Custom Workflows or Reports?

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Posted on by Bryant Boyer

I've got a business requirement to send a recurring email (every Saturday) to all of the accounts that currently have active contacts, with the names and several other fields from the contact entities. I'm new-ish to Dynamics 365 CRM, and my C# is super basic, but from what I can tell this will need to be a custom workflow action. Or can I leverage the Reports capability?

If I do need to create a custom workflow action that loops through accounts and sends emails to those that meet the criteria, how difficult is that going to be? Any tips on figuring this out without a lot of C#/ no FetchXML experience?

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Dynamics365 Rocker 7,755 on at

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Are you using CRM onpremise or online?

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Bryant Boyer on at

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I thought Dynamics 365 CRM was only online? In any case, I am working in Dynamics 365 CRM Online.

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Dynamics365 Rocker 7,755 on at

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You can go for workflow as In Dynamics 365 you need to create fetch xml based reports.

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Bryant Boyer on at

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I'm not understanding you. Do I use workflows or reports with FetchXML?

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Dynamics365 Rocker 7,755 on at

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Workflow.

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Bryant Boyer on at

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So I looked into Workflows and didn't find what I needed, which is why I posted. Can you give me some insight into what I would do? And do I need to create a custom workflow action in C# to accomplish this?

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Dynamics365 Rocker 7,755 on at

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You have to create wait condition in workflow. Register workflow on contact entity.

And select send email, In email properties you can select contact fields what ever you want to set.

You will get help from below links:

community.dynamics.com/.../244801

rajeevpentyala.com/.../wait-condition-in-workflow-explained

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Hi Bryant,

Do you guys use SSIS Kingswaysoft plugin ?

Is the CRM online or on premise ?

What's the contact and account count ?

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Arun Vinoth 11,615 Moderator on at

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This need custom development for sure. But you are giving limited space for solutions.

You can do console app in C#, this can be scheduled in Task scheduler for recurrence. This has to use fetchxml/Query expression for pulling the dataset & SDK call to send out email. But you will find lot of samples in internet.

Another choice is fetchxml reports, then you can try running the report & attach as email attachment.

SSRS report subscription is not possible for online environments.

Custom workflow activity & recurring UI workflow can be a mess.

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RaviKashyap 55,410 Moderator on at

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Hi,

There are couple of things which makes your requirement complex. The first thing is that you need to run this every Saturday (i.e. recurrence), second you need to query existing records based on some logic, third you need to build a table format with the retrieved records and fourth (least complex) is to send email. If you are developer, it may be easier for you to build this using custom code however you can still go for a no code solution if you deal with all these separately.

The first one, there is no inbuilt crm capabilities to schedule the workflows however there are few workaround or third party solutions using which you can use to schedule a workflow.
Workflow Scheduler Solution: Its a solution which when installed, provides you with entity to schedule the workflow. This requires fetchxml to retrieve the records on which you need to run a workflow.
alexanderdevelopment.net/.../updated-solution-for-scheduling-recurring-dynamics-crm-workflows

Recurring Workflows: This is the traditional approach of putting a wait condition and running the same workflow again. This is not recommended due to performance and other issues.
http://gonzaloruizcrm.blogspot.com/2011/05/quite-often-we-have-business-process.html?_sm_au_=iVVRn2W3JtH5Jw5T
https://www.powerobjects.com/2012/11/09/create-recursive-or-scheduled-workflows-in-crm/

Using Flows: You can also do leverage flows to schedule workflows:
thatcrmblog.wordpress.com/.../scheduling-workflows-with-microsoft-flow

The second & Third one, you can use the Workflow Elements tools which accepts a personal view or a fetch xml to retrieve the records and also convert them into either csv or html.
https://kaskelasolutions.com/how-to-send-an-itemized-receipt-2/

The last one, this is the simplest, you just need to ensure that your crm is configured to send emails. You can do this by setting up email configuration.
Email Configuration: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt622056.aspx

Hope this helps.

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