In Sage CRM 2024 R2, system administrators can enable or disable workflow for quotes and orders. By default, the quotes and orders workflow is disabled.

This change refers to the ability to add user-driven workflows.

But before I discuss this new feature it is worth pointing out that Quotes and Orders in earlier versions could use Escalation Rules and Quick Notifications. These are both time-based activated rules rather than user-driven behaviour.

Escalation Rules

In versions before Sage CRM 2024 R2, Escalation Rules were defined in the metadata for quotes and orders. These default predefined escalation rules include notifications for order repricing, quote repricing, and synchronization errors with the accounting application. These rules were designed to notify users when there are changes or errors related to orders and quotes.

You can see these existing Escalation Rules in

Administration → Advanced Customisation → Escalation

Quick Notifications

The Quote and Order tables within Administration and Customization had a Notification tab as shown below.

The Notifications tab allows you to define quick notifications. Quick notifications can contain up to five conditions and are a form of time-based workflow. These use the underlying escalation behaviour. If some or all of the conditions are satisfied, a notification message is displayed onscreen or sent by email. These notifications are simple and quick to define and do not require knowledge of SQL, as the WHERE clause is defined using simple UI tools.

Enabling user-driven workflow for Quotes and Orders

In Sage CRM 2024 R1, to enable user-driven workflow for quotes and orders, you need to run a SQL query in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio.

These are the steps:

1. Open Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio and connect to the Sage CRM database.
2. Run the following queries to enable workflow:
   1. update Custom_SysParams set Parm_Value = 'Y' where parm_name = 'workflowquotes';
   2. update Custom_SysParams set Parm_Value = 'Y' where parm_name = 'workfloworders';
   3. update Custom_SysParams set Parm_Value = 'Y' where parm_name = 'allowworkflowforQA';
3. Go to Administration → System → Metadata, select Refresh system parameters, and then select Execute Refresh.

You can then start to define workflow based on the Quotes and Orders tables.

The addition of support for user-driven workflow on Quotes and Orders within Sage CRM empowers customers to customize and further automate their sales processes, leading to increased efficiency, improved customer satisfaction, and higher sales productivity. By tailoring workflows for the Quotes and Orders tables to specific needs, automating repetitive tasks, and gaining real-time insights, sales teams can streamline their operations, enhance collaboration, and make data-driven decisions.

Once created, you can see the new workflow action buttons on the right-hand side of the screen.