Single owner across multiple records

[vinyoliver]

Hey guys,

We'd like to have a single owner for contact, company, and deal. So whenever the owner of one of them is updated, we should reflect the change in the others records associated with it. 

Eg. If I change the owner of a deal from Michelle to Richard, the associated company and contacts of this deal should also change the owner to Richard.

Is this something we can do?

Cheers.

[vinyoliver]

Hi @karstenkoehler,

thanks for your help! I'm trying to create a simpler workflow based on your answer where the company is the single source of truth for the owner. This way, the company owner should be the owner for the associated deals and contacts as well.

Unfortunately, looks like the workflow is not able to overwrite the current owner of the contact or deal record. It only works when the contact or deal does not already have an owner associated with it. 

Any suggestions about how to fix that?

[karstenkoehler]

Hi @vinyoliver,

Your workflow is a contact-based workflow, not a company-based workflow. It needs to be a company-based workflow that has re-enrollment enabled for the enrollment trigger "Company owner is known", otherwise this won't work.

The only action in this workflow would then be "Copy company owner into contact owner".

Best regards!

[vinyoliver]

Hi @karstenkoehler 

I tried the suggestion above but it didn't work.

Any ideas about what am I missing?

[vinyoliver · Accepted solution]

I've managed to achieve the desired outcome. Looks like the secret lies in the re-enrollment enabled

Although, I had to keep one workflow for each record type. Assuming the company is the single source of truth for the owner.

Here it's an example. This way, whenever I update the company owner or associate the contact with the company, the company owner will be set into the contact.

thanks @karstenkoehler for the support!

[karstenkoehler]

Hi @vinyoliver,

There isn't any default setting for this but it can be achieved using workflows.

Here's how it would have to be approached:

• There needs to be a workflow for each object. A contact-based workflow that copies the contact owner into the deal owner, company owner, ticket owner field. A company-based workflow that copies the company owner into the contact owner, deal owner, ticket owner field. And so on.
• To ensure that each change triggers the copy workflows, each workflow re-enrolls records based on "[record] owner is known".
• The main challenge is preventing a loop, so that workflows aren't going in circlees. This can be achieved with a branch and a custom property that is set by the workflow of origin and labels the change as automated.

This is what a contact-based workflow could look like. (You would have to replicate the same workflow for companies, deals, tickets.)

I haven't tested this (so you should) but I'm fairly confident it works.

The workflow now updates all records within 1 level of relationship – but it doesn't trickle down to further associations. For example, if you update a contact, all records associated to the contact will updated. However, the contacts associated with the company won't be. (I don't think that's possible without creating a loop and without custom code actions.)

Best regards!