Process Automation

2. Validation Rules

Welcome to the validation rules. So I think of validation rules as stopping functions within salesforce. It's stopping the users from creating and editing records if the fields they're filling out aren't quite how I would like them. So it may be that I'm saying, hey, these fields have to be filled out in this scenario, or maybe I'm saying, actually this specific field, if it's a telephone number field, it needs to be formatted in a specific way for that particular country, for example. But the best way to show you is to basically dive in and create one for yourself. Okay, so here I am in my salesforce organ. I'm going to do all I'm going to do. I'm going to dive on to the contact objects in Salesforce. I'm going to dive into this contact. Here I am. And you'll see here that I've got a level of secondary education here, which is this little pick list field. And then on here we've got the mailing city as well, where I can set a country's city and postcode. At the moment it's all in the address field, which isn't great. But what I want to do is to say that if somebody's creating a record and they've chosen the USA as their country, I want to make sure that they always fill out this level field, the contact record.

And I can do this using a validation rule. Now I could if I wanted to change the page layout and make these fields required, but that would make them required for every single case. And even so, it's only for this particular page layout. So if I created other page layouts and I only made these fields required on those page layouts,then it may be that some users get the fields as being required and some don't. So if I edited here, come in here and look at the level field. I could, if I wanted to make that a required field or even make it read only on the page layout, but that only applies to those people who are looking at that page layout at that particular time. Also, there's actually a way to override this in the profiles. So, if a user has modifyall permissions in their profile, Salesforce completely disregards the page layouts. And actually, even if it's set as read-only,you can still enter that information and I can actually show you it now. So if I make that read only and click save, I can actually still edit it because I'm an admin within the salesforce.org.If I go back and change it back, I can still edit it because I'm an administrator and I have that modify all permissions in my profile ticked. So let's just change it back just to make sure we don't get confused. You can see the padlocks gone on, so I'm going to switch those off, click okay, and click save. And as it's more granular, I want to only make this required if the country equals the USA, then I need to create a validation rule for this. So all I'm going to do is just dive into my little menu on the left-hand side and click New Validation Rule. It jumps through to the creation of a new contact validation rule.

Now, if you haven't got that little menu on the right hand side, you can just go throughSearch for Contacts, go down to the validation rules in the Contacts section, and customise and click The same thing is done by newwithin there. But now I'm going to create a new rule. So I'm going to give it a name. I'm going to call it Level required if filling out Billing Country. Now, you'll see there, it only just about fits in and actually doesn't at all. It just stops, which is a bit annoying for that field. But what I do is I just put the main description in here. You can roughly understand what that does, but in the main description, I will actually say what it does because you get a bit more space. So I'm going to say the Level field must be filled out if the user fills out the Billing Country. great. Now onto the next section within here,which is the error condition formula. Now, the error condition formula is much like, if you're used to Excel and Excel formulas, very similar to that. And there's a load of different functions that you can see on the right hand side that do different things that, again, are quite similar to Excel. And this formula expression needs to return true if we're going to display an error. So if I just put in true here right now, every single time this validation fires. So in all scenarios, creating records and updating records,this error will fire and nobody will be able to create or update records on the contact object. They're not quite what we want. But if I can now create a formula that uses the Level Field and the Billing Country field to throw an error if the Billing Country has been filled out but the Level field hasn't, Now, so I'm going to use the blank field here. Now, if you select it here, it'll give you a little blurb about what that means. So you can see are blankbrackets, some kind of expression.

So we're going to add something in there, close brackets. And this checks whether an expression is So whatever is in there isblank and returns true or false. So true to receive the error or false to avoid receiving the error. So I'm going to click that and click Insert Selected Function. And here I'd like to ask if the Billing Country is black. So I'm first going to select Insert Field, and this is where you can insert fields into your formula. And I'm just going to go search for the billing country, sorry, the mailing country. Click, insert, and there it is. At the moment, it's just looking to see if it's blank. But actually I want to invert that and say if it's not blank, So if they are filling this in, So there's a nice little function in here called not if I can find it. A bit further down there it is not. And this changes a false from a true and a false to an exact match. This is exactly what we want. And then we have that logical expression in the middle of the brackets. So all I need to do is say "no brackets." Now I basically kind of spread these out a little bit. Whenever there's an open bracket, I kind of put a new carriage return and put a couple of spaces in just to make it a little more visible so I can see what's going on. And then I close the bracket at the same level as the beginning of whatever the function is I'm using, just so I can see what's going on, otherwise it kind of gets a bit tricky. So I'm saying it's not a blank-mailing country. So I'm saying if the mailing country is blank, then this is going to return true, but then the not is going to invert it and make it false. So I'm saying if the mailing country is blank, it's going to return true if somebody's filled out the information in it, which is exactly what we want. Next, we need to check another field, which is the isour level field, which is that pick list field. So I'm just going to dive in here and search for a level.

There it is. And then click insert to insert that. So somehow we need to do a blank on this as well. So rather than selecting it here,you can just type it out. So I'm going to go is blank and this. I want to make sure that if it is blank, they need to fill it out. So this I don't need a notch for. And also, you can use operators as well. So here we've got to add, subtract,multiply, divide, and things like this. We're not going to use it in this scenario, but if you had like two fields with different numbers and you wanted to add them together and make sure that it's greater than a certain figure, and if it's not,it doesn't allow the user to create or edit records, then you can as well. So I got these two, but I need to kind of join them together because I only need to return one value, either true or false. So what I need to do is use and dive in here to show you what it means. So and checks whether all arguments are true and returns true if all arguments are true, otherwise it returns false. Now you can have this. There's a little link here, help on this function, so if you want to get some examples and things like that for that particular function, you can click on here and it pops up a nice little box. So here you get a list of all the different functions and what they do and how you can use them. So if I whizzer at the bottom, you've probably got ones I'm never going to use. Get the date. So, based on a year, a month, and a day kind of numerical value, just return the date as a date timestamp contains. Return true or false if a text is compared to see if this text is contained within that compared text. And it's got an example there. So there's loads of stuff in it. Now you don't need to know where all these are for the exam, you just need to know what the concept of a validation rule is. I'm going to close that down, but what I'm going to be using, I'm going to use an and so I'm going to tap these in a little bit just to make them more visible so I can see what's going on.

And you see, okay, logical one, which is mylogical one here, comma, logical two comma, and you can put more and more and more in there. So I just want to do that. So that's my top logical one here. Then I'm doing another check is blank this and then I put a final bracket there to close it all off. So now what we're saying is if the mailingcountry is blank, then reverse that value. So if it's true, it's false, if it's false, it's true. And then if the level field is blank as well. So what we're trying to get is if this is true and this is true, then the and is going to return true if all arguments are true, and if it's true, we're going to display the error. Now you've got this button here that allows you to check the syntax to make sure you've got everything filled out correctly. Now this is actually going to give us an error, but I'll tell you why in a sec. We click that and you go, "Yes, here's an error." So it's saying level field is a picklist field. Pick list fields are only supported in certain functions and there's a little bit of help there to tell you more. This is a classic thing that I used to get all the time. It's like this is really annoying and this only applies to pick list fields. And this level field is a picklist field, and it's basically saying that the blank function that we're trying to use isn't compatible with pick list fields. There's an easy way to get around it. I can just convert that picklist value to text and then the is blank can read the text value correctly and see if it's blank or not.

So if I do it again, well, no errors were found. So now I'm just going to display an error message. So at the bottom here, we've got to say, "Well, what's the error message we're going to display?" And this is going to be displayed to the user when they get this error. So I'm going to say you must fill out the level field if you have out the billing billing country. Now I have the choice of where the arrow is displayed at the top of the page or in a specific field. So I'm going to choose a field and I'm going to choose a level. And this means the error is kind of attached to that field in the user interface, so the user knows exactly which field they need to fill out. But if it's multiple fields you're working with and it's a bit more of a complex rule, it might be easier just to put it at the top of the page. But as we're just talking about essentially one field, I'm going to attach it to that. And then if I'm happy with that, I'm just going to click save again, make sure it's active, which it is. And now let's test it out. So I'm just going to open up this in a new window and dive into my contact. Now I'm going to clear this out just to start from scratch. And now I'm going to edit this record. I'm going to put a country in the USA and tidy up this address because it's all in here and that's a bit crazy. So I'm going to just take this out. That's better. And now click save and it should check to see if this field is not blank and check to see if this field is blank. And if it's going to throw an error. So let's see if it works. Bang Review all the error messages below to correct your data. We scroll down and there you go. That's our error message we had in the validation rule. You must fill out the level field if you're filling out the billing country. So I filled this field out, clicked save, and job done. Awesome.

So now I've got round that. So it stopped the user from editing that record because they needed to fill out that level field as well. I've now tidied up my data because the users have to fill out a level and everything is fine, but we can go one step forward because I did say that the country needed to be USA only for you to fill out the level. So let's go back to our validation rules and just put that in as well. So I'm going to click edit here. Now we have this on here and so we're saying logical expression and this logical expression, but what we can do is add another one in. So I'm going to put a comma there and add another logical expression and say if the mailing country, if I go to it, insert, and now I'm going to use an operator. So now I'm going to say if that equals the USA. Actually, let's do the UK. So you can see it not working,or working, as the case may be. So now it's going to check to see if it's not blank, it's going to check to see if the level is set or not. And also, it's going to check if the country has been filled out and if it equals the UK. We probably don't need this anymore because we're checking to see if it's UK only. I'm going to leave it in there anyway. So I'm going to click save and go back to my contact. So now, if I clear the level field and save. Now this shouldn't throw an error because it's going to look to see if this country is the UK, and if it isn't, then it's going to allow that field to be blank. So I'm going to click "Save." Sure enough, it's fine. So I'm going to edit it again, but this time change it to UK, which will hopefully fall into thatvalidation rule and throw up an error to say that I need to fill out the level field and click save. And sure enough, yes, you must fill out the level field if you're filling out the billing country. Oh, I forgot to do the error message. Make it a little bit nicer. So I'm just going to edit that. You must fill out the level field if the billing country is the UK. Click Save. If I click save again, it should give me the new error. There we go. You must fill out the level field if your billing country is the UK. Everything is fine.

