow type.

LWCs, on the other hand, are available in a given location only when it’s been added as a valid target. For example, you can make a component available on Record pages and not available as a utility bar item.

Interaction Design

Should your form react dynamically to interactions or conditions?

Static forms are a thing of the past. Today, it’s all about dynamically updating the form with the right properties and values for this user, this time, this place. Let’s talk about what’s possible in this vein for Salesforce’s form-building tools.

Dynamic Forms Screen Flow Screen Flow + LWC LWC
Conditional Visibility Available Available Available Available
Conditional Requiredness Not Available Roadmap Available Available
Conditional Formatting Not Available Not Available Available Available
Conditional Read-only State Not Available Roadmap Available Available

Visibility can be dynamically controlled in all three tools. Both Dynamic Forms and Flow Builder address this with Component Visibility features. With this, you can declaratively show or hide fields based on other values on the form or whether the user is on a mobile device or not.

If you need to dynamically control any other properties, such as whether a field is required or read-only, your best bet in the short term is LWC, where you have full control. That’s especially true if you have bespoke requirements for how to handle onblur or onclick.

Roadmap Note: For Lightning Pages, which includes Dynamic Forms, we anticipate enabling conditional requiredness, conditional formatting, and conditionally setting an input to read-only in the next 12 months. For Flow, you will soon be able to have an Aura and LWC component on the same flow screen react to other standard and custom components. We call this Field Reactivity and it is currently planned to go Generally Available in 2023.

Dynamic Forms Screen Flow Screen Flow + LWC LWC
Standard Event Handling (such as onblur, onfocus) Not Available Not Available Available Available
Custom Event Handling Not Available Not Available Available Available

Now for custom events. If some of your inputs or the entire form need to communicate with something else in the page, LWC is your only option.

For more details, check out Communicate with Events and Communicate Across the DOM in the Lightning Web Components Dev Guide.

Styling

How sophisticated is your desired styling and CSS?

Dynamic Forms Screen Flow Screen Flow + LWC LWC
Org and Experience Builder Themes Available Available Available Available
Pixel-Perfect Styling Not Available Not Available Available Available

Both Dynamic Forms and flows respect declarative theming features. If you need control beyond what Salesforce Themes or Experience Builder Branding Sets support, you need the wide open spaces of LWC.

Reminder: You can embed Lightning components in flows. So if you need pixel-perfect control over the look-and-feel of your form but want to use the other benefits of flows, like the navigation model, you can have the best of both worlds.

Layout

What are the layout requirements for your form?

Dynamic Forms Screen Flow Screen Flow + LWC LWC
2 Columns Available Available Available Available
4 Columns Roadmap Available Available Available
Beyond 4 Columns Roadmap Not Available Available Available
Tab Containers Available Not Available Available Available
Accordion Containers Available Available Available Available

Dynamic Forms supports two-column layouts. Dynamic Forms can be broken up into individual sections with fields. These sections can be placed in components such as tabs and accordions to create easy to use and organized layouts.

Flows can optionally be rendered using the new Section component. With sections, you can add up to four columns and as many sections as you want on the flow screen. The component is also responsive to screen width, so it can work on smaller screens. Lastly, it gives you the ability to apply conditional visibility to the entire section, making it easier to mass-apply visibility to multiple fields within the section. Flow Sections also support column headers and gives an accordion-like experience where users can collapse the entire section by clicking on the label.

With LWC, you can use lightning-record-[edit|view]-form and the supporting lightning-[input|output]-field to control layout. The only layout restrictions are those from HTML/CSS. lightning-record-form respects the section configuration in the associated page layout; for example, if a section is two-column in the page layout, it’s two-column in this component.

Translation

Does your form need to be localized to other languages?

Dynamic Forms Screen Flow Screen Flow + LWC LWC
Labels Entered in the Builder Roadmap Available Available Not Available
Labels in the Code Not Available Not Available Available Available

If you’ve localized your custom fields, those translated labels are respected on Dynamic Forms. However, localization isn’t supported for labels that you add to components in the same Lightning page. (for example, the label for a tab in the Tabs component).

Roadmap Note: Salesforce is actively working on filling this gap. Soon, you’ll be able to reference Custom Labels for any string or rich text property in Lightning App Builder, such as to localize a custom Tab or Accordion label or the title you added to a Report component.

