I'm about to talk myself out of work

Read Time: 2 Minutes

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Every week we get forwarded at least 1 Salesforce error message from one of our clients asking us what it means.

Don’t blame them.

These emails look like a pile of code shoved into 1 run-on sentence.

BUT

If you know what to look for in that pile of mess, it’s really easy to figure out what the issue is and high chance you can solve the problem yourself.

And today I’m going to teach you that so you can stop paying people like me for a 2 minute fix you can do on your own.

Every error has 3 parts:

#1 = What broke: Either an all-caps error code (FIELD_CUSTOM_VALIDATION_EXCEPTION, REQUIRED_FIELD_MISSING) or the name of the thing that failed (a flow element, a trigger, an action). This tells you the type of problem.

#2 = Where it broke: The object, field, record, or flow it hit.

#3 = Why it broke: The rule, decision path, or trigger that fired. If Salesforce gave you a custom message, that's usually the literal fix.

Here’s a real example 👇

Here’s how you’d read this

#1) A flow action called Send_Second_Reminder failed with "Probably Limit Exceeded or 0 recipients."

Now I know what automation and where in that automation it broke. This is usually all I glance for at the top of the email. What thing broke. What’s the name.

#2) Inside the Send_CSAT_Reminders flow, on a CSAT_Survey__c record (ID a0sfn000000Z5BPAA0).

This tells me specifically where in that automation it broke and what record in salesforce was affected by it. Now I have specifics to look at if I want to.

#3) Salesforce literally hands you the 2 possible causes in the error message. Either the org hit a daily email limit... or the recipient field on the email action was empty.

You’ll get familiar with the language as you read more of these but what stands out to me here is “0 recipients”. I know that means there was a missing email.

Now no more guessing.

And if you’re a CRO, CTO, or RevOps manager and want to know how to handle these more in depth, check out the free video below.

How to Read Salesforce Error Emails