Create consistent business processes for your organization

Article
02/16/2022

This topic applies to Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement (on-premises). For the Power Apps version of this topic, see: Apply custom business logic with business rules and flows in model-driven apps

Defining and enforcing consistent business processes is one of the main reasons people use Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement (on-premises). Consistent processes help make sure people using the system can focus on their work and not on remembering to perform a set of manual steps. Processes can be simple or complex and can change over time.

Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement (on-premises) includes four types of processes, each designed for a different purpose:

Business process flows
Mobile task flows
Workflows
Actions

Similar to processes, you can also create business rules and recommendations. For more information, see Create business rules and recommendations to apply logic in a form

When to use business process flows

Use a business process flow when you want staff to move through the same stages and follow the same steps to interact with a customer. For example, use a business process flow if you want everyone to handle customer service requests the same way, or to require staff to gain approval for an invoice before submitting an order.

Your environment includes several ready-to-use business process flows for common sales, service, and marketing tasks that you can use with little or no changes required. Or, you can create your own. See the following topics for more information on business process flows:

When to use mobile task flows

You can also design a type of business process flow called a task flow in Dynamics 365 for phones or Dynamics 365 for tablets based on common tasks your users perform. For example, if they need to regularly perform a series of follow-up steps after client meetings, create a task flow. When users tap the new task in their mobile app, it will lead them through from start to finish so they don't forget an important step. For more information on task flows, see the following topics:

Create a mobile task flow

When to use workflows

Use workflows to automate business processes behind the scenes. Workflows are typically initiated by system events so the user doesn't need to be aware that they are running. Workflows that operate in the background are "asynchronous." Workflows can also be configured for people to manually initiate them. when you want to automate common tasks, such as automatically sending a confirmation email to a customer when an order ships. Workflows that operate in real time are "synchronous." For more information on workflows, see Workflow processes

When to use Actions

Use Actions when you want to automate a series of commands in the system. Actions expand the vocabulary available for developers to express business processes. With core verbs like Create, Update, Delete, and Assign provided by the system, a Action uses those core verbs to create more expressive verbs like Approve, Escalate, Route, or Schedule. If the definition of a business process changes, someone who isn’t a developer can edit the Action so the code doesn’t need to be changed. For more information on Actions, see Actions

When to use Power Automate

Use Power Automate when you need to create automated workflows that perform actions between your environment and favorite app or service, such as Customer Engagement, Twitter, Dropbox, Google services, Microsoft 365, and SharePoint. You can trigger a flow based on a specific action, or invoke from within your app. More information: Use Power Automate to automate processes across services

Where do I go to create processes?

There are two paths to navigate to processes:

Settings>Processes. in Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement (on-premises) this path is easiest to access and allows you to use views defined for the Process entity, including any custom views.
In solution explorer. Components > Processes. This path provides convenient access when you are doing other customization work in the customization tools.

Individual business process flows can also be edited using the Edit Process button in the command bar for the form where the business process flow is active.

Who can create processes?

Only people with the System Administrator, System Customizer, or CEO-Business Manager security role can create processes that apply to the whole organization. People with other roles can create processes with limited access level. For example, people with the User access level can create workflows for their own use with records they own.

The following table shows the access level of processes based on default security roles.

Security role	Access level
CEO-Business Manager	Organization
System Administrator	Organization
System Customizer	Organization
Vice President of Marketing	Parent: Child Business Units
Vice President of Sales	Parent: Child Business Units
Service Manager	Business Unit
Marketing Manager	Business Unit
Sales Manager	Business Unit
Schedule Manager	Business Unit
Customer Service Representative	User
Marketing Professional	User
Salesperson	User
Scheduler	User

Note

While people may be able to create business process flow, real-time workflow, or action processes, they’ll need to have the Activate Business Process Flows or Activate Real-time Processes privileges to activate them.

More about workflows and Actions

Processes can check conditions, apply branching logic, and perform actions. They perform these actions in a series of steps. The following table describes the available steps in workflow and action processes. For more detail see the topics for each type of process.

Step	Process type	Description
Stage	Workflow, Action	Stages make the workflow logic easier to read, and explain the workflow logic. However, stages don’t affect the logic or behavior of workflows. If a process has stages, all the steps in the process must be contained with a stage.
Check Condition	Workflow, Action	A logical "if-<condition> then" statement. You can check values for the record that the workflow is running on, any of the records linked to that record in an N:1 relationship, or any records created by earlier steps. Based on these values you can define additional steps when the condition is `true`.
Conditional Branch	Workflow, Action	A logical "else-if-then" statement, the editor uses the text “Otherwise, if <condition> then:” Select a check condition you have previously defined and you can add a conditional branch to define additional steps when the check condition returns `false`.
Default Action	Workflow, Action	A logical "else" statement. the editor uses the text “Otherwise:” Select a check condition, conditional branch, wait condition, or parallel wait branch that you have previously defined and you can use a default action to define steps for all cases that don’t match the criteria defined in condition or branch elements.
Wait Condition	Background Workflow Only	Enables a background workflow to pause itself until the criteria defined by the condition have been met. The workflow starts again automatically when the criteria in the wait condition have been met.
Parallel Wait Branch	Background Workflow Only	Defines an alternative wait condition for a background workflow with a corresponding set of additional steps that are performed only when the initial criterion is met. You can use parallel wait branches to create time limits in your workflow logic. They help prevent the workflow from waiting indefinitely until the criteria defined in a wait condition have been met.
Assign Value	Action	Sets a value to a variable or output parameter in the process.
Create Record	Workflow, Action	Creates a new record for an entity and assigns values to attributes.
Update Record	Workflow, Action	You can update the record that the workflow is running on, any of the records linked to that record in an N:1 relationship, or any records created by earlier steps.
Assign Record	Workflow, Action	You can assign the record that the workflow is running on, any of the records linked to that record with an N:1 relationship, or any records created by earlier steps.
Send Email	Workflow, Action	Sends an email. You can choose to create a new email message or use an email template configured for the entity of the record that the workflow is running on or any entities that have an N:1 relationship with the entity, or the entity for any records created by earlier steps.
Start Child Workflow	Workflow, Action	Starts a workflow process that has been configured as a child workflow.
Change Status	Workflow, Action	Changes the status of the record that the process is running on, any of the records linked to that record with an N:1 relationship, or any records created by earlier steps.
Stop Workflow	Workflow, Action	Stops the current workflow or action. You can set a status of either Succeeded or Canceled and specify a status message.
Custom Step	Workflow, Action	Provides extensions to the logical elements available by default. Steps can include conditions, actions, other steps, or a combination of these elements. Developers can create custom workflow steps. By default, there are no custom steps available.

For more information for developers, see the Developer Guide topic Automate your business processes in Customer Engagement apps.

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