Setting up Workflow Actions in Force.com

As we learnt in Creating Workflow Rules in Force.com, the 3rd step is to specify the workflow actions that will be executed when the rule criteria are met. Let us now learn how to set up workflow actions in Force.com platform.

When you are in 3rd step of the workflow rule creation process which is specifying workflow actions, you will see 2 different sections. Immediate Workflow Actions and Time-Dependent Workflow Actions.

Immediate Workflow Actions - As the name indicates, the actions set up here executes instantly when the rule criteria are met.

Clicking on the 'Add Workflow Action' button gives you option for either selecting an existing action or creating a new action. As we learnt before in Workflow and Approval Process article, the action could be a Task, Email Alert, Field Update or Outbound Message. You can set up one or more actions of the same type or combination.

Time-Dependent Workflow Actions - Actions that you can set up in this section are same as above but they are time dependent. You add a 'Time Trigger' first and then add workflow actions  to that time trigger. The time trigger adds a delay before the action executes. This delay could be in terms of Days or Hours and could be before or after. You can add multiple time triggers. And just like the immediate workflow actions, you can set up one or more more actions of the same type or combination to each time trigger.

For example, you can set up field update and task assignment actions to execute 5 hours after an opportunity is closed. You can set up task assignment and email alert actions to execute 30 days after an opportunity is closed.

We will see each of the action types in detail in our future articles.

Happy cloud computing using Salesforce!