Workflow
An automation that enrols records on a trigger and acts on them. The place operational intent becomes executable — and the place it silently rots when nobody owns it.
Also called: Automation, Enrollment Trigger
What it is
A workflow enrols records that meet a condition and performs actions on them: set a property, send an email, create a task, notify a channel, call an external system. It is the mechanism by which a written process becomes something that actually happens.
Enrollment is where the bugs live
Most workflow problems are not the actions; they are which records entered and when. Two rules decide almost everything:
The trigger: the condition that admits a record. Too broad and it fires on records you never meant to touch; too narrow and it silently does nothing.
Re-enrollment: whether a record that qualifies again re-enters. Off, and the workflow fires once per record forever. On, and a record that oscillates across the threshold can loop.
Branching
If/then branches let one workflow serve several paths — by segment, score, or region. Useful up to a point; beyond three or four branches it is usually two workflows wearing one name, and the reason nobody can say what it does.
Governance
Name workflows so their purpose is legible in a list, record why each exists, and test against a real record before activating. An unowned workflow does not announce itself when it breaks: it just stops producing tasks nobody was watching for.
RELATED TERMS
Data Hygiene
The continuous practice of keeping records accurate, complete and current — as distinct from data quality, which is the state that practice produces.
Field Governance
The rules controlling who may create, alter or retire fields, and the review that applies before they do.
CRM
The system of record for customer relationships — the accounts, people, deals and interactions a revenue team works from. Its value is decided by what is entered into it, not by which vendor supplies it.
Property
A single field on a CRM record. The unit of everything a CRM knows — and the unit of everything it gets wrong, because each one is a promise that somebody will maintain it.
COMMON QUESTIONS
- Why did my workflow only run once?
- Re-enrollment is off by default in most systems. A record that qualified once will not qualify again unless you explicitly allow re-enrollment on the triggering property.
- What is an enrollment trigger?
- The condition that admits a record into the workflow — a property value, a form submission, a stage change. It defines the population the automation acts on.
- How do I stop a workflow looping?
- Look for an action that changes the property the trigger reads. That is a cycle. Either narrow the trigger or move the written value to a different property.
WHERE THIS HAS BEEN APPLIED
Client work and research from RevOps HQ, our consulting practice.
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