Wielding Workflow

Wielding Workflow Varadarajan Rajaram, Salesforce.com Track: Advanced AppExchange Developers

Safe Harbor Statement “ Safe harbor” statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: This presentation may contain forward-looking statements the achievement of which involves risks, uncertainties and assumptions. If any such risks or uncertainties materialize or if any of the assumptions proves incorrect, our results could differ materially from the results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements we make. All statements other than statements of historical fact could be deemed forward-looking, including any projections of subscriber growth, earnings, revenues, or other financial items and any statements regarding strategies or plans of management for future operations, statements of belief, any statements concerning new, planned, or upgraded services or technology developments and customer contracts or use of our services. The risks and uncertainties referred to above include - but are not limited to - risks associated with the integration of Sendia Corporation’s technology, operations, infrastructure and personnel with ours; unexpected costs or delays incurred in integrating Sendia with salesforce.com, which could adversely affect our operating results and rate of growth; any unknown errors or limitations in the Sendia technology; any third party intellectual property claims arising from the Sendia technology; customer and partner acceptance and deployment of the AppExchange and AppExchange Mobile platforms; interruptions or delays in our service or our Web hosting; our new business model; breach of our security measures; possible fluctuations in our operating results and rate of growth; the emerging market in which we operate; our relatively limited operating history; our ability to hire, retain and motivate our employees and manage our growth; competition; our ability to continue to release and gain customer acceptance of new and improved versions of our CRM service; unanticipated changes in our effective tax rate; fluctuations in the number of shares outstanding; the price of such shares; foreign currency exchange rates and interest rates. Further information on these and other factors that could affect our financial results is included in the reports on Forms 10-K, 10-Q and 8-K and in other filings we make with the Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time, including our Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2006. These documents are available on the SEC Filings section of the Investor Information section of our website at www.salesforce.com/investor . Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other press releases or public statements are not currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase our services should make purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available. Salesforce.com, inc. assumes no obligation and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements, except as required by law.

Agenda Introduction Winter ‘07 Workflow – What’s new? Focus on approvals Q&A – Approvals API

Definition Workflow enables the automation of a business process, in while or part within your organization – from sales, to service, to HR, to finance. It enforces a process within your organization which is consistently followed and improves efficiency and productivity.

Current Workflow Capabilities (Pre Winter ’07) Automated notification Review current discount policies on Opportunities Follow up on Cases for Platinum Customers Limited action types Email Alerts Create Tasks

Winter ’07 Workflow Capabilities Automate your business processes Field Updates, Outbound Messages, Approvals Enforce business processes Lock down Opportunities when it is closed Improve customer satisfaction Initiate a customer survey as soon as a Platinum customer case is closed Improved data quality Store only the last 4 digits of the SSN

Winter ’07 Workflow Capabilities Approval process automation Simple and complex multi-step processes Supported in the API Eliminate laborious manual processes Automate and eliminate your paper-based PTO requests Control business processes Discount policy controls – Enforce approvals on large discounts Campaign spending controls – Force approvals on costly campaigns

Field Update Action Automatically change the value in a field as a result of a workflow trigger, including owner and record type!

Outbound Message Action Send a customizable XML message to any desired Web-available listener. No more polling for changes! Can be used to automate updates to dependent records! Gain automated asynchronous integration with external systems

Other Workflow Enhancements Workflow rule limit increased from 50 to 300 per object More standard objects supported Opportunity Product Order Product Advanced “or” filters New filter options Current user Special date values – Next X days, Last Week etc

Approval Process Automation Define simple or multi-step approval processes for any object Specify actions at each step of process Send approval requests to a queue Define one or more user hierarchies for approval request routing

Anatomy of an Approval Process Process Definition (Global Characteristics) Entry Criteria Email Template Sent to Approvers Record Editability During Approval Approval Page Layout Approval Page Accessibility Allowed Submitters

Anatomy of an Approval Process Initial Submission Actions (Workflow Actions) Lock the Record Change Field Values Send Notification

Anatomy of an Approval Process Step Definition (Decision Criteria & Approval Assignment) (1+) Optional Decision Criteria Auto-Approve / Reject Assign Approver Allow Delegated Approval? Rejection Behavior

