Shared versus business-line-specific lifecycles with record types and business processes
Key Takeaway
The lifecycle fields (opportunity Stage, case Status, solution Status, and Lead Status) can't be set directly on record types. To give business lines different values, create one business process per line with only that line's values, and assign it to the line's record type. A new value must be added to the field first, and then to each process that needs it.
A business process controls a record's lifecycle by setting which stage or status values users can pick, such as the Stage values on an opportunity or the Status values on a case. Record types decide which users get which business process, picklist values, and page layouts. A consultant uses the two together to decide whether business lines share one lifecycle or each get their own.
Business processes and the master picklist
There are four kinds of business process, and each kind is tied to one lifecycle field.
| Business process | Lifecycle field |
|---|---|
| sales process | opportunity Stage |
| lead process | Lead Status |
| support process | case Status |
| solution process | solution Status |
You can create several processes of each kind, so you can track separate sales, support, and lead lifecycles. Each business process holds some or all of the values from its field's master picklist.
To create a new process, you start by copying an existing process, or by copying Master to get every available value. Then you keep only the values that lifecycle needs.