Hello and welcome

A lot of Microsoft Dynamics CRM users get confused as to the difference between workflows and dialogs and so, being the helpful people we are – we’re going to try and cover some of the basics with this post.

The most frequently asked questions are:

• When do I use a workflow, and when do I use a dialog? 
• How are they different?

In short, dialogs execute synchronously (in real-time) whereas workflow execute asynchronously (in the background) - workflows don't require user interaction in order to complete whereas dialogs do.

Workflows and Dialogs are 2 separate kinds of processes in a Dynamics CRM 2011 system; they fall into this category because they are designed to support and automate particular processes within the system.

There are 5 distinct differences between workflows and dialogs which have been summed up in the following table:

	Workflows	Dialogs
Initialisation	User can start the process or the process can be automated.	Must be started by user.
Parameters	Need to follow the configuration parameters for execution	Synchronous process that requires user-interaction in-order to complete.
Triggers	Supported	Unsupported
XAML Criteria	Creating and editing that happens outside of Microsoft Dynamics CRM in a XAML file for these processes are supported for workflows Creating XAML (declarative) workflows doesn’t require you to write code either. You can import them right into Microsoft Dynamics CRM.	Creating and editing that happens outside of Microsoft Dynamics CRM in a XAML file for these processes is not supported for dialogs.

Some examples of workflows:

▪ When a new contact record is created, send an email to the owner who is assigned to the contact.
▪ When an opportunity closes as won, update the account relationship type from prospect to customer.
▪ When the user fills in the last status field, copy that status to a note related to the record.
▪ Select a group of account records in a grid and run a manual workflow that creates an e-mail activity for those accounts.

Some examples of dialogs:

• Customer service inbound call scripting, so your customer services representatives ask the correct questions. 
• Prospecting for new clients. Create a dialog and have your outbound call specialists follow the script during their calls. Have the ability to create a new record based upon the inputs in the dialog. 
• Ensure data integrity. If staff are forgetting to fill in certain fields when creating a new record, the process can be simplified through use of a dialog can guide your staff through the process of creating a new record. 

We hope that after reading this post you have a better understanding of the difference between workflows and dialogs, if you have any issues regarding your Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 system get in touch, don’t be shy!







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