Anatomy of an Approval Process Final Rejection Actions (Workflow Actions) Unlock Record Change Field Values Send Notification

Anatomy of an Approval Process Final Approval Actions (Workflow Actions) Keep Record Locked Change Field Values Send Notification Integrate w/ External System

PTO Request – The Finished Product

Summary of Key Features New Workflow Action: Field Update – Automatically change the value in a field as a result of a workflow trigger, including owner and record type! Use Formula Editor wherever applicable to derive value from other fields, expressions, or values. New Workflow Action: Outbound API Message – Send a customizable XML message to any desired Web-available listener. No more polling for changes! Use it to update dependent records Approval Process Automation – Create simple or multi-step approval processes to automate and enforce the approval of virtually anything in your company, from sales discount requests, to expense reports, to vacation requests.

Varadarajan Rajaram Sr. Product Manager QUESTION & ANSWER Salesforce.com Steve Tamm Technical Architect Salesforce.com

Approvals API New API – process Syntax ProcessResult[] = sfdc.process([ProcessRequest[]) ProcessRequest ProcessSubmitRequest: Submit a record for approval ProcessWorkitemRequest: Approve or Reject an approval request

Approvals API Access to approval history and requests through new objects ProcessInstanceStep The contents of the approval history for a given approval process. ProcessInstanceWorkitem The current approval requests assigned to a user Update this record to reassign workitems.

Approvals API - ProcessRequest Name Type Description objectId ID For submitting an item for Approval, can be the ID of any record with approval processes defined. workitemId ID For submitting an item for processing after approval, the Id of the ProcessInstanceWorkitem. action String For approving or rejecting a workitem for processing, a string representing the kind of action to take: Approve, Reject, or Remove. nextActorIds String[] If the approval request requires the user to select the approver, specify the user ID of the next approver here comments String Any comments to be stored with the approval action in the approval history

Approvals API – ProcessResult Name Type Description entityId ID Object being processed Errors Error[] Set of errors instanceId ID The ID of the ProcessInstance InstanceStatus String The status of the current process instance: “Approved,” “Rejected,” “Removed,” “Started,” or “Pending” newWorkitemIds ID[] The IDs of the newly created approval requests, if any Success boolean “ True” if the approval completed successfully

Sample Code public ProcessResult[] doProcessSample(String comments, String id, String[] approverIds) throws ApiFault { ProcessResult[] processResults; ProcessSubmitRequest request = new ProcessSubmitRequest(); request.setComments(comments); request.setNextApproverIds(approverIds); request.setObjectId(id); try { PartnerConnection connection = Connector.newConnection(xconfig); //calling process on the approval submission processResults = connection.process(new ProcessSubmitRequest[]{request}); for (ProcessResult processResult : processResults) { if(processResult.getSuccess()){ if(xconfig.isTraceMessage()){ log.debug("Approval submitted for: " + id + ", approverIds: " + approverIds.toString() + " successful."); log.debug("Process Instance Status: " + processResult.getInstanceStatus()); } } else{ log.error("Approval submitted for: " + id + ", approverIds: " + approverIds.toString() + " FAILED."); log.error("ERRORS: " + processResult.getErrors().toString()); } } } catch (ConnectionException ce) { ApiFault fault = getApiFault(ce); ce.printStackTrace(); throw fault; } return processResults; }

Additional Resources “ Tips and Tricks for Advanced Workflow” Tuesday 3:45PM See how 144 Workflow helps Deutsche Bank reduce costs and increase efficiency Join ADN! http://www.salesforce.com/developer Documents, toolkits, discussion boards and more!

Session Feedback Let us know how we’re doing! Please score the session from 5 to 1 (5=excellent,1=needs improvement) on the following categories: Overall rating of the session Quality of content Strength of presentation delivery Relevance of the session to your organization Save time! Use your cell phone or mobile device to send Feedback via SMS/Text Messaging! Send a message to 26335 In the message body: Session 239, #### For example, “ Session 123, 5555 ” Session ID: 239 Session ID # Scores for 4 categories SMS Voting powered by:

Wielding Workflow

More Related Content

What's hot (20)

Similar to Wielding Workflow (20)

More from dreamforce2006 (19)

Recently uploaded (20)

Wielding Workflow