- There are three routes: build automations yourself, pay a contractor to build them, or have them set up and looked after for you.
- Building it yourself is cheap to start, but whoever builds it becomes the only person who can fix it.
- Automations break quietly when a form, folder or system changes. Someone has to notice and repair them.
- Choose by asking who will look after it in a year, not who will build it this month.
Most companies have routine office work that could run by itself: filing what arrives by email, chasing missing timesheets, reminding people about renewals. Many have no IT department to automate it, or an IT department with no time to spare.
There are three ways to do it. Each works. They differ in who carries the work after the first month.
Three ways to automate office work
Build it yourself. Automation tools let someone without programming skills connect systems and set rules: "when an email with an invoice arrives, save the attachment to this folder". Usually the person who builds it is whoever in the office is most comfortable with technology.
Pay someone to build it. A contractor or consultant designs and builds the automations, then hands them over. You pay for the build, and for changes later.
Have it set up and looked after for you. A service sets up each task with you, tests it on your own examples, and keeps it working as things change. You decide what it does; someone else carries the upkeep.
How is this different from building automations ourselves?
| Build it yourself | Pay a contractor | Set up and looked after | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who designs each task | Someone on your team | The contractor | The service, with you |
| Who fixes it when something changes | The person who built it | The contractor, when available | The service |
| Whose access it runs with | Often the builder's own account | Often an account with wide access | Only what each task needs |
| What happens when the builder leaves | It may stop, or nobody can change it | You call them back | Nothing changes |
| How costs arrive | Low to start, then time spent fixing | A build fee, then each change | A set-up fee, then a regular price |
What usually goes wrong
The builder becomes the key person. The colleague who built the automations is the only one who understands them. When they are busy, nothing changes. When they leave, nobody can fix what breaks.
Automations break quietly. A supplier changes the layout of their invoice. Someone renames a folder. A form gets a new field. The automation stops working, or worse, keeps working wrongly, and nobody notices for weeks.
Access is wider than it should be. To make things work quickly, automations are often connected with one person's account, or an account that can see everything. That is convenient and risky.
How to choose
- Build it yourself if you have one or two simple automations, someone who enjoys the work, and a second person who understands what they built.
- Pay a contractor for a single, well-defined project that will not change much.
- Have it set up and looked after if you want several routine tasks running reliably, and nobody on your team has the time to keep them that way.
In short
You can automate office work without an IT department in three ways: build it yourself, pay someone to build it, or have it set up and looked after for you. The first is cheapest to start and depends most on one person. Whichever you choose, decide in advance who will notice when an automation breaks, who will fix it, and whose access it runs with.