Workflow in Salesforce | Salesforce Workflow Rules | Salesforce Training | Edureka Rewind

Key Takeaways

regularly sending emails or updating a particular field or sending messages to a particular person can be timec consuming and sometime may be forgotten about but you can automate all these actions in Salesforce with the help of workflow rules so today's session is all about workflows in Salesforce but before we get started I would like to address the agenda for today's session so we will start the session by understanding what exactly is workflows and Salesforce and then see what are the different types of actions that can be automatically performed with workflow rules next we'll talk about the evaluation criteria for workflow or basically when this automated actions are performed and then see some of the use cases of workflow automation finally we will conclude the session with the demo part where I will show you how to set a workflow rule in Salesforce now moving on to our first topic what are workflows in Salesforce now now workflow in Salesforce is a business logic engine which basically allows you to Define some rules which automate certain actions when a particular criteria or a condition is met in simple words workflow performs some action like sending an email or updating a field when a particular event happens or when a particular criteria is met for example every time an account is created an automatic email will be sent to a mail ID using the workflow rules now we'll be talking about all these actions and these criterias in the entire session also do watch a demo where I will show you how you can set a workflow rule for automatically sending an email now let us understand this better so each workflow rule consists of two main things one is the criteria and the other one is actions but before we get into this I want you to understand that you can set a criteria when a record has been created or when it has been updated now these records are only based on a single object now I'll just explain you what are object fields and Records so you'll understand this better so object and Salesforce are like leads accounts opportunities contacts or any other custom object and fields are basically the columns in the table that tells us about what is stored in the records and records are rows or any entry in the table this is basically the information of an individual now coming back to criteria now criteria is basically the condition that causes the workflow rules to run only if the condition is true the actions are automatically performed but if the condition is false then the workflow rules does not apply next is actions Now actions are automatic task which are performed after the criteria is met or when the condition is true so I guess you have some idea about what is workflow in Salesforce so let us now move on to a next topic and understand what are the automated actions that can be performed in workflows so firstly there are two types of workflow actions which actually vary with the time these actions are executed first is the immediate actions and the next is the time triggered actions now as both of the names suggest the immediate actions are the actions which are performed right after the criteria is met and the time triggered action are action that are performed after a time interval you can set a time when you want these actions to run after the particular time is done it checks for the criteria and if the criteria is true then it performs the automated actions for example you can automate a workflow rules which will send an email 30 minutes after an account is created so these are the variation of actions based on the time they run now let us understand what are the automatic actions that can be performed using the workflow rules so the first action is you can send emails you can automate a workflow rules to send email EMS to one or more recipient when the criteria is met so for example when a sales representative successfully closes a deal which means when a sales person convinces the customer to buy the product and when he Updates this to the sales record an email can be automatically sent to the sales team manager informing that the sales was done so this was about email action in workflow rules next we have field update now field update action lets you automatically update a field value so when a record is created or updated and you have set a criteria for field update and the criteria is met then a particular record field automatically changes just to give an example for this let's say a company gets lead only from a particular country so whenever a new lead is created the country field is automatically set to the particular country name so with this automated action you do not have to enter the country name over and over again the next action is Task task actions are basically a particular task that determines the detail of an assignment given to a specific user by an automated process you can send a notification email to the ass when a task is automatically created for example if an opportunity is closing in a few days and its amount is too high then you can automate action using workflow so an employee can look into that matter also task should only be assigned to roles if they have only one user assigned to that role if there are more than one user assigned to that role then the task is automatically assigned to the user who trigger the workflow rule after the task action we have outbound message an outbound message sends information which is basically a message to A designated endpoint like an external service you can configure what should be the content of the outbound messages from setup after you decide what the message content is you have to provide the external endpoint and create a listeners from the message using the soap apis this is basically sending a message to any external services or any external applications which are integrated with Salesforce also this outbound message will be in XML format so these were the different types of actions that can be performed using workflows and Salesforce now let us move on to next topic and see what are the evaluation criteria for workflow so evaluation criteria means when does workflow evaluate the rule or check for the condition so there are three evaluation criteria first is created this evaluates a workflow rule when a record is created so when a record is created it checks for the rule criteria and only when the rule criteria is met then it performs the automated action using this options the rule runs only once for example when a new lead is created then the workflow rule will send send an email next is created and every time it's updated now this evaluates a workflow rule when a record is created and updated so when a record is created and then updated it checks for the rule criteria and only when the rule criteria is met it performs the automated action also with this option the rule criteria runs repeatedly as long as the rule criteria is met the third evaluation criteria is created and any time is updated to subsequently meet criteria now this evaluates the workflow rule criteria every time a record is created or updated this usually happens in two condition the first case is when you create a new record it runs the rule if the rule criteria is met second for any updated record it runs 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 just to give an example for this suppose that for an opportunity record to meet the rule criteria the opportunity probability must be greater than 50% now if you create an opportunity with a probability of 75% the workflow rule runs but if you edit that opportunity but changing the probability to 25 then the rule will not run then if you edit the opportunity but 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 so these were the evaluation criteria for workflows and Salesforce now let us move on to our next topic and understand some use cases of workflow rules in Salesforce firstly workflow helps in Faster conversion of leads so when a new lead comes in you do not want to waste any time and try convincing the lead to buy your products now for those of you who don't know what a lead is now a lead is someone who is interested in buying a product and if you convince them enough they can even buy your product so you will have to respond to this lead as soon as possible else he or she might just look for the same product with some other company they can just set a workflow rules that when a new lead comes in and an email can be sent to a particular SS representative to look into it also let's say if a lead is not claimed within a day you can use workflow to send a email or a message to the sales manager to look