Friday 1 December 2017

Use of Option Set Vs Two Options in a Business Process Flow

Business processes within Dynamics 365 streamlines and creates a visualization of information flow through various stages. Each stage combine "data steps" to reach a business decision to either move forward or backward.

The data steps in a business process stage are fields used to capture information. Option sets and two options can be used as data steps. 

Two option should only be used if a data step is not required in a business process stage. The problem with two options is that they cannot have "unassigned value" as a default. Therefore even if a two option is marked as required on a business process stage, one can still move to next stage based on the default selected.

1) I have created 2 fields on Opportunity. These will be used as data steps to capture whether due diligence is done. 
One field is an option set with two values "Yes" and "No". The default value is unassigned.

Option Set Field

Second field is a two options with values "Yes" and "No". Default value is "No". The issue here is that the default value can only be selected as "Yes" or "No".

Two Options Field

2) Both these fields are displayed as data steps on the Opportunity Business Process "Qualify" stage.

Business Process on Opportunity


3) Open a new Opportunity, enter a "Topic" and "Save". This will create a new opportunity in "Qualify" stage. As seen the two fields are displayed as data steps in "Qualify". The top field is an option set and bottom field is a two option.

Testing these Fields


4) The both are required but only option set field will force a user to select a value (if nothing is selected) when moving to next stage. 

Option set can have an unassigned value as a default. Therefore always use option set over two options whenever it is required to capture data on a business process stage

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