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Work through the checklist with the process owner and the people who perform the work. If an item cannot be answered, resolve it before automating that part of the process.
1. Define the work
- State the task, its start event, and what a successful finish looks like.
- Name the person accountable for the result and exceptions.
- Record the current baseline: time, errors, missed handoffs, or rework.
- Confirm the process is repeated often enough to justify automation.
2. Map steps, data, and decisions
- List each step, system, handoff, approval, and decision.
- Identify required fields and authoritative sources for each field.
- Include missing, late, duplicate, invalid, and unusual inputs.
- Decide which judgments must stay with a person.
- Confirm the connected tools are approved for the data involved.
3. Design safe operation
- Grant only the account permissions the workflow needs.
- Define where failed runs appear and who gets notified.
- Document how to pause, retry, correct, and roll back a run.
- Prevent duplicate actions when a trigger is delivered more than once.
- Keep a usable manual path for outages and exceptions.
4. Pilot and own the result
- Test normal and exception cases using representative data.
- Review outcomes with the people who do the work.
- Compare results with the baseline and revise the success measure.
- Name the owner for credentials, changes, monitoring, and support.
- Set a review date and a change process for connected systems.
Every business and project is different. Treat this as general planning guidance, then confirm platform-specific, legal, tax, and security requirements with the appropriate provider or qualified professional.