And that's essentially it for validation rules. This basically stops you from creating an updated record based on a specific rule. But what you need to understand about validation rules is that this could affect all kinds of things within salesforce. So for example, if you've got a data integration or you're using a tool to upload data into Salesforce, a validation rule would stop those records being created within Salesforce. So it's quite a strong form of validation. So if you do have integrations, be careful with validation rules because you could kind of break the integrations a bit. Also, if you do want to make things required,you could do that on the page layout rather than using a validation rule or even using thefieldlevel permissions to make them required. So there are different options we can do, but if it definitely needs some kind of criteria, as in if this field equals this and this one doesn't feel like it should equal something else, and then you want to throw an error, then you've got to use a validation rule for that. So if any questions come up in the exam around scenarios and needing fields to have different values and stopping the user from entering based on the information, then that will be a validation rule that you need to use. So if you do have any questions, please post them in the comments. Otherwise, I'll look forward to seeing you on the next.

3. Workflow Rules & Actions

We're starting to build processes around our objects and actions around them. Workflows are one of the primary areas in which you can do this in Salesforce. What exactly are workflow rules? Are you defining when a record is created or updated to trigger a set of actions? Now I've listed these actions here. So the first action could be tasks. So when a record gets created or updated by the user based on a set of criteria, if it falls into that criteria, you want to fire off a task to the user or maybe other users to say hey, this record got into this particular state and I want to assign you tasks to work on. Then you get email alerts. Now these are great for notifying users at certain points in the evolution of your record to say, "hey, you won that opportunity and congratulations." Or it may be hey, you haven't touched this record for a certain amount of time, maybe you should have a look at it and update it. Then we have field updates. Based on the user updating or creating the record, this is essentially what it says. You can say, update certain fields on that record on other records, which is quite a powerful feature. And then finally, we have outbound messaging, which really is the kind of realm of the developer a little bit. But essentially, it says that when a record hits,fires this workflow based on your criteria, and sends a message to a system outside of Salesforce to say that the record has got to this state. So before we dive in, I just want to mention that there are actually two main types of workflow. You've got the immediate actions, which basically mean that when the record gets created or edited by the user and your workflow matches the criteria, I'm immediately going to fire off these actions. So it could be creating a task, updating a field or something, and then we have the timed workflow. Now the timed workflow is for things that you want to do in the future.

So when the user creates the record, it may be a reminder to say hey, look, you know, you haven't updated this record for a period of time. I don't know if it's complete or not. You should have a look at this record and maybe take some actions on it to update it. Or it may be some other feature on the record that says hey, this has now expired, you have to restart the process again or something like that. So those are the main two different types of workflow. The immediate actions that fire immediately the moment the record is created or edited, or the timed workflow, which is a delayed response, and we're going to create a workflow with an immediate action and a timed work. So here we are on salesforce.org. Now what I'm going to do is I'm going to use the opportunities object for this scenario. So the Opportunities object is an object that allows sales reps to kind of track their sales pipeline and their sales deals, essentially. So you can see that this opportunity has a 90% probability of being one, as the sales rep is saying. And then also, you got this field called the closeddate, which essentially is saying that the rep thinks they're going to close this deal at this time. So you can see this is way in the past, so bad sales rep. And we've got a number of other fields on here as well. And also take a look at the opportunity name. So this opportunity name is a field that is usually a bit messy. The sales rep can write in whatever they like. So what I'm going to do is actually fill this Opportunity Name field in for the sales rep based on the account they've entered and the type of customer they are. So I'm going to dive into my workflows, so you can get to them by clicking Setup. Scroll down here and go into Create. And then here you've got workflows and approvals. And then we have our workflow rules at the top here. So I'm going to click in here, click Continue.

