Copy property value

[MScheinost]

We have three company objects: p, c1 and c2. p is parent of c1 and c2. I now want to copy the value of a property from p to c1, but not to c2. My initial idea to solve this is, to create a boolean property which tells, if a child takes the value from its parent. And then create a Workflow which checks if the child company copies the value from its parent and if it does updates the childs property.

In practice however this doesn't work. If I create a WF where the parent copies its property value to their children and one child doesn't take the value from its parent then no child gets updated.

It also doesn't work the other way around, because the source object in the copy propery must be the enrolled company. This means i cannot access the property form the parent if the enrolled company is the child.

Does anybody have an idea how i can solve this?

[trevordjones]

@MScheinost ,

Is there another object, such as a contact or a deal that is associated with both p and c1?  If so, you could copy the value from p to that object, then from that object to c1 using the method you describe.

If you have Enterprise, a custom object called "Organization" could be used for this as well.

[MScheinost]

In theory this might work, but practically we cannot guarantee, that for every p and c1 such a relationship exists. For one-time changes we could create missing relationships, but we would like to have a WF which reliably copies values e.g. the owener, from a parent company to a child company and has the flexibility to exclude children in special edge cases. Your proposed solution sadly doesn't provide this

[trevordjones · Accepted solution]

@MScheinost ,

Unfortunately, as you have already observed, it is currently not feasible to build workflows which copy from one company object to another associated company object without code. 

Your options are: 

1.) Use a dissimilar object that is referencable within the workflow to store the data.  If common deals or contacts are not available, the custom organization object I referenced earlier is your best bet, assuming you have MarketingHub (or SalesHub) Enterprise or can upgrade.

2.) Consult a developer and use a custom coded worklow action to copy the data from the associated company object. This will require OperationsHub Professional or Higher.