Why do my territory assignment rules work differently when using the excludes criteria

When using "excludes" in the criteria of a territory assignment rule, the rule behaves differently depending on where it's run from.

Why This Happens

When territory assignment rules run at the model/parent level (or during an account update), Salesforce uses workflow evaluation criteria to evaluate the rule. When the same rule runs directly from the territory, Salesforce instead evaluates it using an AND condition across all criteria defined in the rule, without using workflow evaluation criteria.

Example: If the `multi_picklist__c` field on the account has the values A, B, C, and the rule criteria says `multi_picklist__c EXCLUDES A, B, C`, the account is not associated with the territory. However, if the field has only A, or only A and B — meaning the field excludes just one of the listed values — the rule applies and the territory is assigned.