And now I'm going to create a new workflow rule. So first I've got to select the object that this workflow applies to. So this will be our opportunity object. So click next on that. Then I give it a name. So I'm going to call it "Update." Opportunity name So next we have the evaluation criteria. Now, there are basically three different options here. So the first one is created, and this is basically saying that I want this rule to fire every time a record is created. But then after that, it will ignore any existing records. So this is good for when you're creating an account and you want to kind of fill it out correctly and then never fire it again. Then we've got the next one which is created every time it is edited. So this is saying, okay, every time this record gets updated, I want to fire this workflow rule to potentially update fields or every single time you send an email or something like that. And as you can see, this can't be used with a time-dependent workflow. So this kind of being able to push it out into the future and send an email or a message at a specific time in the future, and then finally, we have created and at any time it's edited to subsequently meet the criteria. And what this is essentially saying is that for new records, run the rule if the criteria is met, then for every updated record, run the rule only if it is changed from not meeting the criteria to meeting the criteria. So we're essentially saying we only want to fire it once every time it meets the criteria on the record. And if it kind of goes off and then comes back again, We want to send it again, but we don't want to send the same actions again and again and again and again.We only want to send it when it matches the criteria, and then we don't want to send it again unless it kind of reverts back and then goes back into the criteria state again. So that's kind of useful as well. But for us, we're updating the Opportunity name. So I'm going to use created because I want to fix the opportunity name every time the opportunity is created and then allow the sales rep to change the opportunity name if they want to. So then we have the criteria. So this is what I was mentioning, and this subsequently meets the criteria. Now here we can choose some information, like if the information is true or does equal true.And this is basically my criteria around when I want this workflow to fire and on what records I want it to fire on now because we're staying created, it's never going to fire for updated records, and I don't need any criteria at all basically because I want it to fire every single time any opportunities are created. So I'm going to leave it very simple. Oh yeah, and also you've got the option to use formula type field style as well, if you want, if it's a more complicated formula, but usually thecriteria is fine and I'm going to save it next. Sorry. Oh yes, you do have to put in some criteria. Now I don't have one because I want to fire it all the time. So I could create a scenario where it's always going to fire, so I could say that where the amount is less than zero or something like that. But actually I'm just going to use the formula and I'm going to just say "True." So if this evaluates true, it's always going to fire, and I'm saying say true, it's going to fire every single time.

So I'm going to just go save it next. And now we get onto the actions part of the workflow. So this is where I can put the time actions or I can put the standard immediate workflow actions. And here we've got the option to create new actions or select an existing action. I'm going to put it in here immediately, and it's going to be a field update because I want to update that opportunity name to a specific format. So I'm going to click New Field Update. I'm going to give it a name. So update the Opname field. Then I'm going to choose which field I want. So I'm going to say Opportunity's name. Then I have the option to specify the value. So I'm going to click the value there and actually I'm going to make mine a little bit more complicated. So I could, if I wanted to, just type the text. I wanted to say, "So New Opportunity." And that will mean that that is the name of every single opportunity that gets created. But it's not that informative. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to pop open the editor and I'm actually going to insert some fields. So I'm going to say it needs to have the account name at the beginning. Then I'm going to put a colon there and say New Hop. Check the syntax; make sure that it works. Yep, no errors. Brilliant. And then I'm going to click "Save." So what this is doing, if I click into it, is saying for the Opportunity Object,update the Opportunity name with a text field and call it the account name plus colonnewop. So it's basically going to say, put the account name there and just say New Op after it. So I'm going to go back to my workflow rule. And you can see now I've got that immediate action in there. Now I can create another immediate action if I want to, so I could edit that again I can add in an email alert, an outbound message, or I can select an existing action. So now we've created that field update, we've got a field update, their action is in our available actions,but it's already selected, so that's all good. And potentially we could put a time trigger in there as well, but we won't do that yet. We'll do that in the next scenario. So I'm just going to click done on that. I'm happy with that. And we're just going to check that everything is set. As a result, it is on the opportunity object. It's the evaluation rule that's going to fire every time a record is created. I have my field update on there and the last thing you need to do is activate the workflow rule, which is really obvious, but you couldn't miss it, quite obviously. So I've activated that now.

Now let's check to see if it works. I'm going to dive on my opportunity. So I'm going to create a new opportunity. I'm going to tap in some random information here because my sales rep doesn't like formatting the opportunity name correctly. I'm just filling in the required fields, and I'm going to fill out my account name. So I'm going to call Dickinson Plc. And now I'm going to click Save, and it's going to pick that up. There we go. It's picked up the workflow rule. It's seen that it's on the Opportunity Object. It is then a media action. So it's firing it straight away. It's looking at the actions. It's found that field update action and it's updatedmy opportunity name to the name of the company and then the new Op text after it. So now the sales rep can go in and say what that information is about. But then, you could use other fields in the record to kind of fill that information out. So now when it's on reports and things like that,it's kind of got a nice name and I can see which company it's related to as well. So that's an immediate action. So now let's take a look at a timed workflow. So I'm going to create an atimed workflow for the close date. So what I want to do is to say, okay, now this opportunity has been created. I want to add a notification one week before the close date to notify the sales rep that maybe they should work on this opportunity before it kind of expires. Or maybe let's actually do it the day before the closed date. So I'm going to dive back into my workflow rule and now I'm going to create a new rule on the opportunity object.

So note the closed date and expiry. Now generally, I put a description in because it makes it a lot easier. So I'm just going to quickly send an email to the opportunity owner. If the close date is one day before, and the opportunity is not closed, great. So this time I want to say when the record is created and any time it's sedited and subsequently meets the criteria. Because basically what I want to do is that the close date could change and move forward all the time, and I want it to be like one day before they get the notification that they need to change the close date. But then the close date gets pushed into the future again and again. When the time gets to that day before,I want to send them another email. So that is which one I'm going to choose next. I'm going to say if the opportunity is equal to false because I want to focus only on opportunities that are currently open. If it's closed for some reason and the opportunity date is in the future, I don't want to send the sales rep an email because they closed the opportunity. OK, maybe the close dates are in the future, but they close the opportunity. It's either one, it's lost, whatever, don't want to send them an email. So I'm going to put that there. That's about it. So I'm going to go save and next I'm going to add a time-based workflow. So I'm going to add a new time trigger. So this is essentially now where I choose the date that I want to use. So I'm going to use the close date on my opportunity and I want to say one day before. So you can also use hours as well. And of course, before or after. But I want to say one day before the opportunity closes, I want to fire the actions on this workflow rule.

