We are currently implementing a new marketing automation tool and one of the requirements is to copy the Lead "Lead Status" field to a custom Contact "Lead Status" field upon lead conversion. Unfortunately the standard Lead Status field is not one of the available fields in the SFDC native lead conversion mapping. So I have created a workflow rule that copies the current Lead Status to a custom Lead field which I have then mapped to the custom Contact "Lead Status" field. But for some reason the Converted Status value on the Convert Lead page is not being copied to the new Contact "Lead Status" (but the old value on the lead prior to conversion is). Must be something to do with the order of execution on a Lead conversion that I'm not aware of.
Does anyone know of a way to do this outside of creating an SFDC Apex trigger?
Best Answer
Workflows, Validation Rules and Before triggers fire on Lead Conversion only if the Setup > Customise > Leads > Settings > Enable validations and triggers is checked.
It might be worth checking if this setting is enabled, because otherwise the Lead Status value will not be synced to your custom field on Lead Conversion via workflow, and therefore not be copied across.
(Even then, I believe the Lead Triggers / Workflows fire after the Account and Contact ones, so it may be to late for the Lead Status to copy across)
The order of execution at Lead Conversion has been answered here
This can be achieved by a trivial LeadAfter trigger, or if the Lead Status is always set to Qualified upon Conversion, then you could set 'Qualified' as the Default Value on the Contact Lead Status field.
(One way of doing it also may be to only allow 'Qualified' Leads to be Converted - this can be controlled by having a different layout for Qualified Leads, when the status changes to Qualified, a workflow fires - changes RecordType to QualifiedLead and therefore associated Page Layout changes, which now has the Convert Button. With this approach, the Lead Status at conversion is available in advance and available to be copied across at Lead Conversion)