Flow Rollback Patterns

Flow Rollback Patterns

Core concept — rollback is transaction-scoped

The Flow Rollback Records element undoes DML that happened in the CURRENT transaction. It does not:

• Undo DML from previous transactions (records created by a Scheduled Path yesterday are safe).
• Undo DML from a different top-level caller (if this flow was called by another flow, rollback only scopes the current flow's work in some cases; behavior varies).
• Undo external API calls already made.
• Stop Platform Events published with "Publish Immediately" semantics.

What gets rolled back

• Create Records within this transaction.
• Update Records within this transaction.
• Delete Records within this transaction.
• Record saves propagated through triggers fired from this flow.

What does NOT get rolled back

• Email sends (already queued at Send Email element time).
• HTTP callouts (already completed at the vendor).
• Platform Events published with Publish Immediately.
• File uploads already committed to ContentVersion.
• Sharing rule applications for those records (they're computed async).

Recommended Workflow

1. Map the DML sequence. List every Create / Update / Delete in the flow, in order.
2. Identify failure modes that should trigger all-or-nothing rollback. Not every failure wants rollback — a logging failure shouldn't roll back the business work.
3. Place Rollback Records in the fault path of the element where the critical-failure could occur. Don't rollback preemptively.
4. Combine with logging. Rollback erases the records but not the audit trail — log to Integration_Log__c or similar BEFORE the rollback so you can forensically reconstruct what happened.
5. Audit publish-after-commit events. If the flow publishes Platform Events with Publish Immediately, rollback doesn't retract them. Switch to Publish After Commit or accept the phantom-event risk.
6. Test the rollback path. Force a fault in test and verify records are absent.

Key patterns

Pattern 1 — Create + Create + rollback-on-second-failure

[Get Account]
     │
     ▼
[Create Opportunity]    ────── fault path ──────►  [Rollback Records] → [End]
     │
     ▼
[Create OpportunityLineItem]  ─── fault path ────►  [Log to Integration_Log__c]
                                                          │
                                                          ▼
                                                    [Rollback Records]
                                                          │
                                                          ▼
                                                    [Send Email Alert]
                                                          │
                                                          ▼
                                                          [End]
     │
     ▼
[End] (success — both commits)

Design notes:

• On first-element fault: roll back and end (nothing to preserve, log not required for platform save failure).
• On second-element fault: log first (to capture the Opportunity Id that got created), THEN rollback, THEN notify.
• The admin gets an email with the log link; records never persist.

Pattern 2 — Screen flow cancel

Screen 1: Gather inputs
Screen 2: [Create Records — Case]  ──►  session.caseId = {!Case.Id}
Screen 3: [Create Records — Task]   ──►  session.taskId = {!Task.Id}
Screen 4: "Confirm submit?"  ──►  [Yes] → End
                                   [No]  → [Rollback Records] → [End]

If the user hits "No" at the confirm step, both created records get undone. This is superior to "Delete Records" because it handles compound writes atomically — deletes would need separate DML statements with their own failure modes.

Pattern 3 — Rollback with compensating Platform Event

When a Platform Event is published Publish Immediately and downstream subscribers have already acted, rolling back the local DML creates an inconsistency.

[Create Order]
     │
     ▼
[Publish Order_Created__e: Publish Immediately]  ◄── external billing system already charged
     │
     ▼
[Update Account — fault]
     │
     fault path
     ▼
[Rollback Records]      ◄── undoes Order + Account
[Publish Order_Cancelled__e] ◄── tell subscribers to undo their side

Publish-After-Commit would be better, but sometimes business constraints prevent the change. A compensating event is the recovery pattern.

Pattern 4 — Don't rollback on logging failure

[Business DML: Create + Update] ─── success ─►
     │
     ▼
[Log success to Integration_Log__c]  ─── fault path ─►  [Silent End]

A logging failure should NOT trigger rollback of the business work. The Silent End on the fault path is deliberate — the business work committed, the log failed, an admin can reconstruct from system logs later.

Bulk safety

• Rollback Records undoes all DML in the transaction, not just one record. Bulk is handled automatically.
• In a record-triggered flow processing 200 records, a fault in record #150 rolls back ALL 200 by default. If you need per-record rollback, use Apex (SavePoint) — Flow can't do per-record scope within a batch.
• Rollback counts against the transaction limits (the undo operations still use DML slots).

Error handling

• Rollback itself succeeds almost always. It's a platform primitive with minimal failure modes.
• Log BEFORE rolling back, not after — the log record would itself be rolled back.
• Fault path on the element AFTER rollback should capture rollback failures (rare, but possible if the session is corrupt).

Well-Architected mapping

• Reliability — rollback is the only way to get all-or-nothing semantics in Flow. Without it, partial commits accumulate garbage data that requires manual cleanup.
• Security — incomplete records may violate business rules (a Case without Account) that bypass validation. Rollback restores the invariant.

Gotchas

See references/gotchas.md.

Testing

In Apex test classes that invoke the flow:

@IsTest
static void testRollbackOnSecondDMLFailure() {
    // Setup: trigger a condition that makes the 2nd DML fail.
    Account a = new Account(Name='Test');
    insert a;
    // Pre-create a record that will collide with the flow's 2nd DML.
    ...

    Test.startTest();
    // Invoke flow; expect the whole transaction to rollback.
    try {
        Flow.Interview.MyFlow flow =
            new Flow.Interview.MyFlow(new Map<String, Object>{'accountId' => a.Id});
        flow.start();
    } catch (Exception e) {
        // Expected.
    }
    Test.stopTest();

    // Assert no Opportunity was created.
    System.assertEquals(0, [SELECT COUNT() FROM Opportunity WHERE AccountId = :a.Id]);
}

Official Sources Used

• Salesforce Help — Flow Rollback Records Element: https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sf.flow_ref_elements_rollback.htm
• Salesforce Help — Flow Fault Connector Paths: https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sf.flow_ref_faults.htm
• Salesforce Developer — Transaction Control in Flow and Apex: https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en-us.apexcode.meta/apexcode/apex_transaction_control.htm
• Salesforce Developer — Platform Events Developer Guide: https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en-us.platform_events.meta/platform_events/