So I'm going to click save there. And now I get this box here. And now I can create my actions from within this. Now I'm going to create an email alert. Now if I click in here first,it asks me for an email template. So we're going to give it a name and then we're going to give it an email template I want to send off. But at the moment I haven't created an email template. There's a load of standard templates in here, but what I need to do is create that email template first. So I'm going to search for email templates. There they are. I'm going to open this in a new tab and I'm going to quickly create a new template. I'm just going to use text for now, but you've got a couple of different versions of the template. So text HTML, using kind of a nice branded letterhead if you wanted to customise an email template, or using VisualForce to dynamically pull data from Salesforce.org to send the email. But I'm just going to use text and I'm going to say I'm going to leave it in my unfiled public email templates folder. I'm going to say it's available for use and I'm going to call this "notify Op close date expiry." So I'm going to send an email with information about the app that has a closed date tomorrow. So this is the subject line of the email that I'm going to send to the sales rep. So I'm going to say alert opportunity, close date. It is tomorrow, and I'm actually going to give them a bit of information here. I'm actually going to put a merge field in here, which basically says I'm going to use a field on the record that this workflow is firing on. So I'm actually going to give it the opportunity name. So here we go. So it just creates this merge field here that I just need to copy out and paste in here and then I can give the more the body of the email, so I can say, please note that your time and put bang quotes have a close date of tomorrow. Please update this opportunity as soon as possible. And you can also include other fields on here as well, as well as potentially a link to the opportunity, so they don't have to kind of log into their.org and go straight to it, which I can do as well. Actually, I might as well do that now. So I'm going to copy that ID and paste it there, but actually I do need to know what the.ORG URL is. So I'm just going to basically edit this and type in the first part of the URL and just paste it in there. So now they've got a link to the opportunity in the email as well. Thanks to sales support, So I'm going to save that template now. I'm going to go back to my I'm just going to cancel that and create the alert again so it refreshes the list. So, new email alert, alert, sales rep, close date. I'm now going to select that email template. I just created, which is that one there. I'm now going to say who the intended recipient of this email should be.

Now I can select specific people within salesforce.org or I can say related to the record case team, any public groups and roles, and all kinds of stuff, but I'm just going to use the opportunity owner. So it's this owner field here. And there you have it, opportunity owner. I'm going to add that in. The opportunity owner is going to get notified. I could say just notify me as well,which I think I'm going to actually know. I'm going to leave it like that and also get related users as well. So whoever last modified that record,I could put it in as well. Or again, specific users I could put in there as well. Then you get the option to add up to five other email addresses to be notified as well. Again, I'm going to leave this as default and then just use the current user's email address as the notification that's going out and I'm just going to save that. So now we have this workflow rule set up. It's going to have one day before the opportunity closed date and it's going to send that email alert and if the opportunity is closed, equals false. That's all good. I think that's all perfect. Okay, so now I'm going to just clickdone on this and that's it, done. So I could create more time-dependent actions here. So I could do it based on three days before or maybe even four days after the close date to say, "Hey look, you ignored the email. I want to notify you that actually now it's overdue and you should update it again."

Make sure that the active is true. So I'm going to activate the workflow and then this will pop up. So this is basically saying what the default is? I haven't filled out the default workflow user,so I'm just going to select that asme and that looks good to me. And this is basically just a user that you need to have administration rules set up, privileged to set up as the default user for firing workflow rules. So I'm going to click save, and now I'm ready to go. So just to review, I've got the name of myworkflow rule and it says it's firing on the opportunity object. This evaluation rule is going to fire every time a record is created and subsequently meets that criteria. So if they're constantly changing that close date,I want them to know that and kind of follow that and send them multiple emails. Then I'm going to say I only want this workflow rule to fire on opportunities that haven't closed yet. So all open opportunities and then the time dependent workflowrule, which says one day before the close date, I want to alert, set this rule up to fire. I sent an email out to the rep to say the deadline is tomorrow and we set up that email template. Now, just before I actually test this,there is a useful little thing called "workflow time-based workflow monitoring." So if I click into this and click search, this is what's called the workflow cue. So every time I create a record or update a record that has a time-based workflow item in there and it fires, it'll add the workflow into this workflow queue. So the salesforce knows that on this specific date, It needs to fire the actions off on it. So at the moment it's empty because we don't have any time-based workflow. But if I go back to my opportunity, click New,create a new opportunity and set it for, say, January 28th, actually, let's make it yeah, January 28th. And I'm going to set that up, give it an account name. So test, let's call this test time, which is going to get overwritten by my workflow rule. So I'm going to click save. great. And now it's been overwritten, I've got my close date there. Now if I have a look at mygo back into my workflow rules monitoring, sorry. As a result, time-based workflow Now do a search. You'll see that me creating that record has put that record in the workflow queue, which is now saying, "Right,we need to send an email out on the 27th," which is the day before to the opportunity owner. So it's saying, okay, on the 27th I need to look at this workflow and fire it off for this record. We recently created the Dickinson Plc new op. So this is kind of important to understand. Every time you do time-based workflow, it's going to put a record in this queue, and then if you subsequently edit that record, it's going to clear the recordout of here and replace it with a new one. So at the moment, it's on the 27th of the first.

