Schedule a Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Workflow

1
votes

I am in the process of puting together a custom workflow activity to be used in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

What I would like to ultimatly acheive is configure a workflow that runs on a schedueled basis i.e run every 2 hours Monday to Friday, rather than on a particular "CRM event" like create, delete status change ect.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Maybe schedule it outside of crm?

Edit 1:

What we are doing is processing rows in a staging table that gets generated from a front-end site. We are creating contact/account and opportunity records in CRM based on the data captured from the front-end.

The more I think about it the more I'm thinking that using workflow is possibly not the best solution?

What about a using a windows service?

2
c#.networkflow-foundationdynamics-crmdynamics-crm-4

2 Answers

1
votes

Workflow was not best option for this situation due to the following:

  • Can't schedule it to run
  • The process can only be triggered by a CRM create, update or similar message

I went with a combination of the following: A SQL CLR sproc that gets called on an UPDATE trigger on the staging table. The CLR sproc calls a webservice that generates CRM contacts/accounts. That way the front-end site can create records and set a "ready to process" flag once all data has been entered.

The requirement changed from a schedule solution to real time processing (well not ACTUALLY real time). The process needs to run as records are entered from the front end site.

Hope all that makes sense!

0
votes

A windows workflow using the CRM webservices is one option, a better option would be to change your webform to access the CRM webservce adn enter the data directly.

if you really want to use workflows you can download a tool from http://www.patrickverbeeten.com/pages/TechnicalNet/MicrosoftCrm/PeriodicWorkflows.aspx?id=23 that you install on your CRM server and it allows you to use windows sheduled tasks to triger them.