Microsoft Dynamics™ CRM 4 For Dummies®

Chapter 9. Implementing Business Rules and Workflow

Workflow. I know what you're thinking. Workflow? What is that? Well, as one of the most powerful functions of Microsoft CRM, workflow is the nearest thing you'll find to a money machine.

The Workflow Management System takes your manual business rules (or procedures) and turns them into an automated system. Without workflow, you'd have a database with names, addresses, and a schedule, but the database by itself wouldn't do anything. With workflow, Microsoft CRM becomes a system that farms your existing accounts for additional business, helps you hunt for new accounts, and ensures that important tasks don't slip through the cracks. Whooaa. That's a pretty hefty statement, isn't it? However, by providing you with electronic business alerts — such as automatic calls for accounts or automatic follow-up e-mails — Microsoft CRM can step beyond being your contact/account database and become an important part of your business and corporate culture.

You probably have many business rules already in place, even if they aren't set in writing and mentioned all the time. For example, do you return a phone call to a client who asks you to call him back? That's a business rule, and work-flow might automate that business rule by sending you an electronic reminder message — again and again — until you actually make the call. Your business rule has now become a workflow rule. I like to call this one "auto-nag."

Now, before you start plugging in workflow ...