Tip #360: Workflows on change of process flow stage

In CRM 2013 or 2015, if you have a workflow that runs on change of the process flow stage, such as a notification email, you may occasionally see the workflow fire multiple times.

The reason for this is because the way that the stage is moved by hitting the next/previous buttons makes it very easy for users to click the arrow too many times, and they may accidentally go forward/back too many stages, causing the workflow to double/triple fire. Also, each time the stage is moved, it saves, so if the user advances the stage 4 times, the workflow will run 4 times.

There are several approaches that you can use to guard against this. The following approach uses out of the box tools.

  1. Create a field called notification date.
  2. Add a step at the end of the workflow to update the notification date field with the execution time of the workflow.
  3. Add a check condition step at the beginning of the workflow to check and see if the execution date is less than 5 minutes after notification date. If it is, stop the workflow.

Screenshot 2015-04-06 17.05.33

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