Tutorial: Close multiple activities with a workflow

Kim Ralls is the manager of Fourth Coffee, a shop that serves soup and sandwiches for lunch and coffee. Kim collects information about Fourth Coffee customers when they put their business cards in the pot she keeps on her counter. She saves this information in Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online as contact and account records so that she can let individual customers know when they've won a free lunch. She also sends faxes to each company, every Monday, to let people know what her weekly specials are.

The dozens of faxes she sends each week result in a large number of fax records she has to close manually. By creating a workflow and applying it to the fax records, Kim can close all of her fax records at once.

Lesson 1: Create and publish the workflow

Creating a workflow in Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online doesn't require complex technical knowledge. Even though you can create workflow logic as complex as you need it to be, you can automate many repetitive or common tasks with fairly simple workflows.

When you create a workflow, you can make it available for yourself and your coworkers as an on-demand process or an automatic process. Automatic processes start automatically when the conditions defined in the process are met. You start on-demand processes yourself, whenever you want to perform the actions defined in the process logic.

Note

For detailed information about how to create processes, see Work with Processes.

In this example, we'll create a workflow that sets the status of fax records to Completed, with a status reason of Sent.

Tip

Create similar processes for each type of activity you work with so that you can close them automatically when you need to.

1. In the Navigation Pane, click Settings, and then click Processes.
2. On the Actions toolbar, click New.
3. In the Create Process dialog box, set the required properties for the workflow:
   • In the Process name box, type Bulk Close Fax Activities.
   • From the Entity list, select Fax.
   • From the Category list, select Workflow.
   • In the Type area, make sure that New blank process is selected.
   • Click OK.
4. In the Process Properties area in the top half of the Process form, set additional properties for the workflow:
   • From the Activate As drop-down list, select Process.
   • Under Available to Run, select As an on-demand process.
   • Under Options for Automatic Processes, clear the Record is created check box.
5. In the Process Logic area in the lower half of the Process form, click Select this row and click Add Step.
6. On the Process Logic toolbar, click Add Step, and then click Change Status.
7. In the Type a step description here box, replace the default text with Set status of fax to Sent.
8. From the first Change record status to drop-down list, select Fax, and then in the second drop-down list, select Sent.
9. On the Form toolbar, click Save.
10. On the Form toolbar, click Activate, and then click OK.
11. Click Close.

Lesson 2: Apply the workflow to your activity records

Now that you've created and activated your new workflow, you can use it to close your activity records.

Note

Once you've closed an activity, you cannot edit or reactivate it.

1. In the Navigation Pane, click Workplace, and then, under My Work, click Activities.
2. From the Activities list, click Fax, then click All Faxes.
3. Select the fax records that you want to close.

   Tip

   Press the Ctrl key on your keyboard to select multiple records. You can also create an Advanced Find query to find records that meet specific criteria, such as the date that they were created on or the marketing campaign with which they are associated.

4. On the Actions toolbar, under Process, click Run Workflow.
5. In the Look Up Record dialog box, select the Bulk Close Fax Activities workflow, and then click OK.
6. In the Confirm Application of Workflow dialog box, click OK.

   Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online starts your workflow and changes the status of the fax records that you selected to Completed, with a status reason of Sent.

   Tip

   You can view closed activities in the activity's history. In the activity record, under Details, click History.

Related Links

Work with Workflows

Follow a workflow from creation through action

Automate common tasks with workflows