The five-part model
- Trigger
- Eligibility conditions
- Actions
- Human owner or exception path
- Stop condition
Naming and organization
Use consistent names that identify account, purpose and lifecycle stage. This makes audits dramatically easier.
Branching
Branch only on information that materially changes what should happen next. Excessive branching creates fragile automation.
Exception handling
Plan for bounced messages, missing fields, duplicate submissions, calendar conflicts and failed integrations.
Quality assurance
- Test the happy path
- Test missing data
- Test duplicate entry
- Test stop rules
- Test owner reassignment
Choose software
Compare software against this workflow rather than choosing from a feature list alone.