How to trigger business rule (workflow) on Service Activity that is missing Note(s) in CRM 2016

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Posted on by Daniel at VNS

We have service staff who close out Service Activities with no Notes or documentation of what they did. This creates a huge burden for their manager, who has to have them re-open their SAs, then properly document their work in the Notes, which is where the work gets documented.

I was going to create a Business Rule to stop this until I realized that Business Rules are not available for Service Activities.

Since CRM 2016 is still using the CRM 2011 forms, and has no support for Business Rules, I'm looking at workflow to solve this problem.

However I found that workflow also does allow running on a Service Activity to monitor for the existence of a Note.

I *can* monitor for the content of a Note, related to a Service Activity, however, that would be irrelevant because by definition, the Note first has to exist to check it's conditions. And that *is* the whole problem here.

Am I missing an obvious solution to this problem? Any ideas on how we can better manage this with OOB functionality?

Thank you.

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Gary Letter 1,267 on at

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Daniel,

I think you would need to use JavaScript or a plug-in to actually prevent the Service Activity from being closed. I don't see a way to do this with workflows.

One alternative would be to use workflows to re-open the Service Activity and send the Owner an email if it is closed without Notes. This would involve two steps:

1. Establish a custom two-option field "NotesExist" on the Service Activity, defaulting to "no". Create a workflow that is triggered on the creation of a Note. Have it check whether a Regarding(Service Activity)/Owner contains data, and if so, toggle "NotesExist" to "yes". To prevent timing issues when the Service Activity is re-closed, make this a real-time workflow.

2. Create a second workflow triggered on a change of Status to Service Activity. Have it check whether "NotesExist" is false AND the Status is closed; if so, change the status to Open and email the Owner to tell them to document their work and close the Service Activity. You may want to create a new Status Reason for this condition, like "Re-opened".

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PS 23,577 on at

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Hi Daniel,

Following can be a method without code:

Step 1: Create a new field on service activity, of 'two options type' (Yes/No) for e.g. Notes Added {Make this field read-only}

Step 2: Create a real time workflow SA1 on entity NOTES, screenshot below:

Update 'Regarding Service Activity' "Notes Added" field to Yes

Step 3: Create a real time workflow on entity service activity, screenshot below:

Note: This solution might not work on existing service activities. For that, please update all existing service activities, "Notes Added" field to 'No', only if it doesn't have notes otherwise update it to yes

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PS 23,577 on at

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After configuration you will be able to see following error, if user is trying to complete service activity without filling in notes

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Daniel at VNS on at

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Hi Prashant.

So this was a very creative solution by you, but I do not have it working yet. Your logic looks sound here and I don't see why this would not work. I have step 2 working - if the Note added = yes, SA closes normal. If not, I get the error. All is good there.

It's step 1 that is problematic. I've looked over this repeatedly and cannot see why it doesn't work. I have tried setting the Notes Added field to the form as both read-only and read-write. Auditing confirms that some change is being made to the SA, but the Note Added form just stays no and never updates unless I manually change it. And then step 2 completes as expected.

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PS 23,577 on at

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Hi Daniel,

In your first screenshot there is something wrong, you are trying to update it with the value which is not yet there :)

Delete the yellow highlighted part from the field shown on your screenshot 1 and make it like shown below:

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Daniel at VNS on at

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You are a ninja Prashant. Thank you. I was making it overly-complicated, thinking that i had to enter field data in there when all i had to do was click the button!

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PS 23,577 on at

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Happy to help !! :)

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Community Member on at

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Hi Prashant,

I want to make a field mandatory in Service Activity all forms and trying to find Business Rule under SA, please guide, thanks.

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