So if I go back to my opportunity and that's right, it's the day before. If I change this to, say, the 31st and click Save, and I go back to my queue, do a search again, it's now changed the dates to the day before the update. So it's kind of keeping this queue in sync every time the record gets updated or deleted. But we need to remember that if we go back to our workflow and dive into the workflow we've just created, if I now deactivate this, it will say, "You have pending actions for this rule." If you deactivate this rule and the record is updated after deactivation, those pendingactions will not be triggered. So if I click OK on this and we go back to the queue and hit search, it keeps this in the queue. So when it gets to this time, it will try and fire the workflow rule, but it won't fire it because we've disabled the workflow. But I can come in here and edit the time-dependent workflow. But as you can see, I can't edit the time I want to change this, which is a bit annoying. So there's just no way of editing this time, which is really annoying.

And what you need to do, the way to get around this, is basically to delete this record in the queue. So if I delete this now, it will no longer exist. If I then refresh this, I can now edit this time-dependent workflow. So I can now change the date to, say, two days before and click save. Then I click "done." And then I activated it again, and voila, we're now back and active. But if I go back to my little queue and search, you can see it's just not in that queue anymore. So what I need to do is edit this and say if I change it to another date, that's a bit too soon. 27th, click save, go back to my tainbox workflow, and you'll see it's kind of come back into the queue again. So it's an important thing to understand if you're changing the workflows.

4. Approval Processes

So now we're on to approval processes. processes. These can be a little tricky, but for the exam, all you need to know is what approval processes can do and when you need to use them. These can be a little tricky, but for the exam, all you need to know is what approval processes can do and when you need to use them. So when you need to use, say,an approval an approval process versus a workflow versus a validation rule, validation rule, So approval processes essentially allow users tosend a send a record for approval and then getit approved it approved by one or many people. people. And within that approval process,you can you can have actions within them. them. So very similar to workflow,workflow, where you can say, well,if it if it gets approved, I want to update the record, Iwant to want to send an email out, I want to sign some tasks. tasks. Or you can say if it gets rejected,you want to taketake some other action. action. So contact the owner to say, hey,the record's been rejected. You. You'll haveto resubmit to resubmit and have some more information. information. So I'm going to basically show you howto create to create an approval process because it's the easiestway to way to show you what the features are. are.

So I'm going to dive into my salesforce.org and inmy setup menu.. I'm just going to search for approval. approval. Now you'll see it dives intothe workflow the workflow and approvalapproval sections, and rightunder the workflow under the workflow rules, you have this approval process. process. Now this is going to essentially have a button. button. We're going to add a button to myaccount object that account object that basically sends an account for approval. approval. So I want to basically make surethat this that this account has been set up correctly and has the and has the correct information based on another system. system. So maybe I've got an invoice system orI've got I've got a larger system within my company thatholds a holds a lot of information about companies, and Ijust want just want to make sure that the information is correct. correct. And if it's a new account that we haven't done business withbusiness with, I can set it up in this system manually. manually. So,So, hence the approval process. process. I justI just need to send it toapproval just approval just to check that itthat it's in this other system. system. And if it is, then all is well. is well. Let's carry on. on. So because I want to put it on my accountaccount, I select the account from the top listhere and here and then I start the creation of my approval process. process.

So I'm just going to do the jump start wizard. wizard. And this basically says, okay, give it a name. name. So I'm going to say approve accounts. Sorry. Sorry. Approve new accounts. accounts. Then we have the criteriacriteria section. section. This is essentially the same as workflow rules. This is essentially the same as workflow rules. You're saying, okay, only go into the approval processif the if the account is set up in a certain way. way. Now for this, I'm actually goingto use to use the active field on the account. account. So I'm going to say if the active field is no,as in the account isn't active, it hasn't been approved yet, therefore it can go into an approval process. process. So I'm going to just select theactive field active field and make surethat it that it equals no. no. Then we go on to the selection of the approver. approver. So when it goes into that approval,there are a there are a couple of different options that youcan choose can choose to choose who is doing the approving. approving. You can either let the submitter choose who'sgoing to going to get this record approved, which is a possibility. possibility. You could also automatically assign it based onan atypical an atypical custom field, or you can assign it automatically. automatically. So this tendstends to be what people use the most. most. And now I can either select a relatedrelated user to the record for approval. approval. So the related user could be anyfield in field in the record that is a user field. field. So you're last modified by,created by, created by, and the account owner. owner.

