Editorial note: This article is a fictional reconstruction of situations businesses may face. Its purpose is to inform and raise awareness about possible risks and responses. People, events, data and outcomes should not be interpreted as actual cases, verified facts or results achieved by LC. Each organization needs its own assessment.
Sofia ends every afternoon copying orders from a form to a spreadsheet, then into an email. She wants to connect everything so it happens automatically. Imagine that she first reviews an order received twice and another sent with missing details. Automation looks simple until the exceptions appear.
The invisible work behind copying and pasting
In this hypothetical situation, Sofia does more than transfer data. She spots repeat customers, asks about empty fields and decides when an order is ready. A connection that copies everything as received would leave these decisions out.
She would first reconstruct several complete orders, including troublesome ones: what arrived, who reviewed it, what changed and how receipt was confirmed. She would also record messages and agreements that never appear in the main tools.
Which steps can follow rules, and which need judgment?
An initial rule could be: when required fields are complete and the identifier is not already present, register the order and notify its owner. Missing information or a possible duplicate would go to review instead of silently proceeding.
Exceptions do not always require a complex solution. A pending-work queue with an owner and a date may be enough. Someone must know when to intervene and understand why the order stopped.
Your first trial does not need to cover the whole business
In our story, Sofia would test one order type using sample cases: complete, incomplete, duplicated and unable to reach its destination. She would check which records are created, which notifications arrive and what the owner can inspect.
She would then try recovering a failed run without creating duplicate records. An operation that depends on the workflow also needs an agreed manual fallback. Evaluation should include monitoring and correction work, not just the clicks removed.
The day after the tools are connected
Who reviews failures? Who changes a rule when the service changes? Who has access? In this scenario, those questions would be settled before expanding the automation. Sofia would document the workflow in language another team member can understand.
If this routine sounds familiar, start with one limited, repetitive flow. Describe its rules and exceptions. That description helps evaluate tools and implementation effort later, without confusing a working connection with a resolved process.
Before automating a task, make the decisions currently made by its owner visible.
BRING IT TO YOUR BUSINESS
Three questions to get started.
- What does a person check before moving the information?
- What happens to incomplete or duplicate requests?
- Who detects a failure, and how is the operation recovered?
Does this sound like a challenge in your business? We can start with a conversation.
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