Overview
Processes transform repetitive work into structured, automated workflows that reduce manual effort and ensure consistency across your firm. By operating from various record types, processes create intelligent task sequences that guide your team through complex operations, from client onboarding to compliance reviews, automatically generating next steps based on how work progresses.
This article explains the components and settings you’ll configure when building a Process in your Practifi instance. Understanding these elements helps you create workflows that match your firm’s unique service model while maintaining the consistency and compliance standards your clients expect. For step-by-step instructions on creating a Process, see our article on Creating Processes.
Process Building Page
The process building page serves as your workflow design hub, where you define how work flows through your firm. To access the process building page, go to the App Launcher and select Settings. Use the Quick Find box to search for My Processes. Click the hyperlinked Process Type. This page contains process settings, related tasks, actions, and outcomes that together create automated workflows tailored to your operations.
The Summary section houses essential information about your process, including its name and the objects it relates to. Object relationships determine where your team can access the process within Practifi. For example, a process related to the Client object appears on Client records, enabling your team to launch client onboarding workflows directly from a client’s profile. However, if that process only relates to the Client object, it cannot start from within a Service or Client Entity record.
This section also controls whether the Process is active in your Practifi instance and includes a description field to help your team understand when and where to use it. As your firm’s operations evolve, older processes may need adjustment or deactivation. Once a Process moves to inactive status, it becomes unavailable for selection by any user, allowing you to retire outdated workflows without deleting their configuration history.
Process Diagram
Process diagrams provide visual representations of your workflows, making it easier to understand complex task dependencies and decision points at a glance. Available for all Process Type records, these interactive flowcharts help you optimize workflows and document business processes more effectively.
To view a Process diagram, click the View Diagram button in the Process Diagram section on any Process Type record.
The interactive flowchart opens in a new tab, displaying your process as a visual workflow with clear connections between tasks and stages.
The diagram uses a vertical layout that follows your process flow. Each stage appears as a hexagon, with each task completion triggering a new hexagon. For example, a Not Started stage hexagon displays after the Start node (if configured as the default stage), followed by subsequent stages beneath completed tasks. Task nodes appear with teal borders on white backgrounds, while process stages are gray hexagons that group related tasks into logical sequences. Color coding throughout the diagram distinguishes between different element types and process states.
You can click any rectangular task node in the flowchart to open a detailed panel from the right side of the screen. The Task Details panel provides comprehensive information, including task subject, priority, status, assignment type, and description in an organized summary format. The panel also displays all configured task actions, including their types and outcomes, giving you complete visibility into what happens when each task is completed.
The panel includes clickable hyperlinks for task subjects and action names, allowing quick navigation to related records for further investigation. This integration ensures you can access detailed configuration information without leaving the visual diagram interface.
Process Settings
Process settings establish how your Process begins and who owns it. These foundational configurations determine automation behavior and assignment patterns that keep work moving efficiently through your team.
Process Stage
The process stage field sets the overall stage while your firm works through the underlying tasks. This stage operates independently of individual task stages and typically remains in progress while your team works on related tasks. The process stage then transitions to closed upon completing the final task. Each process has an open configuration for custom stages for each transitional state, giving you the flexibility to create as many or as few stages as your workflow requires.
Assignment Type
The Assignment Type field determines which team member becomes the Process owner when it starts. This automation standardizes Process assignment using the following options:
- None automatically assigns the Process to the team member, starting it
- Specify Now allows you to assign the Process to a specific team member or queue when creating it. When using Specify Now, you must make the assignment choice and click the Save button before you can access the Owner field to change assignments
Please note: Once you click the Save button, you can change the owner by clicking the gray person icon next to the current Owner name.
A new menu opens to allow selection of a specific user or queue assignment.
- Assign to Service/Client Owner assigns the Process to the related service or entity owner
- Specify by Servicing Team Role allows selection of specific servicing team roles assigned at the entity or team member level
Please note: If you would like to build a queue to allow for larger team assignments for either Processes or Process tasks, review our article on Creating and Managing Queues.
Time-Based Commencement Settings
Time-based commencement settings enable your processes to start automatically on important dates for Entity, Contact, Service, and Deal objects. This automation ensures workflows start at precisely the right time, whether it’s preparing for a client review, following up after a meeting, or completing annual compliance tasks.
First, select a target object to relate to the process. Within that target object, select a date field that determines when the process begins. The process can then start a specific number of days before or after the date in that field, allowing you to build workflows that anticipate upcoming events or follow up after key milestones.
The Commencement Timing field within time-based commencement settings determines whether the process occurs before or after the date in the target field. The Number of Days field specifies how many days the system uses to set the process start timeline. Numbers for this field begin at 1 and count calendar days, not business days, so you must consider this when setting field information.
Process Tasks
The Process Tasks section contains the core components that define each step in your workflow. This section requires the most detailed configuration work, as it sets what builds each step, the various outcomes within those steps, and establishes actions that can start following steps, update service dates, and change process stages. Within this section, you’ll work with task settings, outcomes, actions, and predecessors.
