Platform automation
Salesforce Flow, scheduled jobs, platform events. The first choice when the work lives in one platform. Nothing to host, and your admin can read it.
The work moves between systems by hand.
Every place a person copies data from one screen into another is a handoff. Each one adds delay, drops context, and fails quietly. We find them, rank them by what they cost, and remove them one at a time.
The handoff tax
What a manual step costs
Nobody budgets for a handoff.
So they look free. A person copies a few fields and the work moves on. The cost lands later, on someone else, under a different name.
A manual handoff charges three times. None of the charges shows up on an invoice.
Delay
The work waits in an inbox. It waits for the person who does the copying to get to it, and it waits again if they are out. A form that arrives on Friday is in the system on Monday, and the customer counts the weekend.
Error
A field re-keyed is a field re-keyed wrong some of the time. Nobody notices at the keyboard. The wrong copy is the one downstream trusts, so the error travels, and the first person to find it is the one holding the invoice.
Lost context
The reason for the decision stays in the sender's head. The record carries the fields and loses the why. Six months later someone asks why the discount was approved, and the answer is in a thread nobody can find.
Where handoffs hide
- A form that lands in email.
- A spreadsheet that feeds a system every Friday.
- An approval that is a reply-all.
- A ticket re-typed into the vendor's portal.
- A report exported from one system so it can be imported into another.
One process, before and after
Illustrative
The process below is invented, and the pattern is from almost every intake flow we have seen.
Before
- Web formintake
- by handOps re-keys the form, Monday batch
- Spreadsheettracker
- by handSales replies with approval
- Emailapproval
- by handApproved order keyed into Salesforce
- Salesforcecrm
- by handFinance copies the account. Account number pasted back.
- ERPbilling
After
- Web formintake
- automaticForm posts to Salesforce. Approval is a Flow step, and the requester gets a notice.
- Salesforcecrm
- automaticERP account created by API. Account number written back.
- ERPbilling
- Spreadsheet retired. Salesforce is the tracker now.
- Email a notice goes out. Nobody approves by reply.
How we remove them
In this order
- Map
- We draw every handoff in the process. For each one: who does it, how often, and what breaks when it is late. The map is the first deliverable, and you keep it whatever happens next.
- Measure
- Each handoff gets a score: frequency, times the cost of an error, times the delay it adds. The score sets the order. Opinion does not.
- Pick one
- The highest score we can remove in one cycle. Not the biggest handoff, the best ratio.
- Build
- The integration, in the simplest form that holds. A platform automation where the platform has one. An API call where it does not. A queue where volume demands it. A small service only when nothing else fits.
- Run both
- The old path keeps running beside the new one until the numbers match. The cutover is a decision, not a hope.
- Watch
- Every automated handoff reports when it fails. It reports to a person, with the record attached. Silent failure is the one thing we do not ship.
What we build with
Plainly
APIs and webhooks
Direct calls between systems, with retries, idempotency keys, and a dead-letter queue. The second choice, and most of the work.
Middleware
An integration platform when there are many systems and the flows change often. We will tell you when it is not worth the license.
Scripts and small services
A scheduled job or a tiny service when the platforms cannot talk. Written in your repository, in a language your team reads.
Agents
For the step in the middle that needs judgment: classify, match, summarize, draft.Read how we build agents.
People
The step that should stay human stays human. The automation brings the work to them with everything attached.
What changes
Handed over
- The work arrives where it is needed, with the context attached.
- A failure reaches a person with the record, not a customer with a complaint.
- The Friday spreadsheet stops existing.
- The audit trail is the system, not someone's inbox.
- Your team can read and change every automation, because it lives in a repository with a runbook.
Questions we get
Answered plainly
Do we need new software?
Usually not. Most handoffs are removed with what you already license. The platforms on each side have APIs, and one of them usually has an automation tool built in.
When that is not true, we say so before you spend anything, and we show you the smallest thing that would work.
What if the process itself is bad?
Then we fix the process first, in the map. Automating a bad process makes it fail faster.
The map makes this visible. A step that exists because of an old workaround shows up as a handoff with no reason behind it, and we take it out before we build anything.
Will this replace people?
It removes re-keying. The people keep the decisions, and the work reaches them cleaner than it did.
The step that needs a person stays with a person. The automation brings them the record with everything attached, so the time they spent copying goes to the judgment the job was for.
How do you keep it from breaking when a system changes?
Every integration has a contract test and a failure path that reaches a person. A changed field fails loudly on the first record, not silently on ten thousand.
The failure carries the record and the reason, so the person who gets it can fix it and replay it without opening a ticket.
Can you work with our IT team?
Yes. The build lives in your repository, and your team reviews every change. We work inside your release process, not around it. When we leave, the runbook is theirs.
How long does one handoff take to remove?
One cycle for most. The map tells us which ones are bigger before we start, and you approve the number first.
A cycle is short on purpose. You use each handoff as soon as it is removed, so nothing waits for a launch.
Start with one
Which handoff hurts most?
Tell us the one your team complains about. We map it, score it, and say what it would take to remove.