Entry criteria are conditions that you can add to a business process template and which must be met before the business process can be started. For example, you might want users to use a business process to open a new line of credit only if the client has a specific credit rating.

Entry criteria are compared to one or more rules that determine whether or not a business process can be started. Rules are conditional statements, which are evaluated by comparing a specified value to a field from the contact, KYC, company, opportunity, or service request record.

When a user tries to run the business process, the entry criteria are evaluated. If the conditions in the entry criteria are met, the business process starts. If the conditions are not met, an error is displayed and the business process is not added to the contact, company, opportunity, or service request record.

Examples of business process template entry criteria

The following examples demonstrate how entry criteria can be used in business process templates.

Using contact or KYC fields in entry criteria

Using entry criteria, you can create a business process that can be run only for contacts whose annual income exceeds $100,000. To do this, in the Entry Criteria subtab of the business process template, add a rule with the following parameters:

1. In the Field field, click the Select button , then select Contact > Annual Income.
2. In the Condition field, select greater than.
3. In the Value field, enter 100000.

When a user tries to add the business process to a contact, the business process will run only if the annual income in the contact record is greater than $100,000.

Using multiple fields in entry criteria

In some cases, you might want to specify more than one rule in the entry criteria of a business process. For example, you can create a business process that can be run only for contacts whose annual income and net worth are both specified.

To do this, you first add a rule to check if the annual income is filled out in the client's profile:

1. In the Field field, click the Select button , then select Contact > Annual Income.
2. In the Condition field, select specified.

Then you add a rule to check if the net worth is also filled out:

1. In the Field field, click the Select button , then select Contact > Net Worth.
2. In the Condition field, select specified.
3. In the field on the right side of the preceding rule, select AND.

When you create multiple rules in an entry criteria, you must indicate how the rules relate to each other. In the previous example, you specified that both rules must pass for the entry criteria to pass. However, you could instead specify that only one of the rules must pass for the entry criteria to pass.

When a user now tries to add the business process to a contact, the business process will run only if both the annual income and net worth are specified in the contact record.