Microsoft Dynamics CRM – Processes

Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a Customer Relationship Management software developed by Microsoft Corporation. It is used for managing a company’s relationship with customers and to organize, automate, and synchronize sales, marketing, customer service, and provides technical support. Microsoft Dynamics CRM users can customize dynamics CRM without code. It helps to reduce costs and increase a company’s profit.

Processes in Dynamics CRM helps customers to focus on their work instead of on remembering  to do a set of manual steps.

There are  four types of processes, each one is designed for a specific purpose in Dynamics CRM.

In this blog, We will discuss  two types of processes and their respective uses.

Business Process Flow

Business Process Flow provides working methods that guides customer through the processes using Stages and Steps to perform their tasks effectively.  Business process flow is divided into a set of stages, and each stage contains at least one step (fields in entity that are currently on). Moreover, we can customize the business flow based on the requirement by simply adding or removing steps , changing the orders, or adding new entities to the process. Each business process flow should not be more than 30 stages (each stage should not be more than 30 steps) and  allows a maximum of five  entities if it is a `multi-entity’ process.

Steps to Create a Business Process Flow in Dynamics CRM

To start with, we need to have a System Administrator or equivalent permission to create a business process flow.

• Go to Settings –> Processes –> On the Action Tool bar –> Click “New” button –> Now opens process dialog box for required fields.
  • Enter a process name(this does not need to be unique but at the same time it should be meaningful).
  • Select Business Process Flow (We cannot change the category once done) in the Category List.
  • Select the entity you want to base the process in the Entity List and then choose OK.
• Now the business process flow is created with predefined stage.

 

• Add stages using stage componentt, if your users will progress from one business stage to another in the process.
• select a category for the stage. The category (such asQualify or Develop) appears as a chevron in the process bar (Fig.3).

• Add steps in the stage using listed fields from the drop-down list(Entity Fields).
• Add a Work flowto stage from theComponents tab to a stage or to the Global Work flow item in the designer.
• Click Validate and Save the process as a draft if you want to work further on or Click “Activate” to make it available to your team.

Note : For Edit, Go to Settings –> Processes –> Business Process Flows and then select the business process flow you want to edit.

Work Flow

Workflows in Dynamic CRM is used to perform Automatic Processes  without any user interface and can optionally require a input from the customer. Workflows can be triggered based on specific conditions or to be started manually by the users.

Workflow Process Properties:

Process Name: Enter a process name(doesn’t need to be unique but at the same time it should be meaningful).

Active As: You can select Process template to create an advanced starting point for other templates. If you choose this option, after you activate the workflow it will not be applied but instead it will be available to select in the Create Process dialog if you select Type: New process from an existing template (select from list)

Process templates are convenient when you have a number of similar workflow processes and want to define them without duplicating the same logic.

Entit : Each workflow process must be set to a single entity. You can’t change the entity after the workflow process is created.

Category: Select Work flow Process (We can’t change the category once done) in the Category List.

Available to Run: To set the scope in which the workflow will run. Following are the supported workflow scopes

1. Run this Workflow in the background (recommended) – This check box reflects the option you selected when you created the workflow. This option is disabled, but you can change it from the Actionsmenu by choosing either Convert to a real-time workflow or Convert to a background workflow.
2. As an on-demand process – To select if we want to allow users to run this workflow from the Run Workflow
3. As a child process – Choose this option if you want to allow the workflow to be available to be started from another workflow.

Options for automatic Processes:

 Scope:   The workflow logic can be applied to any record in the organization if we select Organization (The default value is User). Otherwise, the workflow can only be applied to a subset of records that fall within the scope.

Start When:   Here , we can specify when a workflow should start automatically. You can configure a real-time workflow to be run before certain events. This is a very powerful capability because the workflow can stop the action before it occurs. The options are 1. record is created, 2. record status changes, 3. record is assigned, 4. record field value changes and 5. record is deleted.

Workflow Job Retention:

This is used to delete a workflow after the workflow execution has completed automatically(to save disk space).

 Workflow Steps:

 We can create a set of steps in logical stages which the workflow will follow based on actions that we are selected. For example , we will configure sending email to the customer in below images.

Steps:

• Add step –> Select “Send Mail” (Fig : 3.a)
• Next, A new step will be added. Enter its name as Send email to Customer. Click Set Properties(Fig: 3.b)

•  In the next window to configure email, perform the operations like From, To, Subject, and Body (We will set record values from entity or from related records that can be accessed from the N:1 (many-to-one) relationships for the entity)(Fig : 3.c).

Finally, In the Workflow Process , Click “Activate” to make it available process in the CRM.