But I'm going todo this for do this for a specific personbecause this because this person is specifically tasked with checking that informationinformation is synced between these two systems. systems. So I'm going tolook myself look myself up because that's my role. role. And then I've got another little choice. choice. I could basically say because I can add multiplepeople to people to this list and I can say, well, doeseverybody need everybody need to approve this to actually make it approved? approved? Or is it the veryfirst person first person that approves the record? record? It's then approved, so potentially I could have Jameson this on this as well,well, because I may be on holiday. holiday. So it could go to both of usand whoever and whoever approves it first, the record will be approved. approved. Or it maybe that be that we would chooseto require to require unanimousapproval of approval of all selected approvals, which essentially means that I'vegot to got to prove it and then James also has toapprove it approve it before the record is finally approved. approved. So I'm just going to choose the verysimple version simple version of just me having to approve it. it. And then I could click save on this. this. And just a reminder to say you need toactivate this activate this approval process because it doesn't activate by default. default. It then gives you some examplesof some of some of the processes you can use. use. But I'm going to skip that. that.

And then finally,finally, we go through tothe main the main detail page of the approval process. process. And you can see it'sgot quite got quite a few sections within here. here. Now the top bit is what we've just set up. up. So it's giving in a name saying that the entrycriteria for the approval process, you can only getinto it into it if the account active field is set to no. no. And then we have a couple of other things. things. So the first thing is the initial submission actions. actions. So this is very muchlike a like a workflow where wecan add can add tasks, email alerts, field updates,updates, and outbound messages. messages. And this is the momentthat the that the submitter submits the recordthe record, what we want to do on that record. record. So it could be that we want to update AfieldAfield to say that this has been sent for submission. submission. Or it could be that we want tosend an send an email confirmation email to the owner to say,hey, this record has gone into the submission stage. stage. But also, you'll seehere that here that thedefault option default option is to lock the record. record. So this locks the recordfrom ever being from ever being edited by the submitter. submitter.

And then if they do want to edit their recordtheir record, they'll have to recall that record from submission. submission. And that's when you have totick this tick this box here and allow submittersto recall to recall approval requests,requests, so that's ticked. ticked. It basically allows the user to say, "Hey"Hey, Iwant to want to record this approval so that I can makesome changes some changes to it and then submit it again for approval." approval." So it may be that they've justspotted a spotted a mistake on the record that theydidn't see didn't see when they sent it through for approval. approval. Next, we have the approval steps. steps. So these steps are what I wantto do to do as part of the approval process. process. So here you can see my single step, whichis that is that I am going to assign the first stepto this to this specific user called Francis Pinder to approve the record. record. Now, if I could have multiple steps,steps, so in thescenario I scenario I said before where you need multiple people to approve a recorda record, I could have a step after this that thensays, "James says, "James then subsequently has to approve it as well." well." So once I approveapprove it, then James has to approve it. it. And then we go into the final actions. actions. And you can also actually get even moredetails here, details here, so I can open up these show actions and actually sayactually say, "Well"Well, if I approve this record before it goesonto the onto the next step, I want to do some actions here." here."

So it may be you want to do afield update on field update on the record to say it's past stepone or one or some other information that you want to update. update. Or it may be some rejection actions thatyou want you want to taketake for this specific step. step. But I'm going to keep it simple.simple. I'm not going to do that. that. And as there's only one step,I'm the only one approving it. it. So the moment I approve this record, it will looklook here and and see if there are are any approval actions to perform,and if therethere are, it'll do those actions. actions. And then itwill also will also dothe same the same in the final approval actions. actions. So, once all of the steps have been completed and the record has been unanimously approved, carry out these actions. So, once all of the steps have been completed and the record has been unanimously approved, carry out these actions. Here it says record lock, lock the record being edited. edited. Now, I don't actually want to do thatbecause once because once it's approved, I basically want to unlock it. it. So I'm going to edit that action and thenI'm going I'm going to set it to unlock the record for editing. editing. And then the final rejection actions. actions. Again, I'm going to unlock the record for editing. editing. Now, the only thing I want to do on the approvalactions is actions is that active field I want to update to true or yes. yes. So I'm going togo do a go do a field update. update. I'm going to say update account active to true. true. I'm going to select that activeactive field. field. I'm going to set itto "yes" to "yes" and click "Save." click "Save." So now if it gets approved, I'm going toautomatically update automatically update that Active field to True and unlock the record. record. So now it's ready. ready.

I've checkedthat it that it exists in other systemsother systems, and, andall is all is well and good. good. And then finally,finally, we've got this recall action. action. So if the user or submitter has submitted thatrecord and record and has made a mistake for some reason andneeds to needs to recall it again, I could have some tasks orupdates in there, maybe an email off to theapprovers to approvers to say, hey, it's been recalled. recalled. Wait for it to go backinto the approval into the approval stage or something like that. that. But that's essentially it. it. Of course, you've got to remember to activate theapproval process. approval process. I'm going to activate this and click okay. okay. Now the moment it becomes activeactive, I can't edit. edit. I can't add any more steps in here. here. So I'd have to deactivate it, add the steps necessarynecessary, and then carry on and then reactivate it. it. But that's essentially it. it. The salesforce has quite a nice little feature,and it's called thethe view diagram feature. feature. So if we click this, you can actuallyget a get a visualisationvisualisation of what your approval process is doing. doing. Now, you can't actually edit anything here. here. It's literally just a view, but itdoes have does have quite a nice little printableview that view that you can share with different people. people. So it kind of putsall the all the numbers around all the steps. steps.

