Workflow automation is the creation of a technological solution to automatically perform some or all of the tasks within a given workflow. Although the focus here is on automating manual activity performed with software on a computer, the term applies to anything that increases the efficiency of the user. This includes everything from an electric pencil sharpener to programmable welding robots building car frames, or even to the computers used to control the International Space Station.
The personal computer itself is an example of workflow automation. Expanding on past tools such as calculators and slide rules, computers eliminate enormous amounts of manual work and save time. With spreadsheets, we no longer needed to punch numbers into a calculator and write them on paper. With word processors, we can make edits in a single document rather than having to type up an entirely new version to reflect changes. Countless other examples of automated workflows, such as steps in image processing and desktop publishing software, have lifted enormous burdens from our hands and have freed us to do more creative work. However, it doesn't just end there. The time you save today is invested in making possible the more advanced tools of tomorrow. Workflow automation is a continuing step in the process.
Busting Some Myths about Automation
Many of the myths about automation might seem a little dated today, but that alone won't quell them.
Automation Will Take My Job
In today's world of gadget-crazed consumers, it's hard to imagine that only a few decades ago there was a lot of computer phobia, especially when it came to discussing automation. Many people feared that computers would end up replacing humans while they watched Captain Kirk repeatedly make computers spontaneously self-destruct by presenting them with a logical paradox.
While any technological advance can displace and even eliminate certain jobs, in the long run, it often creates far more jobs than it replaces. For example, someone has to design, build, market, sell, program, and maintain the robots that autonomously weld car frames.
If you are asked to automate a task currently performed by people, being sensitive to how the change will be viewed is certainly a good idea. Sometimes a complex solution might displace a few jobs. However, the majority of the time automated solutions are just another tool that people will use to reduce the burden of mundane and repetitive work. Artists can spend more time on the creative aspects of their jobs when they are relived from saving hundreds of images in three different sizes and formats for a Web site. Page layout experts can focus on the unique aspects of a catalog rather than tediously copying and pasting thousand of product descriptions onto catalog pages.
| Note | It is important to remember that workflow automation with AppleScript is another way of making better tools and does not automatically mean that people will lose their jobs. |
Automation Will Fix Our Problems
Perhaps the worst myth of all is that automation will fix problems. We should look to automation to amplify our strengths rather than to disguise our faults.
By itself, the act of automating a process does not guarantee an improvement to the process. While automation can magnify the efficiency of a process, it can also magnify any inefficiency that may exist. If business rules are not explicitly understood, documented, and communicated for a manual workflow, a workflow automation solution can inherit those flaws. If some of the steps required to carry out a certain task are forgotten or improperly embedded into scripts, the solution will not spontaneously correct those problems. This is one of the reasons why it is advisable to begin with smaller scripts and focus on familiar tasks, and then gradually take steps to advance to more complex situations.
The more removed you are from the end user, the more danger there is of someone assuming scripts can "just do things" without explicitly stating what those things are and the rules that guide them. If the end user has never performed the tasks manually, the danger of this myth increases exponentially. Be sure that everyone understands that while your scripts might seem magical, they aren't, and that you need clear details for even the smallest step in the process you are automating.
In the decades since the invention of the personal computer, we have witnessed amazing technological solutions to many problems that brought about many great benefits. But our relatively new "age of technology" is riddled with the corpses of horribly designed solutions. The majority of the time the fault lies in the belief that if we build it, it will "just work."
I Can Automate it and Forget it
The notion that you can build a complex piece of software that endures throughout time is another dangerous myth. Custom solutions must interact with various pieces of hardware, software, and business rules that inevitably change and, therefore, require monitoring, maintenance, upgrades, and enhancements over time. With every operating system or third-party application upgrade, a scripted solution needs to be retested and tweaked to ensure that it will continue performing as designed.
Certainly, a script can be left to run autonomously and will not require as much attention as a fully manual workflow. However, creating a script that creates a catalog file does not mean the catalog will be "perfect" and not require proofing. It uses data written by people and images processed, cropped, resized, and named by people. In some cases, the result of an automated task requires more proofing to ensure that the scripts are working correctly. However, that additional proofing time may be offset many times over by the enormous time saved during assembly.
Automation is Easy
Computers are so easy to use that they sometimes spoil us a little too much. Hidden from sight in the millions of lines of code is all of the effort needed to make them work well and keep our lives so carefree. The same is true of automation, which leads us to false conclusions that automated processes are easy to build.
