Commonly Used Object Workflow Terms

Familiarize yourself with the following terms before you start working with object workflows:

• Active: Indicates whether the workflow is in use. Only those object workflows which are in Active status can trigger event actions.

• Business Object: This can be either a standard object delivered with your cloud service or an object that you create based on your business need.

  The business object that you use for configuring the object workflow can be either a parent object or a child object. All attributes available to you for selection when configuring a workflow belong to the object that you select for creating a workflow. This enforces that only the data relevant to the object in context is available for selection. For example, when you define a trigger condition, an expression editor lists only those fields that are relevant to the object that you have selected

• Event Action: An event action determines what action is expected from an object workflow when the conditions set for an object are met.

  Event actions are of the following types:

  • Business Process Flow

    Use this action to trigger approval flows. For example, when the Deal Amount exceeds a threshold level, the relevant sales manager receives an approval notification. For more information on business process flow, see How Object Workflows and Business Processes Work Together.

  • Email Notification

    Use this action to send automatic email alerts. For example, create a workflow that alerts the sales team that the budget availability date has changed. For more information on email notifications, see How Object Workflows and Email Notifications Work Together.

  • Field Updates

    Use this action to specify the new values that you want to apply to the existing fields. For example, create a workflow that changes the Priority from Medium to High when the win probability exceeds 60 percent. For more information on field updates, see How Object Workflows and Field Updates Work Together.

  • Groovy Action

    Use this action to trigger a Groovy action from your object workflow. For example, you might trigger a Groovy action to perform cross-object updates, perform post-processing of large object hierarchies, or asynchronously initiate Web services. For more information on Groovy actions, see How Groovy Scripts and Object Workflows Work Together.

  • Outbound Message

    Use this action to send outbound message to a Web service at a specified endpoint URL. For example, send account details from one system to another. For more information on outbound message, see How Object Workflows and Outbound Message Work Together.

  • Task Creation

    Use this action to create and assign tasks. For example, assign a follow-up task to the owner of an opportunity when the status is still open. For more information on task creation, see How Object Workflows and Task Creation Work Together.

• Event Condition: Event point and event condition together serve as a trigger for object workflows. Event condition is an expression that supports logical, math operations, or field-value lookups. By defining an expression, you can prevent the object workflow to trigger each time a record is created or updated. See Expression Builder in this topic for an overview of how expressions are defined.

• Event Point: An event point is associated with an object and is an instance when an event occurs. Event points are of the following types:

  • When a record is created.

  • When a record is updated.

• Execution Schedule: You can set an execution schedule while defining an event action. This schedule governs when an event action should occur. Without a schedule, the event actions occur immediately. In case of multiple event actions, the Field Updates happen first before any other event action is triggered. For event actions other than Field Updates, there is no particular sequence. They're triggered based on whether or how you configure the execution schedule.

  You can set a time rule for an event action based on whether that event action must occur after or before the triggering of a workflow or the occurrence of a date, and also specify the time duration in Hours, Days, or Weeks. If you schedule an event action for a time in the past, the event action executes immediately after it's triggered.

  This figure illustrates the execution schedule region.