Salesforce introduced Einstein Automate on December 2nd 2020.

Salesforce had a number of shocking announcements for their customers in December  – acquiring Slack for $27.7 B, introducing Hyperforce and a new set of AI-based workflow solutions called Einstein Automate. Dreamforce 2020 was a virtual event, but this didn’t stop Salesforce from releasing and previewing a bundle of product announcements,

In this article, we will cover what is Einstein Automate and how can it help your company, let’s dive straight in.

What is Einstein Automate ?

Einstein Automate fuses the power of Artificial Intelligence, integration and industry-specific workflows into one platform. Every company could become more productive and efficient by automating workflows. The best part is all this is possible with code and just with few clicks.

Any company in any industry could automate manual labor-intensive tasks or workflows and become more productive. Here’s a few tools and partner solutions to get started with.

1. Flow Orchestrator – You could automate anything. Design complex workflows and demystify the process using Bots.
2. MuleSoft Composer – With few clicks, integrate external data and deliver seamless customer experiences
3. Salesforce Industries -Reuse Industry-specific solutions, templates and a library of 700+ best practices.
4. AppExchange – Install flow automation, partner templates, RPAs from AppExchange portal and get started with automation process.
5. Omnistudio– Create Industry-specific templates for your customers across devices, channels.

Why should you automate ?

Salesforce could help you concentrate on innovative tasks and spend less time on mundane tasks. It is all possible with automation and Salesforce is investing more and more in automation in recent years. John Kucera SVP of Product Management at Salesforce shares,

“When automation is done right, it accelerates productivity and empowers employees. It also frees up humans to do the work they’re uniquely meant to do by taking away the tedious, repetitive steps that are soul-sucking, and that people don’t enjoy doing. Automation gives people the bandwidth and breathing room to do more interesting, more inspiring, and more valuable work that moves the business forward such as building customer relationships or making hard decisions on what to do next”

Salesforce Workplace Process Automation Survey (Oct 2020) reveals that.

“95% of the IT leaders are prioritizing process automation right now. Also 4 hours per week would be saved by eliminating manual processes”.

2020 is a year of surprises. Sarah Franklin, EVP & GM of Platform, Trailhead and AppExchange at Salesforce says

“With Einstein Automate, everyone can change the speed of work and be more productive through intelligent workflow automation”

Companies are pushed towards automating their process in this digital era and COVID-19, remote working nature has accelerated this need even more.  

Now that we know the greatest things that Automation could do and why it’s worth it. Let’s understand how it works.

How Einstein Automate Works ?

‍

Workflow is one the reasons why customers prefer Salesforce. In action, the below diagram will illustrate how Einstein Automate products will enable any company to automate, integrate and transform any industry.

• Process Initiation – You could launch a workflow from Einstein bots, Omniscript or Screen flows.
• Business Process Automation – You could simplify, automate business process and workflows using Salesforce Flow, MuleSoft Composer or Flow Orchestrator
• Decision Assist – You could make AI-powered decisions with Einstein Next Base Action, the prediction builder
• Integration – You could have all data one place by integrating external systems using low-code tools from MuleSoft
• Application Lifecycle Management – You could build or extend automation, automate testing too
• AppExchange and Ecosystem – Robotic process vendors and partners could help you as well. Don’t start from scratch and reuse libraries, templates, automation, etc.

‍

Now that we have an understanding of how these products plug and play together. Let’s check the new Einstein Automate products in detail

1. Flow Orchestrator

‍

‍

While building a workflow multiple users from multiple levels might be involved, and there might be approvals required before any action is taken. You could create workflows quickly without coding using the new Flow Orchestrator tool.

Flow Orchestrator speeds up the job by giving AI-powered recommendations, next steps. The bottlenecks and delays could be noticed at early stages and removed while using this tool.

For instance, the complex mortgage approval process  can be automated. There is complex documentation and verification work required in general, but Einstein Automate could simplify it by breaking down into multiple steps, automating it.

Other use cases include but not restricted to,

Sales – Account planning, Sales order and payment processing, Debt collection.  

Customer Service – Service ticket routing/allocation, claims processing.

Employee – Recruiting and onboarding, Leave requests and approvals.

2. MuleSoft Composer

‍

MuleSoft Composer lets you connect all application and offer your customers a seamless experience. Usually integrations involved coding and developer involvement, but with MuleSoft Composer you could integrate with few clicks.  

There is a library of pre-built connectors and templates to automate integration. You could integrate in days or weeks instead of months now. A classic example would be connecting your company’s ERP and payment systems to Sales cloud. You could then automate quote to cash process.

3. Salesforce Industries

‍

‍

Salesforce Industries is not new to customers. It’s complementary to what Einstein Automate has to offer.

Salesforce understands that every industry has a different set of needs and they have got all of them covered with pre-built templates and solutions. In line with this, check  AppExchange.

4. AppExchange

‍

Automation from scratch is a time-consuming process. You could quickly get started with Salesforce partner’s pre-built solutions.

Believe it or not, there are 700+ automation solutions in AppExchange. They include

1. Robotic Processing Automation (RPA) – Mundane, repetitive tasks like data entry can be automated
2. Bots – You could help your customers find answers to their questions by chatting with a bot. Common questions and conversations can be automated.
3. Flow Actions – You could set up automation with pre-built flow templates. It can be customized to suit your company needs
4. Flow Templates – You could simplify the flow building process without integration or coding

5. OmniStudio

‍

OmniStudio has a set of resources, tools that will help you to create an industry-specific customer experience across devices, channels. It allows users to deploy digital-first experiences, one such scenario is licensing, permit applications quickly and easily.

Avaiability of Einstein Automate

Einstein Automate as we saw so far encompasses multiple products.

They all could be utilized by companies (like yours) to improve productivity and efficiency. Here’s when you can start using them.

• All AppExchange and Omni Studio solutions are generally available today.
• MuleSoft Composer is expected to become generally available in early 2021.
• Flow Orchestrator is awaited to be in beta in Summer 2021.

We at CloudIdeas have worked with customers across industries. CloudIdeas experts could help you out with your queries on Salesforce Industry-specific solutions and advise on the process automation piece. Feel free to reach out to us.

‍