1. Best Practices for Workflow, Dialogs and Business Process Flows
Sarahlynn Reinhart
Independent CRM Consultant

2. Workflows Don’t need a users interaction to work on their own
Can be triggered manually and or by an event

3. Crm Admin Account Have one admin account that owns all processes
Allows for control of updates, deleting and issues to be managed
It allows for someone to leave the company and the workflows to still exist wo having to transfer to another user
This way one account never leaves the system and can be taken over by other people in the Admin Role

4. Naming Conventions Stick with a formula for the Name Convention
While it may be clear to the person creating the workflow, it is not always clear to others
Entity_Grouping_Description
Ex. Opportunity_SalesProcess_Task1
That way it will group it in with other workflows to make it easier to organize
Note: Some people like to use the description of the workflow only in the naming convention. It can get a disorganized when there are 50+ processes you are searching through

6. Set the scope accuracy
Make sure to set the scope correctly before proceeding with the workflow
It is important to understand how a workflow will run if it is a user-level process versus how the same workflow will run if it is an organization-level process!

7. Create a Workflow Temp
This is handy for when you are unit testing the workflow
It allows you to make changes to the activated workflow and not worry about having to remember your original steps in the workflow
Also on longer workflows its nice to have as a back-up incase it some how gets deleted

8. Automatically delete Log Files
Helps with disk space and storage
Will not delete until the workflow has been marked successful in the system
Will show as checked must be unchecked to automatically delete

9. Flow Chart you dialog
Helps to map out the different directions your dialog can go
Helps to make sure you don’t miss important steps

10. Business Process Flows
A visual representation of business processes can add value to any organization, whether it’s about working a sales opportunity to close or assisting customers through a support issue

11. Managers Input
Always demo this to the person who makes the decisions early on
Get their input on what exactly the qualifications for the business process should be and how this tool can help their users
Find out how they expect the end user to use this tool on a day to day function

12. design by user roles
Start with a standard business process and then customize it to the needs of each Department
Example: Different business process flows for unique sales business units, as they may sell different services and are evaluated according to different performance standards.

13. Add Required Fields
This helps to keep the user on track with the step by step process and no data is missed
It’s beneficial to add all required fields to the business process flow for easy access.
Business process flows can assign some fields as required before the record can transition to the next stage

14. Keep it simple on display
Due to size limitations of business process flows, keep short labels as CRM will not display the full label if it’s too long.
Business process flows allow you to assign unique custom labels for each of the fields when in customization mode.
Business process flows can only contain up to nine (9) fields comfortably by stage.
Any more fields than that may not display properly on the users screen.

16. Dialogs
Are interactive and must have a users interaction to work correctly
Must be triggered manually

17. Naming Conventions Dialog Dialog Page Dialog Page Field
Entity Description
Dialog Page
Number Description
Dialog Page Field
Description
Multiple Pages can create multiple Dialogs

18. Anyone have best practices to add to workflow, Dialog or Business processes