Tips & Tricks for Building Advanced Workflow

Building Advanced Workflow Varadarajan Rajaram, Salesforce.com Sean Urban, Deutsche Bank Track: Advanced EE System Administrators

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Agenda Introduction Winter ’07 Workflow – What’s new? Customer case study Workflow and Approvals @ Deutsche Bank Best practices Q&A

Definition Workflow enables the automation of a business process, in while or part within your organization – from sales, to service, to HR, to finance. It enforces a process within your organization which is consistently followed and improves efficiency and productivity.

Current Workflow Capabilities (Pre Winter ’07) Automated notification Review current discount policies on Opportunities Follow up on Cases for Platinum Customers Limited action types Email Alerts Create Tasks

Winter ’07 Workflow Capabilities Automate your business processes Field Updates, Outbound Messages, Approvals Enforce business processes Lock down Opportunities when it is closed Improve customer satisfaction Initiate a customer survey as soon as a Platinum customer case is closed Improved data quality Store only the last 4 digits of the SSN

Winter ’07 Workflow Capabilities Approval process automation Simple and complex multi-step processes Eliminate laborious manual processes Automate and eliminate your paper-based PTO requests Enforce business processes Discount policies – Enforce approvals on large discounts Campaign spending controls – Force approvals on costly campaigns

Field Update Action Automatically change the value in a field as a result of a workflow trigger, including owner and record type!

Outbound Message Action Send a customizable XML message to any desired Web-available listener. No more polling for changes! Can be used to automate updates to dependent records! Gain automated asynchronous integration with external systems

Other Workflow Enhancements Workflow rule limit increased from 50 to 300 per object More standard objects supported Opportunity Product Order Product Advanced “or” filters New filter options Current user Special date values – Next X days, Last Week etc

Approval Process Automation Define simple or multi-step approval processes for any object Specify actions at each step of process Send approval requests to a queue Define one or more user hierarchies for approval request routing Lock the Record from Being Edited Change Status to “Pending” PTO Request for US-HQ Submit to Manager for Approval Approved? Change Status to “Approved” Set Date Approved Send PTO Message Change Status to “Rejected” Unlock Record

Sean Urban Vice President [email_address]

Deutsche Bank Leading global investment bank Leader in Germany and Europe, rapidly expanding in North America, Asia and key emerging markets € 1,058 billion in assets Financial services offered in 73 countries INDUSTRY: Financial Services EMPLOYEES: 63,435 GEOGRAPHY: Global PRODUCT(S) USED: SFA, Service & Support, Marketing # USERS: 416

Key Challenges Business Challenge Legacy Workflow Disparate System No form continuity No Reporting Technology Challenge Change is difficult Hardware costs expensive Higher Costs Inefficient workflow User frustration Slow time to market for change

The Solution How did we address the challenges? Consolidated 175 forms to 52 Leveraged Queues and Assignment rules Used sControls for dynamic page layouts Created custom objects for data store Leveraged profiles and asset data Products implemented # Users Integration points Training Business Units affected Ongoing improvements DEPLOYMENT DETAILS

Results What were the results? Increased functionality Forms contain more pre-popped functionality Information is stored in one place Change is quicker and more cost effective Reduced application maintenance costs Information is reportable

Demo Template Department: Sales Operations # Users: 65 Key Requirements Support mobile sales team Integrate with SAP Executive visibility Key Benefits Eliminated manual order processing Centralize forecasting On-demand pipeline visibility Sample Screen of Demo Here (Add URL Link to Demo)

Varadarajan Rajaram Sr. Product Manager Best Practices Salesforce.com

Best Practices – Workflow Use Workflow rules judiciously (i.e., just because you have 300 available doesn't mean you have to use them) Number of rules isn't the performance killer, it's how many of them are actually triggered at once Workflow actions are not executed in any particular order

Best Practices – Field Updates Use with read-only fields to enforce business processes. Use descriptive naming conventions Can only update fields on the record itself, not any of its related records Not all datatypes supported Runs as "system" user (i.e., ignores FLS)

Best Practices – Outbound Message Use to replace polling. Wherever possible to reduce API load Changing developer name of field does not cascade down to outbound message definition - VERIFY Although HTTPS, no authentication is performed Session ID may expire

Best Practices – Approval Processes If Sandbox environment available, create and test there first A record can potentially go through multiple approval processes during its lifetime, therefore the entry criteria for each process should be specific enough to make sure it doesn't go through the same process twice Active processes are ordered (just like assignment or escalation rules), therefore the ordering should be most criteria-specific to least criteria-specific Modify All Data (MAD) users should use the provided tools (Setup | Data Management | Manage Approval Requests) to perform mass actions on pending approval items Delegates need to periodically check the new standard report “My Delegated Approval Requests” to get a list of all approval items assigned to users for whom they are a delegate

Approvals Limitations Serial approvals only, no parallel chains Ability to approve, reject, reassign, and delegate approval do NOT respect the role hierarchy Cannot "skip" approval steps Cannot re-order existing steps – must create new step, insert at appropriate level, and delete old No reminders

Summary of Key Features New Workflow Action: Field Update – Automatically change the value in a field as a result of a workflow trigger, including owner and record type! Use Formula Editor wherever applicable to derive value from other fields, expressions, or values. New Workflow Action: Outbound API Message – Send a customizable XML message to any desired Web-available listener. No more polling for changes! Use it to update dependent records Approval Process Automation – Create simple or multi-step approval processes to automate and enforce the approval of virtually anything in your company, from sales discount requests, to expense reports, to vacation requests.

Varadarajan Rajaram Sr. Product Manager Sean Urban Vice President QUESTION & ANSWER SESSION Salesforce.com Deutsche Bank

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Tips & Tricks for Building Advanced Workflow

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Tips & Tricks for Building Advanced Workflow