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About Workflow Rules

Workflow is the management and coordination of work actions to support business processes. Siebel CRM On Demand allows you to use workflow rules to configure the system to perform certain work actions automatically. A workflow rule is an instruction to the system to perform one or more actions each time a specified event occurs.

About Setting Up Workflow Rules Functionality

To enable the workflow rules functionality in Siebel CRM On Demand, your application must be configured by Customer Care and by your company administrator:

  • Customer Care setup. When workflow is set up by Customer Care, the Administer Workflow Rules link is visible in the Business Process Management section of the Admin Homepage. Also, the Administrator user role has the Manage Data Rules - Manage Workflow Rules privilege enabled. For more information about user roles, see Adding Roles.
  • Enable Workflow option. Workflow rules cannot be executed until the company administrator selects the Enable Workflow check box on the Company Profile page. For information about configuring your company profile, see Setting Up Your Company Profile and Global Defaults.
  • Integration events. If your company wants to use workflow rules to create integration events, contact Customer Care to request support for Integration Event Administration and to specify the size of the Integration Queue you require. For more information about managing integration events, see About Integration Events.
  • Books. If your company wants to use workflow rules to update the associations between records and books, contact Customer Care to request support for Book Management. For more information about book management, see Setting Up Books.

Workflow Rule Trigger Events and Actions

A workflow rule is evaluated when the event specified on the rule (the trigger event) occurs. If the conditions on the rule are met (or if there are no conditions on the rule), the actions specified on the rule are performed.

For example, you can create a workflow rule to specify that when an opportunity is created (the workflow rule trigger event), an email is to be sent to the opportunity owner's manager (the workflow rule action). You can also specify that the email is to be sent only if the revenue on the opportunity is in excess of a certain amount (the workflow rule condition), and you can specify the content of the email.

Workflow rules can be triggered when:

  • A record is created, updated, or deleted.
  • A record is associated with another record, or dissociated from another record.

    Association and dissociation workflow rule triggers are supported only for associations between accounts and contacts, and between opportunities and contacts.

You cannot configure time-based workflow rules—for example, you cannot configure rules that are triggered by a record's due date having passed, or by a record not having been worked on for some time. Workflow rules are configured for a record as a whole, and not for individual fields.

There are six types of trigger events. Depending on the trigger event, you can specify that the system is to automatically perform one or more actions when the workflow rule conditions are met.

NOTE: After a rule is created, you cannot change the record type or trigger event on the rule. However, you can update the workflow condition.

The following table shows the actions that are available for each trigger event.

Trigger Event

Available Actions

When new record saved

  • Create Email Notification
  • Create Task
  • Assign a Book
  • Create Integration Event

When modified record saved

  • Create Email Notification
  • Create Task
  • Assign a Book
  • Create Integration Event

When record is deleted

  • Create Email Notification
  • Create Task
  • Create Integration Event

Before modified record saved

  • Update Values

After association with parent

  • Create Email Notification
  • Create Integration Event

After dissociation from parent

  • Create Email Notification
  • Create Integration Event

The following information applies to workflow rules and rule actions:

  • Workflow rule conditions. If you define conditions on a workflow rule, the workflow rule actions are performed only if the rule conditions are met when the rule is triggered. If the conditions are not met, the actions are not performed. If you do not define any conditions on a workflow rule, the workflow rule actions are performed each time the rule is triggered.
  • Multiple actions on workflow rules. If you specify more than one action for a workflow rule, the actions are performed in the order specified on the workflow rule, starting with the action numbered 1. Each action is completed before the next action starts. You can change the order of the actions on a rule.
  • Record types. You can create workflow rules for a number of record types. However, each workflow rule applies to only one record type. This means that if you create a workflow rule for a specific record type and you want the same action to occur for another record type, you must create a second workflow rule (with the same trigger event, rule conditions, and action) for the second record type.
  • Single-record context. A workflow rule that is triggered when a record is created, updated, or deleted, is restricted to work in the context of a single record—that is, such a workflow rule can access and update fields on only one record.

