[SalesForce] Process builder respecting validation rule

I have created a picklist called status and that picklist has 4 values: New, Pending, Approved and Rejected. I have added a validation rule called statusFieldMustBeNew. So, when a user creates a record then while creating it the status must be new.

If that record is sent for approval then the status will change to pending, approved and rejected (depending upon the condition).

Now my requirement is, when the status field has pending value then I want process builder to post a message to chatter that someone is asking for somekind of approval but processbuilder is respecting that validation rule and I am not able to post a message on Chatter Feed.

so, How do i tell process builder to discard that validation rule? I can attain it by creating a variable and checking the value of it but i want to know if there are other better ways.

The validation rule is:

OR(ISPICKVAL( Status__c, 'Pending'),
ISPICKVAL( Status__c, 'Approved'),
ISPICKVAL( Status__c, 'Rejected'),
ISPICKVAL( Status__c, ''))

Best Answer

As per your validation rule, every time record is edited or updated, rule is satisfying.

If I understand your requirement correctly, you want to fire validation rule during creation and if the status is not New. If that is correct the updated rule will be like this:

ISNEW() && NOT(ISPICKVAL( Status__c, 'New'))

Related Solutions

[SalesForce] Process builder doesn’t fire when approval process “accepted”

When you edit a "field update" action of an Approval Process, the checkbox Re-evaluate Workflow Rules After Field Change needs to be checked in order to have all workflows to be run and evaluated again after the "field update" rules in the approval process are applied.

This will cause also the flows set in the process builder to run again.

Please refer to the Salesforce docs to find additional information.

[SalesForce] How to avoid validation rule contradicting the process builder

Validation rules apply any time a record is altered, whether that alteration takes place in Process Builder, the user interface, or the API. You can't intercept the validation rule's message and allow the update to complete successfully.

In a Process Builder or Flow context, one tactic you can use to allow an un-validated change to go through if and only if it's made via a specific automation is to build a check into your rule for a hidden field (not shown on any page layout, or hidden from users via FLS).

Say we have a Checkbox field Process_Builder_Update__c. Set this to true prior to making your updates. Then, in your validation rule, add a check for this field so that the rule does not evaluate to true when the field is set:

AND(NOT(Process_Builder_Update__c), EXISTING_VALIDATION_RULE)

Then, the validation rule won't go off when your process makes its updates, because it sets Process_Builder_Update__c, but it will still be in effect when your users make changes.

You'll also want to un-set the flag once you're finished, so that users can't bypass the validation rule with the flag still set. Your flow should finish by setting the field back to false.

This won't work if your flow leaves your records in an un-validatable state (where any change will fail the validation rule), because unsetting the field will fail. However, you really won't want to leave your records like that anyway, as it means any user update will fail.

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