First steps in automation (part 1/2)
A step by step guide to start your first automations. To start is always the hardest part, and a good start can give a great feeling in the following steps, even when things might go wrong.
Happy Automation Friday!
Today's newsletter will cover the first steps you must take to automate part of your business, your workflow, or even your life.
Planification
Planning is always the hardest part, at least for me. When you've been in business (especially in startups) for more than a year, you've made many recurring processes. You often struggle with them week by week and month by month.
The easiest part of that is to map three main components: tools, people involved in the process, and the process itself.
1. Mapping
This is the hardest part. It's especially true when your company has developed somewhat hectically. It's had a lot of small decisions about tools and processes made day by day without the big picture in mind.
What I recommend is to add a new line for each process, not for each tool. For example, I’m working with a client that uses ClickUp for various purposes as a task management solution, OKR management, video-production management, and sales leads. I would add a new line with ClickUp for each of those processes.
Split the processes like that, as much as makes sense. It will allow you to make some decisions. For example, you could integrate/automate only some processes from a platform. Or, you could change from one platform to another. (For the same client, we're currently considering moving the leads part from ClickUp to Brevo, the email solution that we're currently using).
2. Tools and process analysis
The next step is to analyze each tool. In that phase, as the automation specialist, you can discover the many uses of the same tool. It's very hard to have a clear overview of tools used in accounting, for example; so you can have some biases about the processes used for that tool.
Each time you discover a secondary use of a tool, add a new line with the new usage.
Afterwards, take some time to look at their APIs. Don’t be scared! 🙀 You don’t need to be a developer for that, just check some main things.
API Availability: Is the API available in my current billing plan? (A lot of tools offer the API functionality only for paid billing plans)
Authentication method: Is the authentication method accessible to me? 90% will use basic authentication methods: Bearer Token and API Key. But, a few need some dedicated IPs or VPNs, such as an FTP connection. This could become hard very easily.
Endpoint / Method / Parameters: This is where, how, and what you request from an API.
The endpoint could be “Task lists” for example, for ClickUp, so the app allows you to interact with the task lists. Don’t skip this step, not all the products offer endpoints for each activity, for example, for the billing part it is not so common to have an endpoint.
The method allows you to interact with that endpoint; you can add something to a database, update, delete or just query. Again, don’t skip this step; for example, the delete function is not common for any API.
Parameters allow you to filter the request. For example, you can filter the invoices from specific dates when you make the request. Without that, you would extract all the invoices and filter them later, which could be expensive for various tools.
The response is how the API replies, which is an important step because it is used for further steps. You will usually have some standard errors, an important part if you need to handle complex integration.
If you want to dive deeply into API structure, take a look at the Postman explanation.
How to analyse those tools
I prefer to do that analysis using two tools: Postman and Make/Zapier. Most tools give a Postman library with it; you can easily test everything with your API key. Tools like Make.com or Zapier will help with API integration. It's a no-code solution. The easiest way to use them is with their connectors.
Be careful. If you see tools' names as connectors, that doesn't mean you can connect everything with them. Most connectors are built for the main features of the APIs. So, check your specific needs. For example, check if they can connect with the Task list endpoint. Otherwise, you'll use the API to connect it, and that becomes a bit more difficult than using connectors.
My advice is to keep every idea as a backlog artefact in the SCRUM methodology. Add notes after each analysis. Each tool and integration is unique. You'll forget what you analyzed first.
Will continue with part 2.
Keep in touch
For any further questions, I’m waiting for your email at cristian@filimon.tech with your automation challenges (not tasks).
I’m happy to discuss and talk through them, to find the right solution. The only condition is to publish a case study in this newsletter about it (with all the data anonymized, of course).
See you soon!
Cristian