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Process customization overview and selection guide
Understand the differences between process modules and choose the right automation tool.
Overview
Process customization covers flows, Approval Processes, workflows, Business Processes, Pipelines, the To-Do Center, and operations monitoring. It helps enterprises reduce repetitive work, standardize key business steps, and improve process handling efficiency.
Admins can configure process triggers, processing nodes, execution actions, and runtime monitoring. End users can handle approvals, business tasks, and stage tasks in the To-Do Center.
Capability map and selection guide
| Module | Main purpose | Typical scenarios | Selection advice |
|---|---|---|---|
| Approval Process | Handles approvals that require human decisions | Discount approval, contract approval, expense approval, account change approval | Use it when you need Approve, Reject, Pre-assign, Recall, or Retrieve actions |
| Business Process | Orchestrates cross-role task collaboration | Contract review, account handover, complex business handling | Use it when multiple users must process tasks in sequence, wait, branch, or work in parallel |
| Workflow | Configures lightweight automation rules | Field change reminders, scheduled notifications, automatic field updates | Use it when you only need condition-based triggers and follow-up actions |
| Flow | Orchestrates flexible automation logic | Data creation, data updates, branch decisions, loop processing, AI node orchestration | Use it when you need flexible logic, variables, or multi-node orchestration |
| Pipeline | Moves objects through stage-based tasks | Opportunity progress, lead follow-up, account lifecycle management | Use it when you need Stage Advancement for objects and stage tasks |
| To-Do Center | Aggregates process task entry points | Approval to-dos, Business Process to-dos, stage task to-dos | Use it when users handle tasks or admins view tasks |
| Operations monitoring | Reviews process efficiency and exceptions | Approval duration analysis, task handling statistics | Use it when you need Data Analysis for efficiency, overdue tasks, and governance issues |
Core concepts
| Concept | Description |
|---|---|
| Process | A set of business rules that run by sequence, condition, or time |
| Trigger | Defines when a process starts, such as create, edit, field update, schedule, or button trigger |
| Filter | Defines which records can enter the process |
| Node | A processing unit in a process, such as an Approval Node, business node, Wait Node, or branch node |
| Action | An operation that runs after a node completes, such as field change, reminder, email, SMS, or External Notification |
| Instance | A specific record generated after a process runs |
| Task | A work item assigned to a user |
| Variable | A container that passes data while a process runs |
| Version | The configuration state of a process at a specific time |
Module descriptions
Approval Process
An Approval Process standardizes business decisions that require human confirmation. It supports triggers such as object creation, editing, buttons, and custom buttons. It also supports standard approval, Joint Approval, hierarchy approval, and step-by-step approval.
You can configure node assignees, approval content, rejection content, required approval comments, buttons, node residence duration, Expiration Strategy, reminders, and post-node actions.
Business Process
A Business Process orchestrates cross-role business collaboration. It supports business nodes, Approval Nodes, countersign nodes, Application Nodes, automatic nodes, Wait Nodes, branch nodes, and parallel task nodes.
Use a Business Process to combine manual tasks, approval actions, system actions, and branch decisions into a complete business handling path.
Workflow
A workflow configures lightweight automation rules. It uses a trigger, a filter, and follow-up actions to run automatically.
A workflow supports triggers for create, void, restore, field update, and schedule. Scheduled triggers can run once or run repeatedly.
Flow
A flow configures flexible automation logic. It supports screen flows, automatic flows, agent action flows, agent flows, and prompt template flows.
The flow designer includes the toolbar area, process node area, resource management area, canvas area, and node configuration area. Admins can drag nodes on the canvas and configure variables, connectors, and node parameters.
Common nodes include Start, End, Parallel, Branch Condition, Loop, Assignment, screen interaction, function, template conversion, large model, business operation, create data, update data, and get data.
Pipeline
A Pipeline moves objects through stage-based tasks. Admins can configure stages, stage tasks, entry conditions, completion conditions, stage views, and Pipeline progressors.
Pipelines apply to stage progression scenarios for opportunities, leads, accounts, and custom objects.
Applicable roles
| Role | Description |
|---|---|
| System admin | Creates, enables, disables, and maintains processes |
| Business admin | Designs process rules and maintains approvers and node settings |
| End user | Starts processes, handles to-dos, and views process handling records |
| Process operations owner | Analyzes process efficiency with monitoring data |