    NOTE: When a workflow rule is triggered by a record association or dissociation action, the integration event created by the workflow can contain fields from both the child record and the parent record.

  • The Update Values action. The Update Values action allows you to update fields automatically when a record is changed, without losing the information about the original change (that is, information about when the record was changed, by whom, and what was changed).
  • Integration events. An integration event is a mechanism for triggering external processes based on changes (create, update, delete, associate, dissociate) to the records in the CRM On Demand application. You can specify which fields on a record are to be tracked. When the value changes in a tracked field, the change will be recorded in an integration event. For more information about integration events, see About Integration Events.

Association and Dissociation Trigger Events

Association and dissociation trigger events on workflow rules are supported only for associations between accounts and contacts, and between opportunities and contacts. The actions that are available for association and dissociation trigger events are as follows:

  • Create Email notification
  • Create integration event

The following table describes the actions that can trigger an association or dissociation workflow rule. It also shows the integration events that are generated by the workflow rule in each case (if an integration event action is configured on the workflow rule).

NOTE: Depending on the data in the records, additional integration events can be generated. For example, if a new contact created on an account is the primary contact for the account, an additional (account update) integration event is generated.

Action

Parent Record

Child Record

Channel

Integration Event

Create a new contact on an account.

Account

Contact

User Interface

Account: Update

Contact : Insert

Contact: Associate

Web Services

Contact: Insert

Contact: Associate

Account: Update

Link an existing contact to an account.

Account

Contact

User Interface

Account Contact: Insert

Contact: Update

Web Services

Contact: Associate

Account: Update

Remove a contact from an account.

Account

Contact

User Interface

Account Contact: Delete

Contact: Update

Web Services

Contact: Dissociate

Account: Update

Link an existing account to a contact.

Contact

Account

User Interface

Account Contact: Insert

Account: Update

Web Services

Account Contact: Insert

Contact: Update

Remove an account from a contact.

Contact

Account

User Interface

Account Contact: Delete

Contact: Update

Web Services

Account Contact: Delete

Contact: Update

Create a new opportunity on a contact.

Contact

Opportunity

User Interface

Opportunity: Insert

Opportunity: Associate

Web Services

Opportunity: Insert

Opportunity: Associate

Contact: Update

Remove an opportunity from a contact.

Contact

Opportunity

User Interface

Opportunity: Dissociate

Web Services

Opportunity: Dissociate

Create a new contact on an opportunity.

NOTE: This action is not available through the user interface.

Opportunity

Contact

Web Services

Contact: Insert

Contact: Associate

Link an existing contact to an opportunity.

Opportunity

Contact

User Interface

Opportunity: Update

Opportunity Contact Role: Insert

Web Services

Contact: Associate

Opportunity: Update

Remove a contact from an opportunity.

Opportunity

Contact

User Interface

Opportunity Contact Role: Delete

Contact: Update

Opportunity: Update

Web Services

Contact: Dissociate

Opportunity: Update

Workflow Rule Action Failures

If a workflow rule action fails to complete, the following happens:

  • If an Update Value action fails, the operation that triggered the rule is blocked and none of the other actions on the workflow rule are performed. An error message displays to tell the user that the operation has failed.
  • If any other type of workflow rule action fails, the user gets an error message but the operation that triggered the rule is not blocked, and other actions on the rule are performed.

Latency

Workflow rules are evaluated in sequence and synchronously. Therefore, until all the rules are evaluated, the overall update operation is not completed. Workflow rules add a certain amount of latency to operations (that is, the time between the start of an operation and its completion). For example, each task created by a workflow rule can add as much as 20% latency to a record update operation. Each email created by a workflow rule adds about 5% latency.

Expressions take less time to evaluate. To minimize latency, add restrictive expressions in your workflow conditions, so that the actions are executed only when necessary. Build your workflow rules incrementally, keeping performance in mind.

Click a topic to see step-by-step procedures to do the following:


Published May 2008