With the power of Translation Workbench, Flow supports translation of user-facing labels for some, but not all, of the available screen components. For the following screen components, you can localize the label, help text, and error message: Text, Long Text Area, Number, Currency, Checkbox, Radio Buttons, Picklist, Multi-Select Picklist, Checkbox Group, Password, Date, and Date/Time.

The other components don’t yet support translation, because they’re Lightning components under the hood and there is no way of identifying which Lightning component attribute should map to label vs. help text vs. error message. The same issue applies for our out-of-the-box actions, like Send Email or Post to Chatter. However, there is a workaround! If you define the translated labels with a Custom Label, you can reference that custom label in the action or component when you configure it in Flow Builder. Create a flow formula that references the custom label, and reference that formula in the appropriate places in your flow.

Now for LWC. Certain base components automatically inherit translations of the associated object’s fields, help text, and validation messages if they’ve been configured in Translation Workbench (for example, lightning-record-form).

If you need to introduce novel translatable labels in your code, Custom Labels are still the unsung hero. Declare the custom label you need, and then import it into your component from the @salesforce/label scoped module.

UI Test Automation

Do you need automated testing?

Dynamic Forms Screen Flow Screen Flow + LWC LWC
Unit Tests Not Available Not Available Requires Code Available
End-to-End Automation Requires Code Requires Code Requires Code Available

Consider your requirements for UI test automation.

Unit tests enable more granular automation and validation that works with industry standard CI/CD systems and tools, which can test the components business logic, its JavaScript controller, and its outputs. Going exclusively with low-code you will not be able to self-author tests, but Salesforce rigorously tests our end-to-end offerings.

If your component’s methods are complex enough that you want them to be tested individually, put the methods into dedicated JavaScript files. That way you can import them into a LWC and into a Jest test with something like import { sort } from 'c/utils';.

With end-to-end (for example, Selenium) automation, you can simulate how the user interacts with your form. However, these tests can't verify the outputs of each method being performed. You can write these tests for any standard or custom UI – Lightning pages and screen flows inclusive.

See UI Test Automation on Salesforce for a comparison of the various options you have for building end-to-end automation on Salesforce. Included are considerations for when to use a no-code solution from an ISV, build your own custom test automation solution, or use an open source test framework like Selenium WebDriver or WebdriverIO. These solutions are valid for any UI interaction in Salesforce, whether that’s a Dynamic Form in a Lightning page, a screen flow in a utility bar, or an LWC in a flow in a quick action.

Metrics

Do you need to track usage of your form?

Dynamic Forms Screen Flow Screen Flow + LWC LWC
Page Views Available Available Available Available
Time Spent on Form Not Available Available Available Available
Track Form Completion Not Available Available Available Available
Track Success Rate Not Available Available Available Available

If you need to track overall usage and adoption of your form, start with the low-code tools. Both Dynamic Forms and Screen Flows are trackable using out-of-the-box custom report types, though you’ll get more granularity from the Screen Flow tracking reports. If you need to track usage of a LWC, out-of-the-box availability depends on where you’re using that LWC. If it’s on a Lightning page, whatever is available for tracking Lightning page usage applies to your LWC. The same story goes for LWCs that are embedded in flows.

Dynamic Forms themselves aren’t trackable out-of-the-box, though you can track the usage of the parent Lightning page through Lightning usage objects. To track the standard Lightning pages, use the Users with Lightning Usage by Page Metrics custom report type. For the same on custom Lightning pages, use the Users with Lightning Usage by FlexiPage Metrics custom report type.

For tracking adoption of your specific form (not just the page it lives in), Flow’s got you covered. Use the “Sample Flow Report: Screen Flows” to answer questions like:

If the standard report doesn’t meet your needs, clone it to make your own changes or build your own from scratch by using the Screen Flows report type.

To track the same for an LWC that isn’t embedded in a screen flow or Lightning page, there’s no out-of-the-box option. You can build a custom solution using Apex.


Closing Remarks

As an architect, it’s important to have a solid understanding of all the options available to you and how you can apply them in your specific use case. For building forms on Salesforce, the options range from low-code (using Dynamic Forms in Lightning App Builder and Screen Flows in Flow Builder) to pro-code (using the LWC framework), with a combination of screen flows and LWC in the middle. Keep this guide in mind and use it as a reference when you’re planning to build (or redesign) forms on Salesforce. If you’re looking for guidance on how to designing streamlined and helpful forms, consult Salesforce Well-Architected: Engaging.

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