into the matter and then assign a representative manually the Second Use case is it helps in providing better customer service so when a user has any problem he or she will reach out to the service team to solve the problem so now firstly you can set up a workflow email or a message to inform the service team that there is a customer query and also when a case is resolved you can set a workflow rule to automatically close the case after a particular amount of time so in this way the service team does not have to manually close the case after it has resulted it can be automatically done using workflows in Salesforce the next use case is minimizing human errors so now all the repeative task can sometime be timec consuming and you might also forget to send some emails or update some Fields also when you're sending a message or performing any task you can miss out on a few things let's say for example the service team individual might solve the case but but forget to close it now this could happen for various reason now you can just automate this repetitive task and every time the case is resolved it can be closed all these automated actions will help minimize human errors the next use case is tracking the sales processes Now setting up automated action using sales force workflow helps sales representative and the manager stay at top of their business so when the sales reps are dedicating the time to a specific customer other opportunities can be missed as they cannot give time to that so now for this email alerts can help them keep updated about the task also the sales manager can set up workflow rules to track competition or to assign task to users who have completed a task faster than the others also the sales manager can set up workflow rules to track competition or to assign task to users who have completed a task faster than the others and can also look into deals where the amount is very large and do many other things using workflows in Salesforce when you go deep into Salesforce workflow many things are possible so these were some of the use use cases for workflows and Salesforce now let us move on to a final topic for today which is the workflow demo so for my demo let me just log to my Salesforce account for that go to developer. salesforce.com so now let's just log in so click on sign in so if you're new to Salesforce and you haven't created your account yet it is very simple to create an account all you have to do is enter this details your first name your last name email ID your job role in the company your company's name country your postal ID and you can set a username over here then after you click on sign me up you'll get a mail to your email ID where you'll have a link and a username so when you click on the link it will ask you to set your password then after you create a password you can just log to a save Force account with the username and the password now as I already have an account let me just login so I'll select my username enter my password now for people who are new to Salesforce this is what the Salesforce console would look like now if you do not find setup in the starting just go to setup over here now here we'll just search for workflow rules we'll select workflow rules from here now here you can see it will explain what exactly is workflow workflow automates the following types of action based on your organization processes it can perform task email alerts field updates and outbound messages all of this we have talked about in the theory session here are some of the example of the workflow actions like for task you can assign followup task to a support rep once a week after the case is updated then you have an example for email alerts field updates and outbound messages after that you can read that each workflow rule consists of two things criteria and the actions after you've read this properly just click on continue now we're going to set a new rule so I'll click on new rule now it ask us which object do we want to set the workflow rule on so for a demo we're going to create a workflow rule that will automatically send an email to me whenever a large deal in opportunity is created so our object will be opportunity here so I'll just select opportunity from here and click on next this is the step one you have to select the object on which you have to apply the workflow rule next you have to name a rule so I'll just name a rule as demo opportunity and if you want you can add a description about the rule I'll just give the description as opportunity deal greater than 100,000 next we have to decide the evaluation criteria now here we'll choose created and every time it's edited to subsequently meet the criteria so every time the opportunity amount is greater than 100,000 I should get an email here we'll keep it the same when criteria are met now here we can set which field in the object opportunity has to be changed so I want amount so first we have amount we'll just select it now here we have operator if amount equals to not equals to starts with contains all this are the operator you can select from now now I'll select if amount is greater or equal to 100,000 and you can also specify any other condition along with that now after you set this condition which is the rule criteria just click on Save and next now this is your second step now in the third step you should specify the workflow action here is a condition now in order to set up a workflow action we need to add workflow action from here you can select any task from the option we'll select new email alert so here you need to give the description of the email alert so let's say opportunity amount greater than 100,000 next we have to give a unique name to our email alert so let it be opportunity amount itself next we need to select an email template now if you do not already have an email template I will show you how you can create a new email template so for that just go to any one of the console just go to a new tab in Salesforce go to view all and here search for email templates here it is and now click on new email template so firstly we have to name the email template so let's just name it opportunity and if you want you can add any entity type so it is not necessary we'll just let that be next you can select in which folder will be the new email template saved we'll just select the public email template now here is the body of the email template now email template is nothing but what should be the content of the email which is supposed to be sent so here we'll add a subject saying opportunity amount greater than 100,000 the body start off with hello an opportunity is created whose amount exceeds exceeds 100,000 kindly look into this I'll type an opportunity is created whose amount exceeds 100,000 kindly look into this after this thank you so let me just save this now this is saved as the name of opportunity so I'll click on Save now you can see our email template opportunity was created so let me just go back and just select the opportunity email template now here you can see there is no opportunity email template that is because I'm in the classic user interface so let me just go to lightning and see here is our email template opportunity now here you can select to whom will the email be sent to so one the email to be sent to me so I click on this and I'll add it now if you want you can also add five more additional email IDs over here next here you need to select from whose email ID do you want the email to be sent to now as there is only one I'll just go with the current user email ID and just click on Save and then click on done now workflow rule is created now all you have to do is activate this now my workflow rule is activated so in order to test the workflow rule let us create an opportunity whose amount is greater than 100,000 so I'll just go to opportunity here and I'll create a new opportunity the amount here I'll enter as 110,000 the close date I'll just select any random date let me just keep it as 15th August the name of the opportunity let's just Callum test opportunity and then the stage will set it as qualification I guess no other fields are mandatory so I'll just click on Save now after I save this opportunity an email should be sent to my email account so let me just go check see we have got the email here is the subject opportunity amount greater than 100,000 and here is the body of our email hello an opportunity is created whose amount exceeds 100,000 kindly look into this thank you so you see it is very simple and effective to create a workflow rule in Salesforce and with this we have come to the end of the session and I hope this was helpful do comment your valuable thoughts in the comment section below happy learning