Status management flows

Status Management  •  Article  •  4/29/2023  • 

In this topic, all the features and functionality of Status Management Flows are explained in the context of introducing a new customer record. The same functionality also applies when introducing Status Management Flows for Items, Production BOMs, Production BOM versions, Purchase headers, Production Orders and Sales headers.

To prepare a status workflow with multiple steps, aStatus Management Flow must be created for a specific table. In the following steps, a Status Management Flow is created for the customer table.

Because a status management flow can differ substantially when setting up domestic or foreign customers, multiple flows are created for the customer table.

  1. Select the Search icon , enter Status Management Flows and then choose the related link.
    The Status Management Flows page opens.
  2. On the action bar, select New.
  3. Select the AssistEdit button in the Table No field.
  4. Select the required Table No.
    Select the Table No. 18 with Table Name Customer. This specifies the table to which the status management flow is applied.
  5. Select OK.

Filter groups

Next, the filter group CUST-DOM is selected. The filters that are set up on this specific filter group define what customers fall within the group and are assigned this specific Status Management Flow.

  1. In the Filter Group Code field, select the required code from the drop-down menu.

When setting up multiple Status Management Flows for the same record type, multiple Filter groups are to be used. For reference, see the Filter Groups user guide. To ensure that the correct flow is assigned to the correct records, the filters set in these filter groups should be mutually exclusive and jointly cover the whole set of customers.

In this example, the Status Management Flow for customers is divided into 2 filter groups:

  • CUST-DOM, for domestic customers, with filters Country code = US
  • CUST-FOR, for foreign customers, with filters Country code <> US

The use of these filters meets the criteria that they cover the whole customer base and it is not possible that 1 customer is in both groups. These rules should be taken into consideration when designing new Status Management Flows.

Statuses

After setting up the status management status flow header, multiple statuses can be defined. These statuses will be assigned to the records as it moves through the workflow. They represent the various phases the record can be in. A status management flow for the creation of a new customer card will most likely move through phases such as new, commercial check, finance check, released, and blocked.

A notification is given to inform the user that an initial status is automatically inserted.

On the Status Management Flow page, on the Lines FastTab, the Status with an empty Code and Description New Customer is inserted automatically when the Status Management Flow header is created. As this is the initial status that a new customer record will be assigned, it should not be deleted.

Renaming the Description with a value other than New Customer is possible. However, while changing the Status of the status management flow to Certified, checks are in place to ensure if a status exists where an empty Code field and the Sorting field '0'.

  1. On the Status Management Flow page, on the Lines FastTab, enter Code.
  2. Enter Description.
    As in most workflows, these phases are assigned chronologically a sorting order can be defined that indicates which statuses successive to each other.
  3. Enter Sorting Order No.
    By indicating that a Status Management Status Code is mandatory, it cannot be skipped by users involved in the execution of the specific Status Management Flow.
  4. Select the Mandatory checkbox.
    If the status management status is mandatory, the user cannot change the status management status in a record to a status with a higher sorting order no. without having set this status first.
  5. In the Blocked Value on Record field, select All from the drop-down menu.

    The Blocked value on Record field indicates the link between the user-defined Status Management Status Code and the already existing Dynamics 365 Business Central status on the record type. In this case, changing a customer record from Finance to Released will cause the standard Blocked field on the customer card to change from All to None.

Permission role ID

Permission Role IDs per Status Management Status Code are used to determine the users with specific permission sets that are allowed to change the customer record to a specific Status Management Status Code.

Here, only users that have permission ID FINANCE linked are allowed to change the customer card to Status Management Status Code Released.

  1. On the Status Management Flow page, on the Lines FastTab, in the Permission Role ID field, select the required option from the drop-down menu.

    It specifies who has permission to set this status management status on a record. When unspecified, everyone is allowed to do so.
  2. Select the required Role ID.

Email

Per Status Management Status Code, it can be decided in the Notify by Email field what email addresses need to be notified when a record changes to the specific Status Management Status Code. Multiple addresses can be set up.

Here, whenever a customer is changed to status FINANCE an alert is created with the email addresses [email protected] and [email protected]

On the Status Management Flow page, on the Lines FastTab, in the Notify by Email field, enter the related email address.

Repeat all the steps mentioned above for the required statuses.

Mandatory fields

Usually, different roles are responsible for different fields on a master data card or on an order document. To ensure efficient execution of the Status Management Flow, it is of vital importance that specific fields are filled out while moving to a specific status.

  1. On the Status Management Flow page, on the action bar, select Mandatory Fields.
  2. In the Field. No field, select the required No. from the AssistEdit button
  3. Select OK.
  4. Select the status checkbox (for example Credit check) for which the field is mandatory.

Locked fields

To further ensure the reliability of master data it is possible to lock fields for editing when already assigned/approved in a previous status of the Status Management Flow.

  1. On the Status Management Flow page, on the action bar, select Locked Fields.
  2. In the Field. No field, select the required No. from the AssistEdit button
  3. Select OK.
  4. Select the status (for example Released Customer) for which the field is mandatory.

Flow status

When changing the status of the flow to Released, multiple checks are executed to ensure that the Status Management Flow is according to the required specifications.

Only Status Management Flows that are set to Certified are used to apply to records in the system. Whenever a Status Management Flow is set to Certified, it is not possible to change its characteristics (such as adding mandatory fields).

Before the Flow Status can be changed to Certified, the Priority must be filled.

  1. On the Status Management Flow page, on the General FastTab, enter the priority of the status management flow in the Priority field.

    The priority of the status management flow determines the precedence. Among all flows that are valid per table, only one flow with the lowest priority number can be executed per record.E.g., if two flows exist on the table Vendors, one with the custom filter-group Domestic and priority 1 and one with filter group Vegetables and priority 2, and both filter groups are valid for a specific vendor, then only the first flow will be applied.
  2. In the Flow Status field, select Certified from the drop-down menu..

The Status Management Flow is now set up completely.