Lead Assignment, Territory Management and follow-up

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The Microsoft CRM workflow functionality provides very flexible tools to model automated process.  A prime example of automated process is assigning a Lead to a particular Sales Representative based on certain criteria.  In this post I will provide an overview that demonstrates how to assign the lead, set the Territory, notify the sales rep of the lead assignment and then begin a follow-up process.  For this example I have made the following modifications:

  1. Create a State/Province picklist populated with US states for Lead, Account and Contact entities.
    State/Province picklist
  2. Modified the Lead, Account and Contact forms to replace the “out-of-the-box” State/Province fields with the custom picklists.  As a bonus I added phone number auto-formatting to all the phone fields for these entities as well.
    Lead form with picklist
  3. Create a N:1 relationship between Lead and Territory.
    Lead - N:1 RelationshipTerritory to Lead Relationship
  4. Map Territory from Lead to Account and from Lead to Contact.
    Territory Mapping RelationshipTerritory Mapping
  5. Create a workflow that:
    • Checks for the selected state and assigns to a specified user
    • Updates the removed “out-of-the-box” State/Province field based on the value selected in the new State/Province picklist (minimizes customization where the app relies on the original field)
    • Sends an email notification of the new Lead assignment to the user
    • Executes a Trade Show Follow-up workflow process
      • Sends an email template to the Trade Show Lead
      • Schedules a Task for the CRM user to call the Lead
      • Schedule a Meeting for the CRM user to discuss the Potential Opportunity

   Lead Assignment Workflow

I have posted the Customizations from this post for you to download and use in your CRM deployment.  In order to test this functionality I have posted my Lead import file.

Enjoy!

- Eric Boocock