Have you ever wanted to create a view of cases that have not yet been assigned to a queue in Microsoft Dynamics 365? Today's blog will walk you through a method using workflows that can help you identify these cases. You can use this method to build a custom view of cases not yet assigned to a queue. Let's get started!

Create the Fields
The first step is to add a field to the case noting the queue that it is assigned. Since this field is only meant to be a flag to help you determine the cases that are not assigned to a queue, you can make this a text field.

While we are at it, we sometimes also want to report on the original queue to which the case was assigned. In that case, we can create an Original Queue field as show below.

Create a Workflow
The next step is to create a workflow that populates the above fields. Navigate to the system customizations > Processes area.

Click on the New button to create a new workflow. Give the workflow a name of your choice, set the category to workflow and set the entity to Queue Item. See example below.

Set the Header of the Workflow to Run
Set the workflow to run on create of the Queue Item and check "Record fields change" in the "Start When" section.

Click on the "View" link next to the "Record fields change" to select the "queued" as show below.

Add Workflow Steps
Since we only want the workflow to run when queue items are created for cases, we can add a conditional step to only execute the steps if the workflow has a type of "Case." Below is a screen shot showing the if condition statement.

If it doesn't have a type of case, we can exit the workflow and set the status to be cancelled.

See below for the detailed workflow steps.

The first step after the "if" statement updates our custom queue text field with the name of the queue. To do this, you can set select the Queue field in the form assistant and add it to out custom queue field. See below.

Field on Form:

Next, we can populate our custom original custom queue field. First, using an if statement, we test to see if the Original queue field contains data. If it does not, we update the field just as we updated the custom queue field and then stop the workflow as succeeded. If it does already have data in it, then we stop the workflow as succeeded since we don't want to overwrite the data in the original queue field.

Create a Custom View to Show Cases not Assigned to Queues
Now that we have setup the fields and workflow to populate the fields on the case, we can create a custom view to show the active cases that are not in a Queue.

An easy way to do this is to open the active cases view and save as "Active Cases not in a Queue". That way, you already have the same columns that you have in the active cases vies. Next, you want to change the filter criteria. If you click on the "Edit Filter Criteria" link on view, you will get a pop-up allowing you to set the filter criteria. You only need to add the filter criteria of where Queue does not contain data. See screen shot below.

Click "OK" and save the view. Once you publish, you will be able to see the new custom view showing you all the cases that have not been assigned to a queue yet.

And there you have it! If you are interested in learning more CRM tips and tricks for Dynamics 365, check out our wide range of educational offerings!

Happy Dynamics 365'ing!