Introduction

One of Vtiger’s unique features, Workflows, helps you streamline your business by automating some of your most common operations. You no longer need to perform tasks manually but simply ask a workflow to do it. Sounds easy, doesn’t it?

Workflow Types

Vtiger offers two types of workflows.

1. Standard
2. Multi-path

Both workflow types ease your task by automating them. Additionally, multi-path workflows are mainly useful when you must specify conditions on the Picklist, Co-owner, and Assigned To fields.

With multi-path workflows, you can specify separate actions on different values of a picklist.

Consider the Sales Stage field in the Deal module. You can set up a single action for each of the field’s values, such as Negotiation, Closed Won, Closed Lost, etc. Similarly, you can set up different actions when the Assigned To field of a record has different users' names.

To learn more about multi-path workflows, click here.
 

Feature Availability and Limits

• The maximum number of Standard workflows you can create in Help Desk Starter and Help Desk Professional are 25 and 50, respectively.
• The maximum number of workflow actions you can set up per workflow in  Help Desk Starter and Help Desk Professional are 6 and 8, respectively.

• Eliminate human errors, save human effort, and reduce labor costs by automating repetitive tasks. 
• Increase productivity by avoiding confusion between isolated and remote teams with the help of automation.
• Improve work satisfaction by leaving monotonous tasks to workflow automation. 

Four Components of Standard Workflows

To create a workflow, you must specify the following:

1. The module on which the workflow is executed
2. The trigger that will cause the workflow to execute
3. Conditions based on which the workflow will execute its actions
4. Actions that the workflow will perform when the conditions are met 

To specify the details mentioned above, you must first access the workflow screen. 

Follow these steps to access Standard workflows:

1. Click the User Menu on the top right corner of the screen.
2. Click the Settings button. You will and on the Settings page.
3. Look for the Automation section.
4. Select Workflows.
5. Click the +New Workflow button.
6. Select Standard. 
7. Enter the following information:
   1. Basic information
   2. Workflow trigger
   3. Entry criteria
   4. Actions
8. Click Save.

We have divided the workflow setup into four components to make it easy for you to understand. 
 

1. Basic information

This section provides basic information about a workflow, such as its name, module, etc.

You must fill out the following details:

• Workflow Name: Specify the name of the workflow.
• Target Module: Specify the module on which the workflow must execute, such as Deals, Contacts, Products, etc.
• Status: Specify the status of the workflow - Active or Inactive. The workflow does not execute when the status is set to Inactive.
• Description: Provide a brief description of what the workflow is used for, the actions it performs, etc.

2. Workflow trigger

Specify when the workflow must trigger by choosing an option from the following two fields:

• Trigger Workflow On:
  • Record creation: Choose this option if you want the workflow to trigger when a record is created in the Target Module (mentioned in the previous section).
  • Record updation (includes creation): Choose this option if you want the workflow to trigger when a record is updated or created in the Target Module (mentioned in the previous section).
  • Time Interval: Choose this option if you want the workflow to trigger at a frequent time interval.
    • Frequency: Specify the frequency at which the workflow must trigger. To learn more about this option, click here.
• Recurrence: This option is shown when you select Record updation in the previous section.
  • Only first time conditions are met: Triggers the workflow if the specified conditions are true. Once executed, the workflow will not trigger on the same record again. However, it will trigger on other records in the selected module.
  • Every time conditions met: Triggers the workflow on a record every time the specified conditions are true.

3. Entry criteria

Workflows are executed on records in the Target Module under Basic Information. More often than not, you might only need to perform actions on select records in the module. And that is when you will need to apply conditions and filter out records. 

A workflow executes only on records that satisfy the condition that you specify.

For instance, you want to create a workflow on the Contacts module that will send a greeting via email on a contact’s birthday. For this, you must specify the conditions as follows:
 

You can specify multiple conditions using the +Add condition button. There are two types of conditions.

• All conditions: It is based on the logical AND operation. Workflow executes when all the conditions are met.

• Any condition: It is based on the logical OR operation. Workflow executes when at least one condition is met.

Different types of conditions

You can apply conditions on different fields in a module. And depending on the field, the type of condition may vary. Examples:

1. You create a workflow on the Deals module. You want the workflow to execute its actions when the deal amount is more than 1000. So, the condition that you specify is Amount greater than 1000. 

You can specify the condition using three fields. In the first field, you must select the field name (Amount). In the second, select the condition (greater than), and in the third, enter the amount (1000).

2. You create a workflow on the Contacts module. The intent is to send an email to contacts two days before their support end date. 

Select Support End Date in the first field, less than days later in the second, and enter 3 in the last field. 

Below is a list of all the conditions available.

Counting only weekdays using workflow conditions If you want to consider only weekdays, you can use the following workflow conditions: Less than weekdays ago Less than weekdays later More than weekdays ago More than weekdays later For example, to send an email to a contact three weekdays before the deal’s close date, you must set up the conditions as follows:   In this case, workflows exclude non-working days based on what is specified in the business hours.

4. Actions

The Actions part defines what the workflow must execute after getting triggered and meeting the entry criteria. You can set up different types of actions. Refer to the table below for information.
 

Note: 

1. Workflows can create/update records in the CRM account owner's name, even if record owners do not have Write permission. This is called the account owner context.
   1. Example: Consider a workflow that is configured to create a deal record when Lead Status = Hot. Let us say, a sales rep who does not have Write permission for Deals edits a lead record and sets Lead Status = Hot. As a result, a deal record gets created with the Created By and Last Modified By fields having the CRM account owner's name.
2. Scheduled workflows always run in the account owner context.
3. Create and Update actions are done in the account owner context to ensure that profile-level restrictions do not block workflows.