Another culprit for the notion that writing scripts should be easy is our own brain. People are often amazed at the time involved to build a script that will automatically do things that they take for granted. Many of the mental tasks we perform so easily are very difficult to "teach" a computer. Deciding if a photo needs to be rotated or not is an instantaneous decision we make subconsciously. Picking a color to match a color scheme in a room is, at least for some, a simple task. However, these kinds of things are nearly impossible to program into a script.
| Note | To write a script, you need to know every detailed step in the process, including all the decision-making logic that users might take for granted. |
Automation Will Make Us Appear Less Personal with Clients
The idea that automation shows or requires a lack of concern for personal interaction with clients or vendors is another common myth. Those who believe this fallacy have had too much exposure to poorly developed solutions. Everything from voice-mail systems that seem to be designed to keep us from every reaching a human being to cryptically formatted e-mails with "Do not reply" stamped in them makes some people leery of automating their interactions with their clients. However, these failures should be used as an inspirational call to arms.
| Tip | Any poorly implemented solution can certainly appear cold and impersonal. However, if done well, automated solutions can present you and your company as a technologically proficient and efficient vendor, which is always a plus. Most of the time, automated solutions can be completely concealed from view. |
A piece of technology, by itself, isn't impersonal. It all depends on how you use it. When the telephone was first introduced, there were probably some who complained that it reduced face-to-face meetings. However, it also enabled people to "meet" more often. E-mail likely raised the same fears initially, but now it's clear how it has dramatically increased the amount of information we can quickly communicate.
Databases need to operate with a serial number assigned to each client. However, that doesn't mean you should forget your client's name and refer to the client only by the number.
Automation doesn't automatically turn a company into a cold, uncaring box. Instead, it makes possible a new level of personalized client communication. Product announcements can be created based on a client's individual profile, giving them a brochure specifically designed for them. Customized project status reports can be created to keep the client up to date and well informed about their project. Using a person's name in the Reply To address and taking care to format the data in a friendly, easy-to-read manner should just be common sense.
Exploring Reasons to Automate a Workflow
Automated solutions are, in a lot of ways, just like any other cost-saving policy a company might adopt. They can save time and reduce costs while increasing quality and capacity. However, unlike some new and oppressive rules and regulations dreamed up by "efficiency consultants," automation can achieve these goals while simultaneously reducing stress, improving morale, and allowing staff members to focus on more rewarding creative work rather than mundane, repetitive chores. In this way, well-designed workflow automation solutions can be mutually beneficial for both a company and its employees. Rather than viewing cost saving directives as punitive, employees and their company can use automation to obtain the same goals in a more rewarding way.
Improve Consistency
One of the first things to be affected when people are overworked is consistency. It is hard to step back and look at the big picture when you are crunching out a batch of files as quickly as possible. The thought of stopping just to remind yourself of a naming convention for Web site files or the correct column order for a sales report can be grueling when the clock winds down and you still have dozens of items on an urgent to do list.
An automated solution with all the company business logic correctly encoded within it applies those conventions every single time it executes, and does so dispassionately. Many human errors caused by fatigue, stress, or carelessness magically disappear.
Improve Quality
Automation can have a huge effect on quality. When a script frees employees from frantically working through lists of manual chores to meet a deadline, they can spend more of their time thinking about how they work and discovering new areas where automation might help improve their jobs. In short, they can focus on quality.
For example, if a script automatically assembles desktop publishing files, the layout designer can focus more attention on fine-tuning the master pages, style sheets, and artwork of the template. If a photographer doesn't have to manually save each photo in ten different sizes, each in a different file format and with a different naming convention, she is free to spend more time tweaking her photographs before sending them on to the next department.
Increase Project Size and Capacity
Automation also can make it possible to increase the size and capacity of projects. New services that are prohibitively labor intensive suddenly become a possibility. Because a computer can run constantly day and night, and on weekdays, weekends, and holidays, it can be continually building, processing, informing, and managing a variety of automated tasks from a massive queue in a folder. Massive tasks can be assigned to a fleet of automated servers, each responsible for one or more of a group of automated tasks.
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Reduce Stress
Stress is a human response to adverse conditions. In business, people can experience elevated levels of stress when they have too much pending work, are too close to a deadline, or do not have the proper tools to complete the work. Under stress, people often begin to rush, cut corners, forget procedures, make typos, and worse.
The most common "solution" to such a situation is to reduce an employee's workload. Automation makes it possible to shift the focus to tools that allow the work to be completed more easily, creating less of a burden on an employee.
Scripts can help remind, encourage, and even autonomously enforce naming and other business conventions. They work tirelessly to perform routine tasks while the user is out to lunch, in a meeting, or at home for the evening. An inbox full of messages informing you that your documents have been successfully processed and are now waiting for your review is far more welcoming than strict and ominous reminders that you have work due.
Well-designed automated solutions can be a huge stress relief to every user involved in a given workflow.
Encourage Employee Innovation
Sometimes people hide in their cubicles, never making any suggestions for improvements because they don't want to create more work for themselves or others. Any suggestion for improvement to a company's products, services, or some part of their workflow often results in more work for someone, usually the one with the idea.
Workflow automation can have an opposite effect, making employees fountains of innovative ideas. Once users realize that automation creates tools that help them be more valuable employees while doing less manual work, their enthusiasm for innovation may be difficult to contain.
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