Workflow Automation: How to Automate the Right Things
A practical guide to spotting the work worth automating and building systems that actually stick.
Most teams have the same quiet tax: recurring, rules-based work that eats hours and drifts out of date the moment it's done. Automation pays off when that work is repeatable, high-volume, and low-judgment.
The trap is automating the wrong thing - a rare edge case, a process that changes weekly, or a task that's faster left manual. Good automation starts with an honest audit, not a tool.
These posts cover how we pick what to automate, how we build it as production code you own, and how to keep it running once it's live.
In this guide
12 posts- Approval workflows in Google Forms and Sheets, without an add-onOctober 11, 2026
- AI shopping agents can now buy from your store. Is your data ready?October 4, 2026
- What changed in Google Workspace this September, and what it means for your automationsSeptember 20, 2026
- Case study: unplanned leave for a 1,000-person care provider, built on Google WorkspaceSeptember 16, 2026
- AI invoice processing that actually ships
- Data pipelines for teams without a data team
- Shopify order ops: where automation actually pays for itself
- Document AI beyond invoices: contracts, forms, and the messy middle
- Reporting automation people actually read
- The e-commerce back office nobody automates
- Document extraction beyond the happy path
- What code-running chat tools actually change for business reporting
Related recipes
2 recipesSync Shopify orders to Google Sheets and flag refunds
Order and refund data lives in Shopify, but finance works in a spreadsheet and reconciles by hand each day.
New or updated order in Shopify → Order written/updated in a Sheet → Refunds and chargebacks flagged by rule → Daily exceptions summarised
Post Airtable record changes to Slack
The team tracks work in Airtable but has to keep the tab open to notice status changes, so updates get missed.
Record status changes in Airtable → Change matched to the relevant channel and owner → Concise update posted to Slack
Where it applies
For your team
Bottlenecks it addresses
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