Automatic Actions

Automatic actions ensure that documents automatically continue in workflow if they meet specific criteria, eliminating manual user intervention. This gives business owners confidence that documents are moving through the pipeline, and it provides greater control and optimization for the entire process flow.

As an example, automatic actions are often used to automate backorder processing for sales orders:

• Orders that have backordered items wait for inventory in a backorder queue

• The system regularly checks whether there is available inventory for pending backorders

• Once inventory is available, the automation reserves needed items for backordered lines and submits those orders through workflow to be fulfilled

For general information on how to set up workflow, refer to this documentation.

Setting Up Automatic Actions

To view, edit, and create automatic actions, click the Automatic Actions tab on the right side of the Workflows screen. The Automatic Actions popup shows all existing actions with quick details and enabled states available at a glance.

To create a new automatic action, click the “+” button at the top right of the popup. 

Automatic actions validate based on set conditions, which are set up the same way as conditions for workflow queue pathing. 

The evaluation policy determines when the action runs:

• Periodic - triggers on the indicated interval, e.g. every 15 minutes, every hour, every day

• Scheduled - triggers at a certain time on specific days of the week, e.g. at 5am on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays

• Triggered - triggers immediately when documents enter the specified workflow queue

Applicable queues can be selected from a dropdown list, so actions can only affect documents in particular workflow steps.

When the automatic action runs, all documents that meet the outlined conditions in the specified queue will be submitted through workflow. This keeps documents moving automatically without any extra reviews or manual updates.

After making all the necessary changes, click the "Save" or "Update" button at the lower right, and then close the popup and click the “Publish Changes” button once ready to update Mission Control workflow in Business Central. Like changes to workflow, this immediately changes workflow behavior without users needing to refresh or log out and back in. 

Note: There are no additional validation steps to publish a new/updated automatic action. Only grant workflow update access to trusted members of the organization. 

Incorporating Automatic Actions in Workflow

Automatic actions may seem simple, but they can integrate with workflow and business rules in a multitude of ways to drive and control complex processes.  For in-depth information on configuring automatic actions hand-in-hand with workflow to automate processes like backorders, drop ships, reservation reassignments, and more, check out the Workflow Scenario Library.