Using Business Rules

[Edwin_Melgar]

We are considering using business rules and would love to talk with anyone who has had success in implementing them.  What kind of business rules have you implemented?  What level of effort is needed to implement and maintain?   Any draw backs or lessons learned?

[monicacardoso]

Hi @Edwin_Melgar, 

Thank you for your question! I will include information about what I've seen so far when working with different customers.  

The solutions configured by users include:

• Restrict creation of new projects during specific periods (for example, FY end)
• Restrict expense submissions above a certain threshold without approval
• Prevent users from assigning tasks to themselves in high-priority projects
• Restrict edits to task timelines once a project reaches a defined status
• Limit various API actions vs UI actions

In general our customers have mentioned that these solutions require a low effort. It can get complicated when using multiple wildcards or nested conditions, but as long as everything is well planned out before the business rule is activated, you should be ok. Testing in a Preview or Sandbox environment is recommended to ensure the rule is running smoothly. 

A few things to consider: 

• Business rules do not override access level restrictions (for example, if a user does not have permission to edit an object, a business rule that allows edits would not allow this specific user to edit that object because their access level is preventing it) 
• If you create multiple business rules for the same object, the system will respect all of them but not in a specific order 
• Error messages should be concise and constructive; in some cases, it might even be a good idea to provide a link with more information to help avoid confusion in the error message itself 

Overall, our customers have been liking business rules and been successful in implementing custom solutions for their teams. 

- Monica 

[KerrySt1]

Can business rules be used to remove a task or do we still need to use exclusion rules in Fusion to manipulate the templates? 

Thanks!

[monicacardoso]

Hi @KerrySt1,

Great follow-up question!

Currently, Workfront business rules cannot delete or remove tasks from a project or template. Business rules are primarily designed to validate, restrict, or enforce behaviors; such as preventing an action, setting field values, or displaying messages based on conditions, but they do not support deletion actions.

If your use case involves dynamically removing tasks (e.g., based on form selections, project type, or other criteria), you'll want to continue using Workfront Fusion with exclusion rules or logic modules to manipulate project templates or remove unnecessary tasks post-creation.

- Monica

[Madalyn_Destafney]

Hi there, could we use a business rule to prevent users from creating projects:
- Without a portfolio

- Without an owner

I know it would be separate rules but not sure if either are possible?

I went to try a new project business rule with this but it's not valid and I'm not even sure where users would see the error message?

IF({portfolioID}ISBLANK("Please add a Portfolio to this project.")