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Chelsey Time Based Workflow Preventing Reps from Converting Leads
I created a time based workflow rule that will go out to any LEAD that is in PROSPECTING stage after 2, 5, 7, 10, 14, 30 days. The idea is an email will go out to a prospect who is in the LEAD PROSPECTING stage until the lead is converted to an Opportunity - doesn't matter if there is activity on the record or not. Problem is when a rep tries to convert the LEAD to an OPPORTUNITY, they get an error message that says" Cannot convert because record is used in workflow". I then have to go in and delete that record from the workflow queue.
Evaluation criteria is:
Only when a record is created
How can I stop this from happening? I plan on creating additional rules for each stage of our sales process that will trigger emails at the same time intervals and it won't work if this continues to happen.
You're correct - you cannot covert a lead that has an pending time based workflow. The only way around this is to invalidate the workflow rule criteria before converting the lead. This way, Salesforce will automatically delete all pending time based workflow actions tied to that Lead record and you'll be able to convert the Lead.
In your case, looks like your Workflow rule criteria checks for Lead Status = 'PROSPECTING'. Have the users update the Lead Status to any other value right before they convert the Lead. Once they do that, the workflow rule will no longer evaluate to true and Salesforce will automatically delete all pending time based workflow actions. Users will then be able to convert the lead.
If it is too much to ask your users to do this manual update before Lead conversion, you could do the same in Apex and override the default Lead conversion button with a custom one. More work that way (including Apex development), but you get a better end-user experience.
Hope this helps.
I am having the same issue. I took your advice and I put NOT(ISPICKVAL(Status, "Working - Contacted"))) in the criteria for my workflow rule. So by default my lead status is Open - Not Contacted. So i thought once i changed the lead status to Working contacted then it would delete the workflow rules and it would allow me to convert... What am i missing?
Thanks!
Brandon
Other than an extra ')' in your formula - it should be NOT(ISPICKVAL(Status, "Working - Contacted")) - your criteria is correct. Setting the Lead status to Working - Contacted will invalidate any time based workflow rules tied to that Lead record. Please make sure that your formula syntax for the workflow rule is correct (and doesn't include any other conditions other than the Lead Status)