Tapping into the Power of Workflows

re: Tapping into the Power of Workflows

Ron — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 04:37:52 GMT

Great post, I need to use something similar soon and the initial thinking was a plug but this is a great example of the power of workflow

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Team Blog : Tapping into the Power of Workflows « crm like soft

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 07:19:12 GMT

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re: Tapping into the Power of Workflows

Ben Vollmer — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 17:53:57 GMT

After some offline feedback.... :)

The design goal of this was that an Oracle ERP system had a list of all of the widgets, but the sales reps never knew which how many widgets a customer actually owned.

The Account Entity was customized pretty heavily for the prospect, so I didn't really want to attach it to the Workflow. :) If somebody really needs the field, I am sure they can create it or I will fire up a blank VPC.

So for the scenario this demo script is for, it works well. I could see the subtraction being a pain, but with a little work, I know we could it without a plugin. (And will probably start messing with it after the Fiscal year is over.)

Thanks!

Ben

re: Tapping into the Power of Workflows

Michael Randrup — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 11:18:43 GMT

Hi Ben.

Thanks for the post.

Your example on the power of workflows, also shows one of the weak points you have to be aware about as a developer - namely transactions in the datalayer.

We are also huge fans of workflows and have developed 100+ custom workflow activities to support custom processes, but with a bit of change in your example, it shows one big weak point in the workflows also:

1) Change the workflow to be available "On Demand"

2) Now, create 3 widgets, with 1.000 items each

3) Select the 3 widgets from the list of widgets attached to the account

4) Choose "run work" and run the Widget workflow

Now, you would expect the total on the account to be 3.000 right? ...Go have a look! :)

As a developer it is *Very important* to be aware of these weak points, so you can compensate for them in your software design, where necessary.

This problem occurs because of the async. nature of the workflow manager, combined with a lack of "Row Locking" on the SQL level when reading data.

If you create 20 widgets and try this experiment again, you will see, that each time you actually get different results, because the Workflow manager cannot guarantee that the workflows will perform SQL updates in sequence.

I could go into this further, but I guess the small 4-step experiment shows the point :)

Regards,

Michael

re: Tapping into the Power of Workflows

Carl Joseph — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 22:48:11 GMT

Nice point Michael.

In CRM Dynamics then, how would you suggest doing something like this (i.e. a summary type field)?

The ability to have a field that dynamically calculates itself based on a query you design into it would be wonderful, but obviously not a feature that is currently there.

Cheers,

Carl