Business Rules VS Business Process Flow

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Until one hour ago I thought these two where the same thing.

Business rules define a process that you need to follow when for instance you create a new record on your Entity.

A flow is an automation of something.

So far this is what I know. But I'm not sure about my findings.

Could someone be more precise and clarify ?

Many thanks

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PowerBack19 679 on at

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@Anonymous - Business Rules are utilized at each entity level to "fire" some action such as Show/Hide a field, make a field required based on another field's value, display an error message, set a default value, etc. More info here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/customerengagement/on-premises/customize/create-business-rules-recommendations-apply-logic-form

A flow (in Power Automate) will automate processes such as: create a new activity when a Lead is created, notify a customer when a case is created, add a file to a SharePoint library, post a message in a Teams channel, start an approval flow, etc.

Power Automate has over 300+ connectors to connect services to each other to automate many things.

Another "tool" to consider are Business Process Flows (BPFs). BPFs allow you to define an internal business process with stages and fields to capture. This will help guide the users through a defined process to ensure data is capture at the right stages.

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Community Power Pla... on at

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But aren't BPF's a part of Power Automate (Flow)?
Isn't that the same thing?
Don't BPF's live inside Flow? Are these two distinct things?

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HeidiN 34 on at

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Business Process Flows are in Common Data Service and live inside Power Apps. Obviously, when you log into make.powerapps.com, navigate to Flows you have these options:
So seemingly it is in Flow... but when you get to the next screen, it's clearly hitting Common Data Service, where you have to select your Entity.

So.... Business Process Flow lives in Power Apps and connects via Common Data Service. Hope that makes sense! I completely understand the confusion since you're building it from the Flows part of PA!

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Community Power Pla... on at

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It's agreed. We looked into the workflow for some of our business rule management (as much as management wanted something where they could 'see' what the code was doing more concisely than having modular rules) and found that it really wasn't worth the trouble in most cases. The performance, especially on the first run, is atrocious, Debugging is a lot more awkward, the workflow designer seemed very fragile when it came to changes to the underlying methods (Yes, I know you don't normally do that, but when you're working on a waterfall model and the requirements change when you drop a pin, getting that first prototype can be painful as a result).

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