DynamicsCon Workflow Deep Dive

Last week was the 1st ever DynamicsCon! This was a free community event with sessions voted on by attendees and it was a huge success!

Sessions were prerecorded which meant that speakers could engage in the chat and answer questions as the session continued to play. Then there was still time for live questions at the end. This was a really interesting format and I loved being able to research and answer questions while the presentation kept moving for the rest of the attendees.

All of the DynamicsCon sessions are available on their YouTube channel. Check out my Deep Dive into D365 Workflows below.

Workflow Q&A

There were many great questions that came up in my session but I wanted to quickly touch on a few important items that others might find relevant.

Should I be using Workflow or Power Automate?

This is a great question! Power Automate is the way of the future but there are still a few good reasons to look at workflow:

• Real-time workflows: there is currently no support in Power Automate for real-time actions so use classic workflows for scenarios where this is needed.
• Sending Emails: If you are sending emails and you want those emails to be sent though/visible in CDS or in Dynamics 365 then you should choose workflow over Power Automate.
• Working with Activities: Similar to Emails, many times when you are working with other activity types it will be much simpler via workflow.

This presentation can also be very helpful for people who are inheriting systems that already have a lot of workflows. This should give you the details you need to figure out what is going on and determine next steps.

As you look at new automation, I do encourage you to think Power Automate first! Flow has many additional features, connectors and such that are not possible with classic workflows. So if you can do it in a Flow this is preferable over workflow.

When to use Real-Time Workflow?

As you are designing your workflows there are a few cases where you should think about using a Real-Time Workflow instead of asynchronous/background:

• Anytime when you are firing on delete so you have access to the data in that record
• You want to potentially stop an action from happening (such as delete)
• The user needs to see the change right away without refreshing
• You want to ensure the Modified By is not changed (Real-Time Workflows can run as the triggering user instead of the workflow owner)
• To prevent race conditions from multiple processes firing on the same action such as in a counting or numbering scenario

Is it Okay to Have Multiple Start When Conditions?

Yes! If you have multiple Start When options configured, it should only trigger once per action. For example, if my workflow starts on Create and on Update of the First Name field, when I create a new contact named Bob it should only fire once.

If you are experiencing issues where it is firing multiple times, then it is time to review your user’s processes and also any automation or integration that might be running. It’s possible that you have an integration which creates the record and then adds in Bob’s name.

I would recommend you ensure that completed workflows are not being automatically deleted and turn on auditing for the triggering record. Then you can do some sleuthing to see what is actually happening.

Resources

If you still are looking for more information, check out some of my recorded webinars and other workflow blogs.

If you missed out on DynamicsCon, never fear because you can go next year! Plans for the 2021 event are already available so you can submit your session and get registered early! See you there!