Repeated follow-ups
Teams had to be reminded to submit their monthly data, creating recurring coordination work.
Replacing days ofmanual coordinationwith automation.
Designing an automated monthly workflow to collect, process and identify relevant operational data across multiple teams.
Repetitive work.
A better way to operate.
Multiple teams were involved in a recurring monthly process that required data collection, consolidation, processing and identification of relevant users and tickets.
The process depended on repeated follow-ups and manual handling of information. It could take individual team members two to three days to complete their part of the exercise.
I worked on coordinating an automated workflow that connected data collection, shared-folder hand-offs, processing and ServiceNow to produce a consolidated working list.
PROCESSMonthly operational data collection
TEAMS INVOLVED5–7 teams
TOOLSPower Automate & ServiceNow
MY ROLEWorkflow design & coordination
02 / THE PROBLEMToo much time spent
01 02 03
Too much time spent
moving information around.
Manual data handling
Received files needed to be collected, transferred and processed through separate hand-offs.
Manual ticket identification
Relevant tickets and associated users had to be identified before teams could take the next action.
Connecting the entire
data-processing journey.
The workflow runs on a monthly cycle, connecting reminders, file-based hand-offs, data processing and ServiceNow ticket identification.
SCHEDULED TRIGGER
AUTOMATEDMonthly reminders
An automated workflow triggers on the first day of each month and sends reminders to the relevant teams to share their data.
↓
DATA COLLECTION
HUMAN INPUTCentralised file submission
A designated person places the received data into a shared folder, creating a common hand-off point for the next stage.
↓
PROCESSING HAND-OFF
WORKFLOW HAND-OFFDSAG data processing
The shared-folder workflow passes the data to the DSAG team for processing. The processed output is returned to the same folder.
↓
SERVICE MANAGEMENT
AUTOMATEDServiceNow identification
The processed data feeds into a ServiceNow workflow, which identifies the relevant tickets and associated users.
↓
FINAL OUTPUT
AUTOMATED OUTPUTConsolidated working list
The workflow produces the final list of relevant users and tickets, ready for review and follow-up.
↓
NEXT ACTION
HUMAN INPUTUser communication
The concerned person reviews the final list and connects with the relevant users. This communication remains a manual activity.
04 / PROCESS TRANSFORMATIONFrom repeated manual steps
BEFORE AFTER
From repeated manual steps
to a connected workflow.
Manual coordination
- Repeated reminders and follow-ups
- Manual collection of team data
- Separate processing hand-offs
- Manual ticket and user identification
- Two to three days of effort per person
Automated processing
- Scheduled monthly reminders
- Centralised folder-based hand-offs
- Automated processing coordination
- ServiceNow-based ticket identification
- People focus on reviewing the final list
Giving teams back
time for meaningful work.
ESTIMATED ANALYST TIME SAVED
125+
Analyst hours saved every month across the participating teams.
TEAMS INVOLVED5–7
PEOPLE INVOLVED~14
PREVIOUS EFFORT2–3 days
Manual effort per person for the process
Time saved is an aggregate estimate across participating team members, based on the effort removed through the automated workflow.
06 / MY CONTRIBUTIONDesigning the process
01 02 03 04
Designing the process
around the people using it.
Process mapping
Understood the recurring activities, team dependencies and hand-offs involved in the monthly exercise.
Workflow coordination
Helped coordinate the automated journey across reminders, shared folders, DSAG processing and ServiceNow.
Stakeholder alignment
Worked across participating teams to establish the required inputs, ownership and process hand-offs.
Operational improvement
Helped move team effort away from repetitive data handling towards reviewing the final output and taking action.
What this taught me
about process design.
01Automation works best when the complete process is understood before individual steps are automated.
02The value of automation is not only fewer manual actions, but also clearer ownership and more predictable hand-offs.
03Good process design keeps human intervention where judgement and communication are still needed.