Task Settings
To access Task settings, click the hyperlinked name of the task you’d like to review on the Process Tasks tab. Each process task allows you to set assignment standards within task settings. This operates on the same principles as process assignment, where tasks are assigned to specific people, queues, or servicing team members based on their relationship to the entity or owner. The Due Date Interval in task settings specifies the number of days between task creation and its due date. With this interval established, the system automatically calculates the task’s due date, ensuring consistent timing across all process instances.
Rather than having all process tasks begin at process creation, tasks can be suppressed to start later when triggered, using the Suppress At Launch checkbox. With this checkbox enabled, the task requires an action to establish its creation in the workflow. Similarly to the main process, underlying tasks can also have their immediate status set before any team members push them forward through the Status field. The Priority field in task settings lets you set a high, normal, or low priority to help team members understand the item’s overall importance.
Outcomes
Outcomes provide answers to each process task and create decision-tree logic within the process that branches into various scenarios. Outcomes determine the path that the overall process takes and determine which task should follow next.
For example, when completing the process step Confirm meeting with prospect, you may successfully communicate with them via phone or email to confirm the meeting, or you may be unable to reach them. These options are created as outcomes for the process task and can be structured to lead to different tasks within the larger process. This flexibility ensures your workflows adapt to real-world scenarios while maintaining consistent tracking and follow-up.
Actions
Actions are the automated next steps that occur when a process task moves to a completed status. These can range from a stage change within the overall process to creating a new service and starting an additional process.
The complete list of action type options available is:
- Create New Task in the Process
- Start a New Process
- Set Process Stage for this Process
- Create a New Service
- Set Service Stage for Related Service
- Set Client Stage for Related Client
- Create a New Service and a New Process
Multiple actions can be layered on a Process task to perform the functions listed above to complete a single task.
Please note: To create multiple actions from a single task, you must create each action item individually.
Preset Checklist Items
Tasks often represent more than a single instruction. They’re collections of individual items that together form a complete workflow step. Checklists provide a natural home for these items, eliminating the need for complicated task instructions or multiple steps.
Items in the Checklist come in two forms:
- Manual items are considered complete when the owner of the task checks their checkbox
- Automatic items are considered complete when their criteria are met. Criteria logic is handled by a checkbox field elsewhere, which is automatically checked via formula logic or other automation. The automatic checklist item reflects the status of that field
When setting up Task Templates and Process Task items, preset Checklist items can be established and made available in the left sidebar. These fields are available when creating a Checklist item:
| Field Name | Type | Help Text |
| Label | Text (255) |
|
| Order | Number (10,2) |
|
| Type |
Picklist
|
|
| Required | Checkbox |
If checked, then the user completing the workflow step will be required to complete this checklist item first. |
|
Criteria Location Only appears if the item’s Type is Automatic. |
Text (255) |
Specify the checkbox field used to determine whether this item has been completed by entering the path taken to get there from the Task record using Salesforce formula syntax. Use either a checkbox formula field or one that’s checked using other automation. |
|
If Criteria Location isn’t accessible Only appears if the item’s Type is Automatic. |
Picklist
|
If a Criteria Location is not on the Task, but instead on a related record, then certain lookup fields must be populated in order to reach it. Use this field to determine whether missing lookup fields cause the item to be ignored, or treated as incomplete. |
The checklist appears in the right sidebar of the Task record page. Completing manual items is as easy as checking the box. However, automatic items will be marked complete only if their criteria are met. As a result, their label should always clearly indicate what criteria they represent.
The Refresh button at the bottom-right of the checklist lets you obtain the latest data from its automatic items, which can be useful if you’ve had the page open for some time.
When completing a task with the Mark as Complete action, the checklist reappears, offering one last chance to check off any items before proceeding. Required items must be checked before the task can be marked as completed. Once the task has been completed, the checklist cannot be modified.
Users can use the New button in the bottom-left of the checklist to add a new item. This is true regardless of whether the task is a step in a process, a Task Template, or an ad hoc task not tied to a workflow. Only the task owner can create checklist items. The New button doesn’t appear to other users. Checklist items created on open tasks can only be manual tasks. Automatic ones must be preset.
Checklist items can be deleted, but only if they were created while the task was open. Preset checklist items cannot be deleted. If deletion is an option for a checklist item, a delete button will appear next to it. If you add or remove preset Checklist items from a Process Task or Task Template that’s already in use, those changes will not apply to open tasks.
Predecessors
The Predecessors section shows any actions that led to the creation of the process task. The first step in a process will not have any predecessors listed, as nothing came before it, but all other steps should have predecessors displayed.
The Predecessors section is helpful because it shows everything that led to the start of the task, especially if your Process uses grouped predecessors, where several process tasks must be completed before moving to a particular step. This section is also helpful for testing your process from end to end to ensure there are no unknown gaps in the workflow created by tasks that are not correctly linked to the process.
Pre-Built Process Types
If your Practifi organization was created after the Barbaresco release in April 2025, it comes preloaded with default process types included for use. If your Practifi instance does not have the latest pre-built process types, you can have them added. To learn more about these pre-built process types and how to request them, please see our article on Understanding Pre-Built Process Types.
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