Workflow Reference

In Microsoft CRM, workflow and rule management can be used to set up sales processes and is also used for routing of activities, leads and opportunities. This section contains the details needed to build a workflow process using the Microsoft CRM SDK. For a definition of terms used in workflow, see the section on Workflow and Rule Management in the Microsoft CRM Object Model.

Note   Workflow processes created through the methods in CRMProcess and CRMProcessController will not display any details in the Microsoft CRM Workflow Manager and Workflow Monitor Workflow tools. You will be able to see the line items for your custom processes in these tools, but the detail windows will be empty.

The following diagram shows the object model for a workflow object.

The following topics describe each of the entities that comprise a workflow:

• Process
• Steps
• Actions
• Rules
• Conditions
• Parameters

When a process is activated, a clone of this process is created. It is this clone that the process instances run on. This is so that the original process can be modified or deleted without affecting the process instances. Due to this implementation, the GUIDs that are returned from CRMProcessController APIs and that are listed in errors in the System Event Log refer to GUIDs from the cloned process.

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