Convert Lead on Update trigger

Question

anybody know how to convert a lead on update? It is for if the lead Email matches an existing Contact's email. I can get it to work on after insert, but when I try on update(before update or after update) I get this error:

Error: Invalid Data. Review all error messages below to correct your data. Apex trigger 'leadFilter' caused an unexpected exception, contact your administrator: leadFilter: execution of BeforeUpdate caused by: System.DmlException: ConvertLead failed. First exception on row 0; first error: SELF_REFERENCE_FROM_TRIGGER, Object (id = 00QR000000DGrtr) is currently in trigger leadFilterTrg, therefore it cannot recursively convert itself: []: Class.leadFilter.filterLeads: line 76, column 1

Class is like this:

for (Lead l : leadRecords){                                 
            if(contactEmailMap.containsKey(l.email)){
                system.debug('contactMap contains lead email: ' + l.email);
                Contact c = contactEmailMap.get(l.email);

            Database.LeadConvert lc = new Database.LeadConvert();
            lc.setLeadId(l.id);
            lc.setContactId(c.id);
            lc.setAccountId(c.accountId);
            lc.setDoNotCreateOpportunity(true);
            lc.setOwnerId(c.ownerId);
            lc.isSendNotificationEmail();
            lc.setConvertedStatus('Duplicate Lead');                    
            convertList.add(lc);                                            
        }

    }
    database.convertLead(convertList);

Answer 1

Convert it in a future method. You can only involve in record in a trigger in a single instance of an event. For example, an insert can recursively call an update, which can recursively call a delete. However, a convert is considered an update, so you can't call a convert in an update trigger. You'll need to convert it asynchronously, via a future method.

Answer 2

You can convert leads in After Update triggers. Be sure that you have checked "Enforce Validation and Triggers from Lead Convert" in the Lead Settings page in setup.

http://www.x2od.com/2008/11/09/salesforce-order-of-execution (disclaimer: I wrote the page based on documentation and my own experience) says that it can happen. It also says so in the documentation at https://help.salesforce.com/HTViewHelpDoc?id=leads_convert.htm&language=en_US (look to the third paragraph from the end, I think) and https://www.salesforce.com/us/developer/docs/apexcode/Content/apex_triggers_order_of_execution.htm in the Salesforce documentation.

Some sample code from a method that takes Trigger.new as a parameter (a List of Leads):

for(Lead l : leads2evaluate){
      Database.LeadConvert lc = new database.LeadConvert();
        try{
          lc.setLeadId(l.id);
          lc.setDoNotCreateOpportunity(true);
          lc.setOverwriteLeadSource(false);
          //lc.setOwnerId(l.ownerid);
          lc.setSendNotificationEmail(false);
          lc.setConvertedStatus('Qualified');
          LeadsToConvert.add(lc);
        }catch(DmlException n){
          system.debug('No match: ' + n);
        }
      }
    try{  
      Database.LeadConvertResult[] lcr = Database.convertLead(LeadsToConvert, false);
     } catch(DmlException n){
      system.debug('ConvertError: ' + n);
    }
  }