Workflow automation

Principles⁠

Anything driven by a date should run itself⁠

Payment terms, proposal validity, questionnaire deadlines and payroll cut-offs are all dates. A date is not something a person should have to remember.

Automate the chasing, not the deciding⁠

Reminders, follow-ups and syncs can run unattended. What to charge, who to staff and what to promise stays with a person.

Every event has the same spine⁠

The tasks that happen for every event should arrive with the event. Rebuilding the same checklist each time is how steps get skipped.

Failures must be visible⁠

An automation that fails quietly is worse than no automation. Retry, then surface what could not be done and who needs to look at it.

One nudge, at the right moment⁠

A reminder is useful when the answer is knowable and the action is small. Otherwise it trains people to ignore reminders.

The background should not need a person⁠

Bookkeeping sync, aggregation and reconciliation should happen whether or not anyone opened the app that day.

Practices⁠

Apply a task template to every event⁠

Attach your standard checklist when the event is created, with due dates relative to the event date, so week-of tasks appear in the week of.

Chase invoices automatically⁠

Overdue invoices are followed up on your schedule, and run sheets with an outstanding balance are chased before the event rather than after.

Expire proposals on their date⁠

Proposals pass their validity date without anyone intervening, which keeps the pipeline honest and stops old prices being accepted.

Widen a shift offer in waves⁠

Offer a shift to one group, and let it widen automatically if it has not filled. Nobody has to remember to escalate on Thursday.

Roll standing shifts forward⁠

Recurring shift templates populate ahead of time, fourteen days out by default and adjustable per account.

Draft hours from the plan⁠

Planned shifts become draft time entries and unsubmitted hours are nudged once, so timesheets close without anyone chasing them.

Route incoming replies⁠

Email replies are matched to the right event and thread, so nothing sits in a shared inbox waiting to be assigned by hand.

Sync your books in the background⁠

Invoices and payments flow to your accounting package on a short cycle, with crashed jobs reclaimed and retried instead of lost.

Get one digest a day⁠

A short summary of what came in, what is due and what is waiting on you, so the automation reports to you rather than the other way round.