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Considerations for Field Update Actions
Learn how to use field update actions to their full potential in workflow.
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When creating field updates for workflow rules or approval processes, consider the following:
Field Update Processing
- Field updates occur before email alerts, tasks, and outbound messages.
- Field updates occur after case assignment, lead assignment, and auto-response rules.
- Field updates function independently of field-level security. Therefore, a workflow rule can update fields even though they’re hidden on the user's page layout.
- The result of a field update is unpredictable when a single workflow rule includes multiple field updates that apply different values to the same field.
- Field updates can affect the information in a related list. For example, if a field such as the Amount or Close Date of an opportunity is set to be updated, it affects the Stage History related list on opportunities.
- If a user gets a field update error when saving a record, you can use the debug log to see which field update failed. The debug log stops when a failure occurs.
- For reminder fields on tasks and events:
- Field updates can set the reminder for a task or event but they can't use the due date of a task or the scheduled time of an event.
- Formulas for date/time values are calculated in days. Divide the value by
1440—the number of minutes in a day—to express the value in minutes. For
example, the formula
Now()-7means seven days ago, whileNow()-7/1440means seven minutes ago.
- If your organization uses multiple currencies, currency fields are updated using the record's currency. If you choose to update a field based on a formula, any values in your formula are interpreted in the currency of the record.
- Field updates are tracked in the History related list if you have set history tracking on those fields.
- Workflow rules and some processes can invalidate previously valid fields. Invalidation occurs because updates to records based on workflow rules and also on process-scheduled actions don’t trigger validation rules.
- If you have person accounts enabled, you can use the Is Person Account field as part of the evaluation criteria for workflow rules. However, because the Is Person Account field is read-only, any field updates set up to modify it fails.
Notes on Cross-Object Field Updates
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For all custom objects and some standard objects, you can create workflow and approval actions where a change to a detail record updates a field on the related main record. Cross-object field updates work for custom-to-custom master-detail relationships, custom-to-standard master-detail relationships, and a few standard-to-standard master-detail relationships. For more information, see Cross-Object Field Updates on page 11.
- Approval processes can't use cross-object field update actions.
- An approval process can specify a field update action that reevaluates workflow rules for the updated object. If, however, the reevaluated workflow rules include a cross-object field update, those cross-object field updates are ignored.
- To create workflow rules so that case comments or emails automatically update fields on
associated cases, select Case Comment or Email
Message in the Object dropdown list when creating a workflow rule and select
Case in the Field to Update list. Email-to-Case or On-Demand
Email-to-Case must be enabled for your organization to use the Email Message in a workflow
rule.
When cases are updated by an email-triggered workflow rule, the updated case can trigger:
- Workflow rules
- Validation rules
- Updates to roll-up summary fields
- Escalation rules
- Apex triggers
- Entitlement processes
The updated case can't trigger:
- Assignment rules
- Auto-response rules
Field Update Actions and Custom Fields
- Before changing a custom field’s type, make sure it isn’t the target of a workflow field update or referenced in a field update formula that’s invalidated by the new type.
- You can't delete a custom field that is referenced by a field update.
- You can use field updates on encrypted custom fields, but if you try to use a formula to set the new value, the encrypted field isn't available in the formula editor.
Field Update Actions on Opportunities and Contracts
- You can define field updates for the Stage field on opportunities, but be aware of how this field affects the Type and Forecast Category fields.
- You can define field updates using the Amount field on opportunities but it only applies to those opportunities that don't have products. Adding products to an opportunity changes the Amount field to a read-only field that is automatically calculated and not affected by that field update.
- You can define field updates for the Status field on contracts. However, the value of this field can affect the value of the Status Category field as well.
- Avoid creating a field update for contracts or orders that changes the Status field to any value other than Approved.
Field Update Action Limitations
- The results of a field update can't trigger additional rules such as validation, assignment, auto-response, or escalation rules.
- The results of a field update can trigger additional workflow rules if you’ve flagged the field update to do so. For more information, see Field Updates That Reevaluate Workflow Rules.
- Field updates that are executed as approval actions don’t trigger workflow rules or entitlement processes.
- These fields aren’t available for field update actions:
- Read-only fields like formula or auto-number fields
- The Language picklist field on multilingual solutions
- Some activity fields, such as Related To and Private
- Email message workflow rules can only be associated with field updates.
- If a field update references a specific user, you can't deactivate that user. For example, if your field update is designed to change the owner of a record to Bob Smith, change the field update before deactivating Bob Smith.
- You can update long text area fields, but the option to insert A specific value restricts you to entering up to the maximum number of characters allowed in the destination field.
- You can't make a field universally required if it's used by a field update that sets the field to a blank value.
- Workflow rules that update owners don’t also transfer associated items. To ensure transfer, click Change next to the owner’s name in a record and make your transfer selections.
- Cross-Object Field Updates
For all custom objects and some standard objects, you can create actions where a change to a detail record updates a field on the related main record. Cross-object field updates work for custom-to-custom master-detail relationships, custom-to-standard master-detail relationships, and a few standard-to-standard master-detail relationships. - Field Updates That Reevaluate Workflow Rules
If Re-evaluate Workflow Rules After Field Change is enabled for a field update action, and a field update results in a change to the value of the field, Salesforce reevaluates all workflow rules on the object.
See Also
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