How To: Creating Merge Fields within Microsoft CRM v1.2 Workflow

Here is an excellent undocumented knowledge that has been very useful - field merges within Microsoft CRM v1.2 Workflow. I am not talking about using templates either.

Here is an example requirement:

1. Automatically send out an email of any newly created Leads to the Sales Management Team.

2. The Email Subject field needs to contain the Lead's company name and the size of the deal (a custom field in the Lead object); this is not possible using templates

3. The Email Description field needs to contain general Lead record info such as Company Name, Contact Name, Contact Phone Number, Email and Mailing Address

4. The Email To field needs to make out to members of the Sales Management Team; this is not possible using templates


To achieve the above via the out of box Workflow Manager, you can use the following undocumented syntax within any Workflow Rule Activity type definitions:

&[object name].[schema field name];

example>> &lead.companyname;

Just insert this anywhere in the definition.

The area that does not seem to work is in:

1. The Sales Process/Sales Process template definition (under Workflow Opportunity object).

2. Cannot retrieve the Picklist or Boolean field type display value

Enjoy and please comment!

Frank Lee
Workopia, Inc.