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Can a Workflow auto create a case? CRM 2011 RRS feed

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    I am pretty new at creating Workflows using CRM 2011. I have created a few but they are pretty basic notification type workflows. We are using CRM 2011 on premise.

    I would like to create a case each and every month for a specific client request. This ticket will be for the same client every month and should be created 5 days prior to the end of the month. Can I create a workflow that will create this case? I think I can figure out all of the notification steps it's just the case creation portion that I am struggling with. Anyone who can help?

    Tuesday, November 27, 2012 2:49 PM

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    Hi 

    Try Below Link to  Create Recursive or Scheduled Workflows in CRM. It is very similar to your requirement. 

    http://www.powerobjects.com/blog/2012/11/09/create-recursive-or-scheduled-workflows-in-crm/

    Chandan

    Wednesday, November 28, 2012 12:46 PM
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    Ok, so out of the box, you are correct.  However, all is not lost.  First off, if you are comfortable wtih Visual Studio (or has someone who is), you can create CRM workflows in Visual Studio.  you have a lot more power there, and can resolve most of these issues.  Learn more here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/jj684582

    Other than that, there are also custom workflow steps that can be installed in CRM that do things like date manipulation, hyperlink creation, etc.  First search here: http://www.codeplex.com/

    Hyperlink creator: http://crm2011workflowutils.codeplex.com/

    Finally, you should be able to pull dynamic data from the record you're running off of.  So yes, you should be able to get data from the Case you just created.

    One last suggestion, it might be better to set this up as a custom plugin if workflows are causing issues.

    The postings on this site are solely my own and do not represent or constitute Hitachi Solutions' positions, views, strategies or opinions.

    • Marked as answer by RandyM33 Wednesday, December 12, 2012 12:57 PM
    Monday, December 10, 2012 10:56 PM

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    Well.. you cant do it out of the box.

    The reason for this is, that you are talking about an endless loop..

    While it is possible to create a case through a workflow. What you want is the workflow to create a case and then start a child workflow that waits for the end of the next month to create yet another case.. etc etc etc.

    Workflows are limited to 10 cycles (if I remeber correctly) to avoid endless loops. So after 10 months your workflow would simply just stop working.

    Soooo... You have to options.

    1. Create the cases manually
    2. Create the workflow and run it.. then just accept that you need to restart it manually every 10 months.
    3. Create a batchjob that creates the cases using Microsoft SDK.

    Rune Daub Senior Consultant - Dynateam CRM http://www.xrmmanagement.com

    Tuesday, November 27, 2012 4:08 PM
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    RuneDaub,

    The SDK option is most likely out for me because I am very limited in my coding knowledge and am pretty new to the product altogether. I would be willing to restart that workflow on a 10 month cycle if need be.

    Can anyone help me with some structure for creating a Workflow like this? I am not sure where to even start.


    Tuesday, November 27, 2012 4:40 PM
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    Hi 

    Try Below Link to  Create Recursive or Scheduled Workflows in CRM. It is very similar to your requirement. 

    http://www.powerobjects.com/blog/2012/11/09/create-recursive-or-scheduled-workflows-in-crm/

    Chandan

    Wednesday, November 28, 2012 12:46 PM
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    I used this link to get my Workflow started. I have not finished creating as of yet though. I was wondering if it is possible to trigger this workflow on a specific day of the month. For example, I would like the child workflow to trigger on the 25th of each month creating a new case. Is this possible?

    Monday, December 3, 2012 8:55 PM
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    You cannot schedule the workflows to fire on a particular date or time.

    But you could create a custom attribute on the entity from which you would like to trigger the workflow and set the date of that field to be 25th and increment it by one month each time the workflow is executed to set the next execution date.

    You can then add a wait condition to monitor the date on the custom field.

    HTH

    Sam

    Dynamics CRM MVP | Inogic | http://inogic.blogspot.com| news at inogic dot com

    If this post answers your question, please click "Mark As Answer" on the post and "Mark as Helpful"

    Tuesday, December 4, 2012 3:22 AM
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    How do I start an on-demand workflow without opening a specific case? The reason that I ask is - one of the steps in my workflow is to sned an email notification to the owner of this newly created case. The email notification is built with a link to the case in it. The link that is being emailed is actually to the case that I used to trigger the workflow and not the newly created case.

    Tuesday, December 4, 2012 8:56 PM
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    you have to run that workflow from the newly created case, then.  Workflows require that they be run on a specific record, not just in general.  As such, you must specify a Case for it.

    The postings on this site are solely my own and do not represent or constitute Hitachi Solutions' positions, views, strategies or opinions.

    Tuesday, December 4, 2012 9:16 PM
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    After working on this Workflow on and off for several days and getting some great advice and help from those here in the forum. I have come to my conclusion... what I am looking to do with this Workflow just isn't 100% possible.

    I ran into the following problems:

    • The workflow must be related to an existing case. This is a problem because I have several required fields such as received date and due date. These fields always refer to the existing case and not to the case created by the workflow. Having these fields fill with data from the newly created case such as date is not possible (as far as I can tell)
    • I wanted a notification that the case has been created to go out to the specified owner. This notification should include a hyperlink to the newly created case but the hyperlink always refers and links back to the original case that I had to kick the workflow off from because you cannot kick off a workflow by itself.
    • I also cannot include case number or case creation date in the above mentioned notification becuase these items always display in relation to the original case that I had to create to kick the workflow off
    • I wanted this workflow to kick off 5 days prior to the end of the current month - not possible because CRM does not allow the workflow creator to specify an incremental date
    • I wanted to set my case due date to the first of each month but I was unable to do so - I was able to set a date of 5 or 6 days after creation date but the creation date always refers back to the original workflow making my required due date several months behind the actual due date

    Thanks for all of your help. Feel free to correct me if any of my above bullet points are incorrect. I would love for this to work as I am sure others would as well.

    Wednesday, December 5, 2012 2:52 PM
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    Ok, so out of the box, you are correct.  However, all is not lost.  First off, if you are comfortable wtih Visual Studio (or has someone who is), you can create CRM workflows in Visual Studio.  you have a lot more power there, and can resolve most of these issues.  Learn more here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/jj684582

    Other than that, there are also custom workflow steps that can be installed in CRM that do things like date manipulation, hyperlink creation, etc.  First search here: http://www.codeplex.com/

    Hyperlink creator: http://crm2011workflowutils.codeplex.com/

    Finally, you should be able to pull dynamic data from the record you're running off of.  So yes, you should be able to get data from the Case you just created.

    One last suggestion, it might be better to set this up as a custom plugin if workflows are causing issues.

    The postings on this site are solely my own and do not represent or constitute Hitachi Solutions' positions, views, strategies or opinions.

    • Marked as answer by RandyM33 Wednesday, December 12, 2012 12:57 PM
    Monday, December 10, 2012 10:56 PM