Understanding Action Types

Learning Team

Overview

Practifi's workflow engine includes actions that automate work throughout your organization, streamlining operations and reducing manual data entry. Actions can be used in both multi-step and single-step workflows to create records automatically, send communications, update stages, and more. By configuring actions to trigger upon task completion, you can ensure critical next steps happen automatically, allowing your team to focus on high-value client interactions rather than administrative tasks.

This article outlines the action types available and how they work within your workflows. For step-by-step instructions on creating and configuring actions, see our Creating Actions article. For more information about creating multi-step and single-step workflows, please consult our Creating Processes and Creating and Using Task Templates articles.

What Are Action Types?
Available Action Types
Sending Emails Through Workflows
How Actions Work With Active Forms

What Are Action Types?

Actions are created and associated with workflows within your organization, whether in a multi-step or single-step workflow. Each action has an action type, which determines the automation that occurs after completing the associated workflow step.

When you configure an action, you specify which task outcome should trigger it. This allows you to create conditional automation, where different outcomes lead to different next steps. For example, completing a client onboarding task with an Approved outcome might trigger the creation of a new service record. In contrast, an Additional Information Needed outcome might create a follow-up task.

Available Action Types

Our workflow engine includes the following action types, organized by function:

Workflow Management Actions

These actions control the flow and progression of your workflows.

Action Type Name	Action Performed	When to Use This
Create New Task in this Process	Creates a new task in the current process when the current step completes, automatically advancing the workflow.	Use this to build sequential workflows where each completed task triggers the next step, ensuring your processes move forward without manual intervention.
Start a New Process	Begins a new process within your organization upon completion of the current step.	Useful for triggering related workflows, such as starting an annual review process after client onboarding is complete.
Set Process Stage for this Process	Sets the overall stage of the process that the process step is associated with.	Stages provide visibility into the status of each process, making it easier to manage multiple client workflows simultaneously.

Service and Client Management Actions

These actions manage service records, client stages, and deals.

Action Type Name	Action Performed	When to Use This
Create a New Service	Creates a new service record related to the key entity.	Automatically creates service records as clients move through your workflows, ensuring accurate service tracking without manual record creation.
Set Service Stage for Related Service	Changes the workflow's related service stage to the stage designated.	Use this to update service stages as work progresses, keeping service records up to date without requiring team members to manually update them.
Set Client Stage for Related Client	Changes the workflow's related client stage to the designated stage.	Automatically updating client stages ensures your reporting accurately reflects client status across your firm.
Create a New Service and a New Process	Creates a new service record related to the key entity of the workflow and begins a new process in the organization.	This combined action streamlines complex workflows by ensuring service creation triggers associated processes immediately.
Create a Deal	Creates a new deal associated with the workflow's key entity.	Automatically create deal records when opportunities are identified through your workflows.

Communication Actions

These actions handle notifications and email communications.

Action Type Name	Action Performed	When to Use This
Send an Email	Sends an email to the designated recipients (external contacts) using a Lightning email template.	Automate client communications at key workflow milestones. See the Sending Emails section below for important considerations.
Send a Notification	Sends a notification to an associated team member to alert them to designated information.	Ensures the right team members are notified at critical workflow stages, reducing delays and improving coordination.
Post to Noticeboard	Creates a noticeboard post on the Key Entity's record.	Keeps your team informed of important milestones and updates without requiring separate communication.

Record Creation Actions

These actions create new records in your system, including events, entities, relationships, and documents.

Action Type Name	Action Performed	When to Use This
Create an Event	Creates an Event associated with the workflow’s key entity.	Automatically schedules client meetings and other events as part of your workflow, eliminating the need to manually create calendar entries.
Create an Asset/Liability	Creates an Asset or Liability record related to the Key Entity record.	Automatically create asset or liability records as part of data gathering or onboarding workflows.
Create a Person	Creates a Contact or Individual record. Contacts are related to a parent entity record, while individuals can optionally be related to the parent entity.	Use this to add new people to your system during household expansion, beneficiary capture, or referral processes.
Create a Client Entity	Creates a Client Entity record related to the Key Entity record.	Automatically create household or organization records when bringing on new clients.
Create a Reference Document	Creates a reference document record related to the Key Entity record.	Automatically create Household or Organization records when bringing on new clients.
Create an Asset/Liability Role	Creates an Asset or Liability role record related to the key entity.	Use this to automatically associate people with assets or liabilities, such as linking joint owners to an account.
Create a Relationship	Creates a relationship on the Key Entity record.	Automatically establish relationships between entities and people, such as professional advisor relationships.
Create a Record	Creates a record in the specified object.	This flexible action type allows you to create records in any custom or standard object as part of your workflow. Requires an active form to work.
Save to Related Record	Pushes data captured in an active form to records related to the task or process, either directly or indirectly.	Use this when you need to update existing records with information gathered during workflow completion, such as updating a household record’s contact details. This action type requires an active form to work.

Integration Actions

These actions are specific to third-party integrations.

Action Type Name	Action Performed	When to Use This
Create Envestnet Proposal	Creates a proposal record to be sent to Envestment.	This option is specific to the Envestnet data integration.
Promote Envestnet Proposal to IGO	Promotes an Envestnet proposal to a status of In Good Order.	This option is specific to the Envestnet data integration.

Sending Emails Through Workflows

When using the Send an Email action type, it is essential to know that Salesforce supports sending emails via Microsoft 365 or Gmail, but only for those created manually using the email composer found in the Global Actions menu and the Activity Timeline. Emails sent using other means, such as our workflow engine, can only be sent via Salesforce’s email servers. Learn more about sending through Salesforce’s email servers.

Any workflow step with the Send an Email action type displays a preview of the email to the user before sending it. This preview step helps ensure accuracy and professionalism in client communications by allowing users to review the message before it goes out. The preview step also lets you add recipients (external contacts), choose the email address the message is sent from, and add a message, if supported by the action’s email template.

If you want to allow team members to add a personal message before the email is sent, include the AdditionalMessage string in the email template at the relevant point. This string should be included in the template as a separate paragraph to ensure proper sending. Only one additional message is supported per email template. If you add the above string to a template multiple times, the same message will appear in each spot. If an additional message is added, the Show Additional Message checkbox must be selected on the action after selecting the Send an Email Action Type.

To learn how to create email templates for use with workflows, see our Creating and Using Email Templates article.

How Actions Work With Active Forms

Actions were designed with active forms in mind, as they become much more helpful when they can factor in information captured while completing a workflow. This integration between actions and forms makes workflows truly dynamic, allowing you to collect user data and immediately use it to create or update records automatically.

For example, when creating an Event, fields like Start and End Date/Time can’t be meaningfully set in advance. You need to capture this information while coordinating schedules with the event attendees. The active form collects this information from the user, and the action uses it to create the event record with the correct details.

The lone exception is the Send an Email action type, where the content is handled by the email template and the dedicated preview step that appears in the Mark as Complete action.

Please note: When editing an active form, if the related Form Fields and Field Sections are changed after a task is created, the record will not be updated to reflect these changes. However, the actions executed are based on what is present in the active form at the time the task is completed. This means an active form may fail to correctly reflect the inputs required for a task action at completion, resulting in an error.