A Business Process Flow (BPF) guides users through a business process using stages and steps in a model-driven app.
Here’s how the three compare:
- Business rules handle field-level logic on a form — show/hide a field, make it required, set a value, or show a validation message. They’re triggered by conditions.
- Business process flows guide users through a multi-stage process, potentially across multiple tables. For example, a BPF can move a user from the Lead table to the Opportunity table as they progress. They’re about sequence and structure, not individual field logic.
- Workflows (now mostly replaced by Power Automate cloud flows) run in the background when an event occurs, such as a record being created or updated. They don’t appear on the form; they perform actions such as sending an email, updating a field, or creating a related record.
Interview tip: BPFs are mainly about guiding users through a process, while business rules and workflows handle logic and automation.