And if you scroll down, it has details of eachof those of those numbers and what they do, which is kind of cool. cool. But you can see here we gotthe entry the entry criteria, which is activeactive equals no. no. We then start the process at this point. point. It can be recalled if need be. be. Or it just goes through tothe initial the initial submission, which then locks the record. record. Then we get into step one. one. So step one is an approved userapproved user, whowho has the choice ofeither rejecting either rejecting the record or approving the record. record. Now if they reject the record,it just it just unlocks the record and everything's good. good. Or if we scroll down a bit,if they if they approve the record, you thenget an update get an update of the account'saccount's Active Field to True. True. TheThe recordis also is also unlockedand the and the account is then approved. approved. So you can kind of visuallysee what see what this approval process is doing. doing. But let's take a look to seehow it how it works in practisepractise in our salesforce.. I'm going to dive into my account. account. Now, , What I need to do first isjust add just add the approval button toto my layout. layout. So I'm going to edit this, go to Buttons and thenthen pull out this button and just add it onto mycustom buttons or,or, sorry, standard buttons bar. Do. Do there. there. Then just save on that. that. So now my users cansubmit them submit them for approval. approval. I just want to see what's active. I just want to see what's active. So at the moment, the activeactive is truetrue on this record. record. So I'm just going to set that tono and no and click Save. Save. And now I'm going to submit this for approval. approval. Actually, there's one other thingyou can you can do at the moment. moment. Oh, you'veyou've got approval history nowon this on this record right at the bottom. bottom. So this list basicallytracks the tracks the information and the submissions. submissions. But I'm just going toclick "Submit" click "Submit" for approval. approval. And then you can see it's locked. locked. So I cannot edit this record anymore. anymore. And if I scroll down, you'll see thatyou get you get this approval history information box where it'ssaying that saying that currently it's pending first approval, which is me. me. You see,see, it's pending. pending. It was assigned to me and the actual prover is me. me. And it's pending. pending. And I have the option to approve, reject,, reject, or reassign it to somebody else. else. Now that's because I am the approver of this record. record. Now for the submitter, they obviously won'tgive that give that option, but they can recall theapproval requests approval requests if we enabled it on the approval. approval. So they can go back and edit the record if need be. be.

But that's kind of cool. cool. And now I've got thechoice of choice of approving oror rejecting it. it. But there is another place that you can see thissee this, and thatthat is on the home page. page. So if we go back to the home page, youcan actually can actually have a list here of all the itemsthat the that the user needs to approve that havehave been assigned to them. them. And it's a really handy little thing. thing. So I'm just going to edit the home page layout. layout. I'm going to add it in. in. So I'm just going to edit this and and click items to approve. approve. Click next and just make sure. sure. I'm just going to move it up a little bit. bit. Let's put it up there. there. Actually, now let's put it under thecalendar and calendar and then click save on that. that. And now if I go to my home page,I get that same record that needs approval. approval. So that you can kind of instantly see themoment you moment you log in which items you need to approve. approve. And all I'm doing is justclicking here clicking here and goinggoing, "Yes"Yes, that's fine." fine." And I've got the option to approve or reject it. it. And I'm just going to click "approve." click "approve." It redirects back to the record. record. You can see it's approved. approved. And you can see now that that activeactive fieldhas been has been updated to truetrue, which is kind of cool. cool. And if we scroll down, we have the history as well. well. So it can be recentlyrecently back into approval if need be,if it changes,changes, or there it is, it'sjust been just been approved. approved. But there is another way that youcan access can access records in SalesforceSalesforce, and that's via chatter. chatter. So you continue to submit the record for approval in this manner. So you continue to submit the record for approval in this manner. But what you can do is somebody can postpost a chatchat message to say, "Hey"Hey, theyneed to need to approve this record and they can approveor decline or decline it directly in the salesforce chatter feed." feed." But you do need to switch this on.

on. So I'm just going to diveinto the into the setup. setup. I'm going to search for chatter. chatter. And here we've got chatchat settings. settings. I'm going to go into my chatchat settings. settings. And then in here, you've got aa section that says "says "Approval Posts." Posts." Allow users to receive approval requests as posts. posts. And you can enable it here. here. So I'm going to edit this scroll down. down. I'm going to allow approvals inmy chat my chat posts and just click Save. Save. Now, if I go back to myaccount and account and submit it for approval again,it's locked in it's locked in the record and it's gone into approval. approval. And if I open up the feed on the record,you can see that it's saying, "Oh"Oh, request approvalfrom this from this account for Francisco, step one of one." one." And it's pending. pending. Andapproval is approval is requested from Francis Pinder. So that's

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