I've recently encountered the phenomenon in which new/edited contact workflow rules are triggered when moving a contact record from one account to another.  I'm surprised I have not noticed this before.    I was updating contacts via the Web API, changing their account affiliation, and to my surprise some e-mails were sent out because a workflow that triggers on "When a record is created, or when a record is edited and did not previously meet the rule criteria" for contacts" fired off.  I also saw that just changing an contact's account within Salesforce (using the web UI) has the same effect.

I assume this means that "new contact" in Salesforce means "contact is new to an account"?    

Is this true?  Is there a way to keep such workflows from firing?   I can assure you that the rule criteria has nothing to do with the contact's account.  Such a change should not be firing the workflow.

thanks,

Jason Gabler