What is Salesforce Workflow?
Workflow in force.com, is business logic and in this post I will try to explain it.
In force.com, you can create custom objects and then you can create relationships on your custom objects according to the application data model you have designed. Very good, but if you don't have workflow, your force.com app will be nothing more than a lousy database. A mere database to enter and search records. What is salesforce anyway? Isn't it a data-centric, based around a database application building platform? Another database front end?
Not, just that! Force.com workflow will bring this database into life. Instead of being a stagnant repository of passive and past data, it will become a forward thinking and forward acting alive database. Maybe the thinking bit was a bit of an exaggeration but nevertheless, deductive databases is what we want, isn't it? Maybe one day...
What the force.com workflow engine does is things like: automatically send email alerts, assign tasks, or update field values based on rules that we define. That is it's job, and that is exactly what it does. The force.com workflow engine, based on rules we define, can:
When does the workflow action fire?
So a workflow can do all these things. That is great! But when? Based on what? It is nice to have the ability to send emails and update fields, but what determines or induces these actions? Well the answer is, The Workflow Rule.
The workflow rule is the main container where all these events are included and are programmed to execute. They execute only when certain workflow 'evaluation criteria' and workflow 'rule criteria' are met.
That is, the workflow rule is basically watching a custom object (it can only watch over one custom object at a time) and when certain evaluation criteria on the watched custom object and rule criteria (a condition) are met, bang!... Then it activates (fires) the workflow actions and does all the things the workflow can do, like send emails, field updates etc. It sounds so much like a database trigger, hmm... doesn't it?
The 'evaluation criteria' tells the workflow rule when to watch the custom object.
The 'rule criteria' tells the workflow rule when to fire the events and based on what condition.
The 'evaluation criteria' and 'rule criteria' together must be met successfully for the workflow rule to fire.
Now, for the workflow rule 'evaluation criteria' we have predetermined choices and these are:
1. When a record is created, or when a record is edited and did not previously meet the rule criteria (this again and again repeatedly triggers the rule every
time a record is saved only until the rule's criteria are met, then it stops, sort of once only if you can say, subsequent edits are ignored)
2. Only when a record is created (this ignores updates to existing records)
3. Every time a record is created or edited (which repeatedly triggers the rule every time the record is saved, it does this only when the rule criteria is met as well).
These are the only times that we can choose for a workflow to be evaluated. Remember evaluation is not enough, the 'rule criteria' has to be met as well for the workflow actions to fire!
For setting the 'rule criteria' we have 2 options. We can use a filter like setup, a condition on the watched/associated custom object, i.e when the Status field of the custom object equals to Open(Status=Open) then fire the workflow or when a Formula Expression evaluates to true.
So to summarise, we can send emails, update fields and do outbound web service calls from force.com using workflow. This is easy to setup, is based on an object and the evaluation and rule criteria must be satisfied for the workflow to fire. Well quite handy piece of work from salesforce, so you don't need to write your own workflows any more! The mantra 'No Software' used in Salesforce's adverts suits this well.
What are you waiting for? Use your Free developer.force.com account login and go to Setup > Create > Workflow & Approvals > Workflow Rules and start practising.
Workflow in force.com, is business logic and in this post I will try to explain it.
In force.com, you can create custom objects and then you can create relationships on your custom objects according to the application data model you have designed. Very good, but if you don't have workflow, your force.com app will be nothing more than a lousy database. A mere database to enter and search records. What is salesforce anyway? Isn't it a data-centric, based around a database application building platform? Another database front end?
Not, just that! Force.com workflow will bring this database into life. Instead of being a stagnant repository of passive and past data, it will become a forward thinking and forward acting alive database. Maybe the thinking bit was a bit of an exaggeration but nevertheless, deductive databases is what we want, isn't it? Maybe one day...
What the force.com workflow engine does is things like: automatically send email alerts, assign tasks, or update field values based on rules that we define. That is it's job, and that is exactly what it does. The force.com workflow engine, based on rules we define, can:
- Assign a 'Task' to a force.com user
- Send an email alert to 'anyone' (a valid email will suffice).
- Update the field of a particular record on an object
- Send an outbound message to an external system, things like webservice call, SOAP etc.
When does the workflow action fire?
So a workflow can do all these things. That is great! But when? Based on what? It is nice to have the ability to send emails and update fields, but what determines or induces these actions? Well the answer is, The Workflow Rule.
The workflow rule is the main container where all these events are included and are programmed to execute. They execute only when certain workflow 'evaluation criteria' and workflow 'rule criteria' are met.
That is, the workflow rule is basically watching a custom object (it can only watch over one custom object at a time) and when certain evaluation criteria on the watched custom object and rule criteria (a condition) are met, bang!... Then it activates (fires) the workflow actions and does all the things the workflow can do, like send emails, field updates etc. It sounds so much like a database trigger, hmm... doesn't it?
The 'evaluation criteria' tells the workflow rule when to watch the custom object.
The 'rule criteria' tells the workflow rule when to fire the events and based on what condition.
The 'evaluation criteria' and 'rule criteria' together must be met successfully for the workflow rule to fire.
Now, for the workflow rule 'evaluation criteria' we have predetermined choices and these are:
1. When a record is created, or when a record is edited and did not previously meet the rule criteria (this again and again repeatedly triggers the rule every
time a record is saved only until the rule's criteria are met, then it stops, sort of once only if you can say, subsequent edits are ignored)
2. Only when a record is created (this ignores updates to existing records)
3. Every time a record is created or edited (which repeatedly triggers the rule every time the record is saved, it does this only when the rule criteria is met as well).
These are the only times that we can choose for a workflow to be evaluated. Remember evaluation is not enough, the 'rule criteria' has to be met as well for the workflow actions to fire!
For setting the 'rule criteria' we have 2 options. We can use a filter like setup, a condition on the watched/associated custom object, i.e when the Status field of the custom object equals to Open(Status=Open) then fire the workflow or when a Formula Expression evaluates to true.
So to summarise, we can send emails, update fields and do outbound web service calls from force.com using workflow. This is easy to setup, is based on an object and the evaluation and rule criteria must be satisfied for the workflow to fire. Well quite handy piece of work from salesforce, so you don't need to write your own workflows any more! The mantra 'No Software' used in Salesforce's adverts suits this well.
What are you waiting for? Use your Free developer.force.com account login and go to Setup > Create > Workflow & Approvals > Workflow Rules and start practising.
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