The workflow functionality automates the progression of Leads to follow predefined business processes. Whether your system uses workflow or not is a an option which can be configured by your System Administrator in Administration | Advanced Customization | Workflow & Escalation Configuration.
If your system does not use Lead Workflow, you will notice that the Lead workflow bullets on the right-hand-side of the Summary page are replaced by a Progress button. This button allows you to manually change details of the lead via the Progress Lead page. Changes are still recorded on the Tracking tab.
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