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Microsoft Dynamics CRM (Archived)

Help understanding what "Execute as: The owner of the workflow" really means

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Posted on by David Pring 125

I have a real-time workflow setup to update a field on an entity that does not allow edit from a specific security role. I set this workflow up as an on-demand process and the "Execute as" is set to "The owner of the workflow". The owner is a confirmed System Administrator of the system. Based on this, I would think that even though the user cannot edit the entity directly, it would be able to update the field on the entity using the workflow because the workflow is set to run as the owner.

However, when running the workflow, the user is given a message stating they do not have write permissions on that entity. Shouldn't the workflow run as the elevated owner in this situation or am I misunderstanding what the execute as option does?

I have tried this scenario in both 2015 on prem and online with the same results.

Please help me understand this correctly.

Thanks

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  • Community Member Profile Picture
    Community Member Microsoft Employee on at
    RE: Help understanding what "Execute as: The owner of the workflow" really means

    Sorry, but is not working. Or can it be that I forgot something. I changed te main wf to child en witin the new on demand wf I called the changed wf which is set to owner

  • John E. Bailey Profile Picture
    John E. Bailey 455 on at
    RE: Help understanding what "Execute as: The owner of the workflow" really means

    It is actually pretty silly that on demand workflows ignore the Execute As setting, but this can be worked around without adding unnecessary fields.  Change the workflow to a child workflow and add an on demand workflow that just calls the child workflow.  The child workflow will run under the workflow owners context.

  • mark.purnell Profile Picture
    mark.purnell on at
    RE: Help understanding what "Execute as: The owner of the workflow" really means

    I had a similar problem with the Execute As functionality.    I found that even though the owner of my real time workflow was a system admin, a user who triggered the workflow who could not read a Field Level Security enabled attribute, and would fail due to lack of read permissions.      Converting the workflow to a background workflow didn't help.     

    The failure occurred on a Check Condition step that attempted to evaluate the value of the FLS attribute in order to make a decision about the condition.     It was interesting to note that the workflow did have the ability to move the value of the FLS attribute to another FLS enabled attribute on a different entity with the limited privilege user calling it.       

    I would have hoped that the elevated privileged user context on the workflow would avail to me whatever I needed to do (Read / Update), but it doesn't.   Just need to get creative to workaround things like this...  I had to create another attribute which was directly updated by the FLS enabled attribute that then became my conditional value that the workflow then used to perform it's logic.    Not the most efficient, but it got the job done.

  • Sartaj Profile Picture
    Sartaj 880 on at
    RE: Help understanding what "Execute as: The owner of the workflow" really means

    Thanks David, It my pleasure you find my explanation satisfactory :)

    Sartaj

  • Suggested answer
    ScottDurow Profile Picture
    ScottDurow 19 on at
    RE: Help understanding what "Execute as: The owner of the workflow" really means

    I did a post about this a while ago - see www.develop1.net/.../user-impersonation-in-plugins-workflow-and-dialogs.aspx

    Hope this helps!

  • David Pring Profile Picture
    David Pring 125 on at
    RE: Help understanding what "Execute as: The owner of the workflow" really means

    Sartaj, after doing some testing while waiting for responses I have proved you to be correct. Also, your explanation is by far the best worded explanation that I've been able to find regarding this subject. Clear, concise and to the point.

    Thanks

  • Suggested answer
    Rajkumar Rajaraman Profile Picture
    Rajkumar Rajaraman on at
    RE: Help understanding what "Execute as: The owner of the workflow" really means

    David,

    If you define the workflow to execute as the owner of the workflow than the workflow can potentially perform actions the user does not have permission to – e.g. create certain records, or delete a record.   The workflow will have the permissions of the Owner of the workflow rule which you can set higher than the permissions of the end users.

    If you define the workflow to execute in the context of the user then any records created or updated will reflect the user as the CreatedBy / ModifiedBy.

    Walkthrough the following article. It explains deeply

    garethtuckercrm.com/.../crm-2013-new-features-using-real-time-workflow-for-validation-rules

    Hope this helps.

    Regards,

    R.Rajkumar

    "Please mark my answer as verified if you found it helpful"

  • Verified answer
    Sartaj Profile Picture
    Sartaj 880 on at
    RE: Help understanding what "Execute as: The owner of the workflow" really means

    Hi David,

    When a workflow is set to Available to run on demand, it means the user who is running the workflow explicitly is aware what a particular workflow is suppose to do and hence he/she should take the ownership to make any change on the record for which workflow is running. That is why for on demand workflow, the actions that a workflow can perform are limited to users' privileges and access levels.

    The Execute as option set to Owner of the workflow works for Automated  workflows and not for on demand workflows as per the above mentioned reason and yes, it make sense think about that :)

    Hope this help.

    Sartaj

  • Suggested answer
    Raksheet Koradia Profile Picture
    Raksheet Koradia 45 on at
    RE: Help understanding what "Execute as: The owner of the workflow" really means

    David,

    You are right there might be some issue with the  security roles or configuration . Please check the below link  which will help you to debug this issue :

    community.dynamics.com/.../135682

    Thanks

  • Suggested answer
    Royal King Profile Picture
    Royal King 27,686 on at
    RE: Help understanding what "Execute as: The owner of the workflow" really means

    all on_demand workflow will run under the user who executes the workflow.so whoever runs on-demand workflow needs to privilege whatever action executed in workflow.

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