Salesforce Platform Developer Practice Exam

What happens when a user updates a record with both a Workflow Rule and an Apex trigger?

1. No changes are made to the data

2. Both the Apex Trigger and Workflow Rule fire once

3. The Workflow Rule fires multiple times

4. The Apex Trigger fires multiple times

The correct answer is: The Apex Trigger fires multiple times

When a user updates a record that has both a Workflow Rule and an Apex trigger, the appropriate behavior is that the Apex Trigger will fire multiple times. This occurs due to the different execution contexts of Workflow Rules and Apex Triggers within the Salesforce platform. When a record update initiates the transaction, it triggers the execution of the Apex trigger first. If the trigger causes the record to be updated further, it can invoke a recursive behavior depending on how the trigger is written. Each time the trigger executes, it can cause additional evaluations or actions that may lead to a further update of the record, potentially causing the trigger to fire again. This is particularly true if the trigger is set to handle bulk operations and is written to respond to specific events during a transaction, not just a single record update. On the other hand, Workflow Rules are designed to work in a more streamlined manner and typically fire only once during a transaction. They evaluate their criteria based on the record’s current state at the time they are executed rather than resubmitting triggers into the execution queue, which is why their behavior can be contrasted with Apex triggers in this scenario. Considering this chain of events, the outcome where the Apex trigger fires multiple times because of the specified updates, while the Workflow