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1. Hmmm - great points on the cost differences. I wonder though if nesting is the only way to accomplish what you've suggested.

   I'm somewhat familiar with Salesforce and find that stacking the workflows is an effective solution. As a result, you can have a series of workflow rules that automatically trigger one another based on a sequence of events, including a field update. In reality though, the field update action isnt't required to stack workflows at all. Inherent in the workflow engine is the ability to relate workflows to each other based on lapse of time and other factors. This then triggers the sequence. An example would be that a message sends on day 1, 30 days later a second one is sent, 30 days after the second a 3rd is sent and so on. Going back to the update of values within fields, making this part of the workflow rule and setting multiple conditions and values can drive a messaging strategy that will exceed most business needs.

   I'm not sure what business condition would prefer "nesting" over "stacking" but I would love to see an example.

   My company is platform agnostic so I'm not really concerned whether our clients use Microsoft or Salesforce - so if you can articulate an example where nesting is required, I would greatly appreciate it.
   

   Posted by: Ian Gilyeat  |  Jul 25, 2008 2:55:48 AM

2. I think one benefit to having the workflows the way they are in CRM is that you can encapsulate chuncks of data/process and reuse them in a modular way. You can have one workflow that does some housekeeping, say passing a message to a 3rd party system, which gets called as a child process from any number of workflows.

   It's a less sequential-access approach; based on a programming model rather than an assembly line model.

   I'm not from Sonoma, just one of their customers.

   Thanks,
   Michael Blackburn

   Posted by: Michael Blackburn  |  Jul 25, 2008 8:50:32 AM

3. I think you've pointed out one of the great things about the SFDC platform - that it has multiple price points and that customers can pick which edition is right for them. What you fail to mention is how much more powerful SFDC is relative to Dynamics. For example, what is the API story for Dynamics?

   I think if you stack SFDC next to Dynamics side by side and compare feature to feature the *only* thing it wins on is price. You get what you pay for. I believe most customers recognize this which accounts for the two company's respective market share.

   Posted by: Fisher   |  Jul 25, 2008 9:44:48 AM

4. I don't believe I'm even starting this, but I couldn't resist...
   Mike, your company's CRM blog always felt like the most biased blog in my MS CRM blog collection. When I was seeing your posts in my feed each time I wondered - why does it always feel so pompous? It was easy to notice, especially compared with other blogs.

   Maturity and objectivity are must if you want to be treated seriously as either (web)journalist or subject matter expert. I'm not writing this to further diminish your value, but for you to take another view on what you are doing.

   If you don't know what I'm talking about, take a look at this article below, it's not exactly what I mean, but if you step outside your box, you will get the point.
   http://blogs.msdn.com/ukcrm/archive/2008/07/11/mind-your-language.aspx

   Posted by: Maciej Jankowski  |  Jul 25, 2008 10:09:53 AM

5. Thanks for all your comments. Michael, you're right on the money. Children worfklow rules allow you to re-use business logic in mulitple places. That can translate to a huge time saver once you start building a library of workflow rules.

   In regards to my pro-Microsoft CRM position, I don't think that should surprise anyone? I have co-authored four books about the software, and our company works with Microsoft CRM exclusively. Of course I'm biased. I think Microsoft Dynamics CRM is the best application available for customers. Don't get me wrong though, Salesforce.com is a very strong competitor, in fact they are far and away our #1 competitor. We have lost deals to them, and it's always a dog fight. I assume other people out there wonder about the differences between Microsoft and Salesforce.com too, so that's why we post these topics. I hope that customers or prospects considering the two different alternatives might find this information useful. I know that I found it interesting myself.

   Posted by: Mike Snyder  |  Jul 25, 2008 10:36:23 AM

6. Maciej, I feel that I should stand up for Mike. (Not that he is incapable of doing this himself!).

   The blog you are reading is Sonoma Partners' blog. It's allowed to be biased. I expect it to be biased. News sites should be unbiased. But this is a blog. It's written by passionate subject matter expert, not a journalist. Thank goodness!
   

   Posted by: Neil Benson  |  Jul 25, 2008 11:37:32 AM

7. It doesn't matter how many books you wrote...
   and I see you completely missed the point.

   Having worked with Siebel and Logotec CRM, I am Microsoft CRM enthusiast as well and for many reasons I prefer it over those systems, even though it's imprefections. I can say I'm biased too.

   There is nothing wrong with comparisons, provided they are tactful and complete - as you have seen, you got an answer from a person who knows salesforce better than you and points out that there is an equivalent.

   The pompousness just radiates from everything you write and I would be surprised not to find it in your books.
   I don't know how to explain it to you further.
   It just reminds me of professors who write books just to show how smart they are and not for the students. From my experience, these were the worst teachers one could learn from.

   Posted by: Maciej Jankowski  |  Jul 25, 2008 12:33:44 PM

8. Dear Friends,

   Can anyone tell me how to write a workflow on account entity where I've to check the condition based on user entity (we have one user defined field i.e. user type in user entity) = partner.

   Please reply me asap.

   Thanks in advance.

   With Regards,
   Jeetu T.

   Posted by: Jeetu  |  Jul 28, 2008 10:23:44 AM

9. Very nice post .... thanks for your thorough explanation... I m glad to read this..

   Posted by: MS CRM Implementation  |  Jul 31, 2008 12:56:54 AM

10. I recently received an email about a new CRM called eSales CRM how do you differentiate between Microsoft CRM, Salesforce and esales CRM.

    Posted by: Kevin Nash  |  Jul 31, 2008 3:25:42 PM

11. As a casual observer, I must say the only person on this blog that sound "pompous" is Manciej. LOL.

    Posted by: Jeff  |  Dec 7, 2009 12:34:55 PM

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