Workflow and Approvals Overview

Workflow and Approvals Overview

Organization’s standard processes are automated by workflow and approvals.

Workflows

Each workflow rule consists of –

1. Criteria that determine when Salesforce executes workflow rule.
2. Immediate action to be taken when the workflow rule executes.
3. Time-dependent actions that Salesforce queues when the workflow rule executes.

Workflow automates the following types of actions:

1. Email alerts
2. Tasks
3. Field updates
4. Outbound messages -

Workflow evaluation criteria

created	Evaluate the rule criteria each time a record is created. If the rule criteria is met, run the rule. Ignore all updates to existing records. With this option, the rule never runs more than once per record.
created, and every time it’s edited	Evaluate the rule criteria each time a record is created or updated. If the rule criteria is met, run the rule. With this option, the rule repeatedly runs every time a record is edited, as long as the record meets the rule criteria. Note You can't add time-dependent actions to the rule if you select this option.
created, and any time it’s edited to subsequently meet criteria	(Default) Evaluate the rule criteria each time a record is created or updated. §  For a new record, run the rule if the rule criteria is met. §  For an updated record, run the rule only if the record is changed from not meeting the rule criteria to meeting the rule criteria. With this option, the rule can run multiple times per record, but it won’t run when the record edits are unrelated to the rule criteria. For example, suppose that for an opportunity record to meet the rule criteria, the opportunity probability must be greater than 50%. If you create an opportunity with a probability of 75%, the workflow rule runs. If you edit that opportunity by changing the probability to 25%, the edit doesn’t cause the rule to run. If you then edit that opportunity by changing the probability from 25% to 75%, the edit causes the rule to run. With this last edit, the rule runs because the record is changed from not meeting the rule criteria to meeting the rule criteria.

Approvals

An approval process is an automated process your organization can use to approve records in Salesforce. An approval process specifies the steps necessary for a record to be approved and who must approve it at each step. A step can apply to all records included in the process, or just records that meet certain administrator-defined criteria. An approval process also specifies the actions to take when a record is approved, rejected, recalled, or first submitted for approval.