Every record save is a passenger going through the terminal. Each checkpoint must be passed in order, every time, no skipping — except where the diagram says it skips.
Tap any checkpoint to see what it does, when it matters, and what goes wrong.
👆 Tap a checkpoint to expand it. 🚩 = the steps most often behind automation conflicts.
🛠️
Common debugging checklist
When something fires in the wrong order, walk the airport. These gates come up most.
1.A field value gets overwritten and I don't know what set it
Check the kiosk vs the bag desk. A before-save flow (Step 3) sets a value, then a before-trigger (Step 4) runs after it and overwrites it. Both run before save and fight over the same field. Order is: flow first, trigger second.
2.A trigger seems to fire twice (or three times)
Two re-fire sources stack. Workflow field updates (11A) re-fire before/after update triggers exactly once. After-save flows (Step 14) that update the record re-fire them again. Different steps, different causes, same symptom.
3.My Process Builder and my flow run in an order I didn't expect
Step 13 runs in NO PARTICULAR ORDER. Processes, process-launched flows, and workflow-launched flows have no guaranteed sequence between them. If you depend on one running before another here, you have a latent bug. The diagram itself warns about this.
4.The second save in a recursion didn't run my automation
After after-triggers (Step 8), Salesforce asks "is this a recursive save?" — if yes, it skips Steps 9–17. Assignment, auto-response, workflow, escalation, processes, after-save flows, entitlement and roll-ups are all skipped on the recursive pass.
5.A validation rule fails on a value I thought was set
Security screening (Step 5) runs after before-triggers and before-save flows, but the rule may reference a field a later step was going to populate. Validation can't see the future. Move the logic earlier or rethink the rule.
6.The record just didn't save and nothing downstream ran
Duplicate rules (Step 6) set to block stop the save dead — no save, no after-triggers, no workflow, nothing. Check Setup → Duplicate Rules before assuming it's your code.
7.A parent record is doing things I didn't trigger
The connecting flight (Steps 16–17). A roll-up or cross-object update makes the parent re-save — running the parent's own triggers and flows, and then the grandparent's. Chain reactions and surprise governor limits live here.