Automation problems
The workflow ran. Did finance get what it needed?
Missing details, duplicate records and unclear responsibility can turn automation into more work. Here is what I check before adding another workflow.
The workflow runs. The team still has to chase the work.
A workflow can finish while the next team still lacks the start date, contact or details of what was sold. Check the resulting record and ask the person doing the task what is missing.
Agree the rule before automating it.
In this fictional example, operations marks a job complete when the crew has finished. Finance also needs approved extras and signed paperwork. Sending every completed job straight to invoicing exposes that disagreement.
I ask both teams what makes the job ready and who handles a missing item. Then we put the agreed rule into the workflow.
Check what arrived, not just whether it sent.
A record can reach another system without its line items or its link to the right customer. A retry can create a second copy. The connection is working, but someone now has to repair the result.
I check the resulting record, its customer link and the important details. I also repeat the transfer and test how the team recovers a failure.
Give the difficult cases somewhere to go.
A standard quote may be easy to automate. A missing carrier rate or an unusual installation still needs a person. If the process silently stops, the customer waits while nobody knows who owns the problem.
I make the problem visible, name who handles it and provide a way to resolve it. The time spent checking exceptions belongs in any estimate of time saved.
Test with the person doing the task.
A new interface can work perfectly in a demo and still force an operator through more steps than the spreadsheet it replaces. Keeping both routes open can leave two conflicting versions of the truth.
I test the daily task with the people doing it, including a difficult case. We agree how to start using the new setup and stop relying on conflicting copies.
Protect the decisions that affect money.
A person may need to see a quote total without being allowed to change its pricing rules. An integration or agent may have different permissions from the person viewing the record.
I check what each person, connection and agent can read or change. For a price calculation, the system should check approved inputs and amounts before saving them.
Decide who responds when something changes.
A field is renamed, a source system changes or a new exception appears. A process that nobody owns can quietly become another manual workaround.
Before handover, we agree where errors appear, who responds and how changes are made. Your team gets documentation and training for the agreed setup. Ongoing support is a separate choice.
Look for an improvement in the daily work.
Check whether the team can finish the work correctly with less chasing and correction. A successful workflow run does not tell you that on its own.
Look for the missing field
A deal can trigger the workflow and still reach finance without a billing date. Test the missing-date case and check who sees the exception.
Show me the record someone had to fix
Bring a recent example that still needed chasing or correction after the workflow ran. We’ll discuss what to investigate.
Free, 30 minutes. Bring one example. No technical brief needed.