@Ben Goligowski The main difference is that with a Workflow Action Script you can have some conditions build by the Workflow(UI) which then triggers the underlying Action Script, this allows a non-technical or developer user/administrator to change that criteria when needed. In the other hand with a UserEvent Script the conditions are in the code and you will need to modify/update code when you need to change some of the conditions.

thanks for this. I suppose another consideration is that can only have 10 scripts running per record type right? So that could be another reason to move to WF Action script over UE script. I feel like I read that somewhere recently, but can't find where now. Or am I mistaken on that?

does it not only apply for client scripts?

could be, i'll do some more research on that to confirm before choosing a route to proceed. at this time there are other actions that are not as complex and on other triggers so i'm leaning towards WF action script to keep it all together.

I think that workflow action scripts tend to increase complexity

oh sure. well, thankfully i know enough to be dangerous in both. lol. but good call. i'm the only one with knowledge of either in my organization, so i kinda get to do what i want. i figured better to keep processes together for future debugging than separate. but i could just put the on load trigger in with the beforesubmit trigger in the same UE script i suppose.

You need to consider the performance implications between using Workflows and SuiteScript. In my experience mixing them is an issue. Plus creating an efficient performance wise workflow compared to a script is a lot harder.