CRM Real Time Workflows – Pre & Post Actions

One of the great features of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 and later include Real Time Workflows.  They are workflows that will run synchronously with your entity changes, but also allow you to capture more data than the conventional asynchronous background workflows.  One capability of Real Time Workflows I would like to discuss is capturing pre and post values from field changes.  For example, if your sales rep makes a change to the Revenue field on an Opportunity, a Real Time Workflow can capture the pre and post Revenue change and send it within an email to the account manager or capture it for logging purposes.  Within the Real Time Workflow dialog, to select between capturing the pre value and post values, change the Start When value and then select the field change event(s): 

You may ask “How does this differ from the native field level Auditing?”  While native Auditing provides many useful features, access to their audit logs is limited.  For example, you cannot access the audit logs in Reports.  With the capability to capture pre and post values in a Real Time Workflow, you can create a custom entity designated for field change auditing which you can then easily retrieve and build Reports off of.

For more information on this topic or if you would like assistance in creation of your Real Time Workflows, please reach out to Beringer , a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner.