Assign or Remove Owners Using Workflow Rules

Effective record assignment ensures accountability, ownership, and balanced workload distribution across teams. While BoldSales has a dedicated auto-assignment feature called Assignment Rules, you can also achieve auto assignment through Workflow Rules. This provides automation features to assign and remove record owners with more flexibility.

With workflow rules, you gain more control over,

• When ownership changes(based on triggers)
• How assignment or removal happens (based on conditions)
• Who receives ownership or when ownership is removed

This enables smarter and more adaptive record routing across BoldSales.

Use cases

Distributing new contacts to sales representatives

Newly created contact records can be automatically assigned to the appropriate sales representative based on criteria such as lead source or lifecycle stage.

Assigning related records for complete ownership

When a new deal is created, workflow rules can automatically assign its primary contact or its associated company, or the deal itself to a user for complete ownership.

Remove ownership when records reach a stage

Automatically remove record ownership when a deal is closed or a task is completed.

Overview of assignment rules

Assignment Rules in BoldSales help you automatically assign records to the correct owners across different modules. These rules work based on the trigger module you choose, the trigger type (such as Record created), and any conditions you add. This ensures that new records are instantly routed to the right user or team without manual effort.
To set up an assignment rule:

1. Go to Setup in the left sidebar, then navigate to Process Management > Assignment Rules or Automation > Assignment Rules. You can also type Assignment Rules in the Setup search bar.

2. Click + Create Assignment Rule, select the Trigger module, optionally add conditions, then choose the Users or Team who should receive the assigned records. Search for the users you want to assign the record to and select them or select the appropriate team from the dropdown menu.

For more details about assignment rules, visit Setting up assignment rules

How Auto-assignment differs between Assignment Rules and Workflow Rules

Assignment Rules and Workflow Rules handle auto-assignment differently in two ways:

What gets assigned:

• Assignment Rules assign owners only to the primary record of the selected module. For example, if the rule is created for Deals, only the deals are affected by this rule.
• Workflow Rules provide more flexibility because they can assign or remove owners in related records as well. This includes assigning the primary contact related to a deal or the primary industry linked to the deal, as well as removing ownership from those records if needed.

Assignment Rules do not apply to records that are imported without owners. To assign ownership to these records, you must configure Workflow Rules with the appropriate triggers to handle record assignment after import. When creating the workflow rules,

1. Select the trigger module whose records you want to import (Contacts, Companies, Pipelines).
2. Select the trigger type. Note that Record created trigger type do not apply, instead use the Date/time trigger type and select the Created on field so that all imported records are assigned based on common criteria.
3. Add conditions to specify that only the imported records should be assigned. Use the following conditions:
   • Created by > Is > System Automation (Confirms that the contact is imported)
   • Owner > Is empty (Affects only the records whose owner data is empty)
4. Define the action as Assign owner > To current record so that only the record is assigned.
5. Choose who to assign the records to, either users or teams and select the respective users or teams.
6. Review the configurations then click Create to save and activate the rule.

When the assignment happens

• Assignment Rules run only when the record is created.
• Workflow Rules can be configured to run when a record is created, updated, or when it meets the specific time-based criteria.

Set up a workflow rule to assign or remove owners

To set up an auto-assignment rule using workflow rules, follow these simple steps:

Access workflow rules

1. Click Setup in the left sidebar menu.
2. In the Setup drawer, navigate to Process Management > Workflow Rules, or Automation > Workflow Rules. Alternatively, use the search bar in the drawer and type Workflow Rules.
   
3. Click button.

Choose the triggers

Triggers determine when the workflow runs

1. Under Trigger module, select the module whose records you want to auto-assign. Only specific modules support owner assignment, such as Contacts, Companies, Sales Documents, Pipelines, and Tasks.
2. Under Trigger type, choose the event that determines when the record is to be assigned. You can choose the trigger type such as Record created, Record created/edited, Record edited and Date/time.
   Note: For Remove owner action, only Record edited trigger type is supported.
3. If you choose the trigger type as Record created/edited or Record edited, you can set the Occurrence to choose whether the assignment runs Only the first time or Every time the record is created or updated.
4. If you choose the Date/time trigger type, you must select the appropriate date/time field and specify the date and time when the assignment should occur.

Add conditions (optional)

Conditions help narrow down the records to assign owners to or remove owners from once the triggers are activated.

Adding conditions to the rule is optional, but once added, the workflow will run only when both the trigger and all conditions are met.

To add conditions:

1. Click Add Condition.
2. Select a field and define the conditional criteria.
3. To add more conditions, click Add condition, select another field then define the criteria.
4. Choose whether all/any of the specified conditions must be met before the system executes the assignment

You can define up to a maximum of 10 conditions.

For more details on triggers and conditions, visit Understanding triggers and conditions

Define actions

Actions are the tasks that the workflow performs once all triggers and condition requirements (if added), are met. There are two types of actions: Instant Actions which are executed immediately when the triggers and conditions become true, and Delayed Actions which are executed after a specific time delay (between 30 minutes and 3 hours).

Only Instant Actions support owner assignment and removal

Assign owner

1. Go to the Define Actions tab.
2. Under Instant Actions, click the Select action dropdown and then choose Assign owner option to configure ownership.
3. Choose what record the assignment should apply to (depending on the module):
   • Contacts: Current record or Primary company
   • Pipelines (Deals): Current record, Primary contact, or Associated company
   • Companies, Sales Documents & Tasks: Current record only.
4. Select whether the records will be assigned to users or teams and choose the specific users or team from the dropdown menu.

The following image shows how to define an action to assign records.

Remove owner

1. Click the Select action dropdown and then choose Remove owner.
2. Choose what records the owners should be removed from (depending on the module):
   • Contacts: Current record or Primary company
   • Pipelines (Deals): Current record, Primary contact, or Associated company
   • Companies, Sales Documents & Tasks: Current record only.

The following image shows how to define an action to remove owners from records.

After verifying all the triggers, conditions (if added) and actions, click to finalize and activate the rule.

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)

1. Should I use assignment rules or workflow rules for auto-assignment?

Use Assignment Rules when you need straightforward assignment of the main record.
Use Workflow Rules when you need more flexibility, such as assigning related records or using time-based triggers.

2. Can workflow rules replace assignment rules entirely?

They can, but it is not recommended. Assignment Rules provide a simple, dedicated assignment function. Workflow Rules are better for complex record assignment scenarios.

3. Can auto-assignment distribute records evenly among users?

Yes. Both Assignment Rules and Workflow Rules support round robin distribution, allowing records to be assigned evenly across selected users. This helps maintain a balanced workload and ensures no single user is overloaded.