Workflow Wait Conditions: Best Practices - Dynamics CRM 2011

Paul Nieuwelaar, 25 November 2012

In this blog post I will be discussing a few ‘best practices’ when using Dynamics CRM 2011 Workflow Processes, and in particular when using the ‘Wait Condition’. I will assume that you’re familiar with the basics of how to use workflow wait conditions, and so I will be focusing purely on a few of the tricks that I’ve picked up over the years while using workflows, so that you can use them in the most effective manner possible.

1. TIMEOUT VS. WAIT

While a timeout is technically a wait condition, it appears differently once saved. Unlike a standard wait condition, a timeouts wait condition cannot later be modified, unless it is to simply change the date it is waiting until (as in, it must remain a ‘timeout’).

A timeout also cannot have multiple conditions defined within the same timeout; for example waiting until a date is reached and the status is complete (meaning the condition won’t be met until both of these are true).

So when should you use a Timeout and when should you use a Wait?

A ‘Timeout’ should be used when waiting until a date. For example, if you need to wait until 1 day before the due date of an appointment to send a reminder email, you need to use a Timeout. Timeouts can also be used to wait a static number of days. For example waiting 7 days duration before performing some other logic.

A standard ‘Wait’ can be used to wait for any other conditions. For example, if you have an opportunity pipeline workflow which creates an activity, you can use a wait condition to wait until the activity is completed before continuing onto the next phase.

Avoid using Process Execution Time in wait conditions, as these conditions will never be met and the workflow will continue waiting forever. Instead, you should always timeout until a specific date using the form assistant or a static date.

2. ADD STEPS AFTER THE WAIT CONDITION INSTEAD OF INSIDE

Wait conditions with no steps defined inside the actual wait condition will still wait until the condition is met before processing any steps after the wait condition.

By using this approach, it means there aren’t as many nested conditions, which makes it a lot easier to make changes to the workflow later on. When you delete a wait condition, it also deletes any steps defined within the wait condition, which means you would have to recreate any of the steps defined within the wait condition. It also means you can add your steps in first, and then add in the wait condition later.

If you have a parallel wait condition, where one of the two branches end the workflow, you can add the steps to end the workflow inside the wait, and then the steps for the other wait can be added outside (after) the whole wait condition. This will never be hit when the other wait condition is met, as the workflow will have been ended.

3. WHAT IF THE DATE CHANGES OR THE SERVER GOES DOWN DURING A TIMEOUT?

If you’re using a Timeout to wait until a date, and that date changes, the timeout will automatically adjust and wait until the new date. Even if that date is changed to be in the past, the timeout will readjust to the new date, and will fire instantly.

If the server goes down, or the async service stops, any workflows that are ‘waiting’ will be resumed when the server/async service comes back up. If the server/async is down at the exact time as when a wait condition is waiting until, the workflow will continue again when the server/async comes back up, and it will process the wait conditions that were due during the down time.

4. TRIGGER WORKFLOWS ON CREATE WHEN USING A WAIT CONDITION

A Workflow triggered on Create will only ever run once for each record, whereas a workflow triggered by other means (such as field change) will fire a new instance of the workflow each time. If you are performing wait conditions, or sending emails for example, you don’t want these being sent twice for the same record.

If a date (such as an end date) won't be entered right away, and you only want to start waiting when this date is entered, you can still trigger the workflow on create, and just timeout until this date. Even if there is no value, the workflow will wait until there is a value, and until that value is reached. If the workflow was triggered on change of the end date, you could potentially have multiple instances of the workflow running if the date were to change after it was initially set.

There are a few issues with this approach however. The workflows could potentially be waiting a long time before the date is set and reached, or the date could never be set at all, in which case the workflow would continue to wait forever. There are 2 ways to avoid these issues:

• Add a parallel wait branch to the wait condition, so you can wait a static length (such as 3 months after the created on). If the end date is not set and reached by that time the workflow will end, and optionally send someone an email or perform some other action.

• Trigger the workflow on change of the end date, but create a new hidden date field on the entity to prevent multiple instances of the workflow running at once.

In the workflow, before the wait condition, set the hidden date field to equal the end date. Add a parallel wait condition to wait until the end date does not equal the hidden date field. If this condition is met, end the workflow (as another instance of the workflow will now be running). This will ensure only 1 instance of the workflow is running per record.

5. CHECK THE DATE IS IN THE FUTURE BEFORE WAITING

If historic records are being created/updated, you may not want your workflow to continue processing. This would require a simple check condition before the wait condition to check Process Execution time is BEFORE the date you are waiting for. If the date is not in the future, the workflow would not continue.

This would mean that if your workflow was running on change of the date field, and it was changed to a date/time before today, the new instance of the workflow would be ended as the date is not in the future. Assuming you had ended any earlier workflows, this would mean the steps defined after the wait condition would not fire for that record.

This check would be completely optional and dependant of your particular requirements, as you may need the workflow to fire even on records where the date is set in the past.

NOTE: Without the check condition, a Timeout waiting until the End Time will be met straight away, even though the date has passed.

6. MAKE SURE THE DATE HAS A VALUE BEFORE WAITING

If you're waiting until a date, make sure the date field contains data. If the field does not contain data, the workflow will error. This includes where the field initially has no value, and also where the field had a value, but was cleared before the wait condition was met.

To get around this, you can simply make the date field required, so that you know there will always be a value. Otherwise, you could add an extra check/wait condition into your workflow to make sure there is a value, or to wait until there is a value before waiting until the date.

You can also put logic in place to prevent the field value being cleared once it is set initially, so that the workflow won't error while waiting for the date, but you can still add initial validation if the date won't be entered right away.