Time and Condition Based Workflows in CRM 2011

Posted on October 12, 2012 by JoeCRM

Workflows and dialogues in Dynamics CRM are great technologies that support and automate business processes. In this post, we’ll focus on how to create time and condition-based workflows in CRM 2011.

There are times when we need to send reminder emails to our employees or clients in order to get things done. For example, in your IT department, you may have a policy that requires support staff to follow up with clients within three days of them opening a case with you. If a follow up is not initiated (status of case is not changed), you send a reminder email to the owner of the case. Similarly, if the estimated close date on an opportunity is reached, a reminder email may need to be sent to the salesperson. We know that workflows can be created that can send out automated reminder emails to people. But how do we make them wait for a certain number of days?

We make them wait by using “Timeout” in the workflow.

Note: “Timeout” is a substep within the “Wait” Step.

workflows in CRM 2011: timeout substep

Save and Close, and add a step to send an email after the timeout:

workflows in Dynamics CRM: send an email after timeout

And that’s it! Now, the workflow would send an email right after two days of the “Created On” date on the Case record.

Other times our workflows in CRM 2011 have to wait for certain conditions in order to proceed with the next set of actions. For example, let’s say your company has an account manager who handles accounts that have more than 50 employees. In this case, whenever the “No. of Employees” field for a certain Account record is updated to more than 50, the Account would automatically be assigned to that account manager. In this scenario, you would use the “Wait” condition.

workflows in CRM 2011: wait condition

So, essentially, you would want to use “Wait” when a value on your record needs to change for further steps to take place, and “Wait->Timeout”  when a step needs to trigger after a certain time frame.

That’s your quick guide to creating time and condition-based workflows in CRM 2011! Here are some additional posts on workflows that you might be interested in:

Happy CRM’ing!

My Twitter profileMy Google+ profile

JoeCRM

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Expert at PowerObjects
Joe CRM is a CRM superhero who runs on pure Microsoft Dynamics CRM adrenaline. As the face of PowerObjects, Joe CRM’s mission is to reveal innovative ways to use Dynamics CRM and bring the application to more business and organizations around the world.
This entry was posted in CRM 101 and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink.
  • Rags

    Want a workflow which should be triggered after the user finished 48 WORKING hours since the lead is assigned to him. ASAP. Please help.

    • alexfagundes

      Hi Rags – This can be done by having a workflow that runs either on create OR on assign of a lead. It will depend on your process. If a lead is created, then someone assigns the lead, have your workflow run on ‘assign’ then simply timeout for 48 hours. Now wiht crm out of the box we can not determine working hours. If you are on prem you can download and use this workflow extension that will allow you to calculate ‘business days’. If you are in crm online you will need to wait until the dec update to have custom workflows OR write custom code in a ‘plugin’. If you are interested in a plugin right now, please contact us.
      Here’s the codeplex workflow extension that currently works in crm 2011 on prem and in Dec will work online too.
      http://manipulationlibrary.codeplex.com/

  • http://www.facebook.com/nadan.hotic Nadan Hotić

    want to timeout for 1 minute after the lead is created so i can be sure that ClickDimension fills all data in. my workflow triggers on create BUT it fails because some data are still missing to be set on my lead form.

    • alexfagundes

      Hi Nodan – is your timeout workflow failing or the other part that does NOT find the appropriate data? Timeout are tipicaly very reliable.

      • http://www.facebook.com/nadan.hotic Nadan Hotić

        its my timeout that goes crazy. i have made it so it waits for 2 minutes after the last change has been done to the form. but when i test it out the workflow is set to wait til year 9999

        • alexfagundes

          Hi Nadan – if you are using crm on premises, make sure you are in one of the later update rollups. I have not seen the timeout condition fail like this before. If you are using crm on online, open a ticket with MIcrosoft as something appears to not be right….

  • Mandy

    How can i rate an opportunity on the basis of the no. of days left for the closure. eg in case the Estimated Closure Date lies between next 30 days the rating should be Hot.

    • alexfagundes

      Hi Mandy,
      One option is to have a workflow that runs on create of the opportunity. then have this workflow set the rating based on closure date, wait 1 day, and re-run itself. So basicaly you have a workflow that re-runs on the opportunity every day to set the rating, then quits when the opp is lost or won.

      • Mandy

        Can you send the details on how can i accomplish this.

  • Jake

    I’m trying to build a workflow with several timeouts. For instance, when a contract is 3 months before its end date send email A. When it is 3 months after its expiry date send email B. I set it up that way but it send all emails at once and basically ignores the dates.
    Any suggestions or tricks for this? Do I have to organize the workflow steps in a certain order?

  • Saima

    I am creating a workflow where an email should be sent 60 days before the contract end date and then 3 days before the contract end date. The System Job shows the workflow status as ‘Waiting’ continuously. That means if a contract will expire after one year from now, the workflow will remain in ‘Waiting’ state for the entire year and will be changed to ‘Succeeded’ only when the condition is met. Could you please advise how to create this process so that it does not remain in waiting state for so long? Is there some way that workflow wakes up only once a day to check the condition?
    We are using CRM Online and I am new to workflows. Thanks in advance.