Working with others
When to switch an automation off
Plenty is said about which ones to switch on. Spotting which one is doing harm matters as much and nobody says it.
Automations are built with a clear purpose and stay forever, even after the work they described has changed. Nobody reviews them because they do not annoy enough to deserve an afternoon — only enough for people to learn to dodge them.
The signs that one is surplus
| Sign | What it really means |
|---|---|
| The team has invented a trick to dodge it | The rule no longer describes how you work |
| Exceptions outnumber the normal case | The rule is written backwards |
| Nobody remembers who built it or why | Nobody will be able to judge whether it still makes sense |
| Its notice is filed unread | It no longer informs: it is noise |
| It creates work undoing what it did | It is subtracting, however much it looks like saving |
Important
The first row matters most and is looked at least: **when someone finds a way around a rule, the data starts lying without anyone lying**. If, to stop a notice firing, the team leaves a file in a state it should not be in, your reports reflect that workaround rather than reality. The automation has not merely stopped helping: it is distorting what you see. And you will not catch it on the dashboard, because the dashboard is precisely what has turned false.
How to decide without arguing
- 1
Look at how many times it fired last month
Zero means retire it. Constant means look harder.
- 2
Ask whoever suffers it, not whoever built it
The one who configured it remembers it fondly; the receiver does not.
- 3
Disable it for two weeks before deleting
If nobody misses it, you have your answer.
- 4
And note why it was retired
It stops someone rebuilding it a year from now.
Watch out
And one case deserves separate treatment: **an automation that reaches outsiders is not switched off without telling them**. If your suppliers have spent a year receiving an automatic reminder and it stops, they do not think you turned it off: they think the document is no longer needed. What is retired internally is simply retired; what went outwards is replaced by something or announced.
What is worth reviewing once a year
Worth knowing
Switching an automation off is not admitting a mistake: what worked at twenty files a month can get in the way at two hundred. It would be odd if all of them still fitted two years on.
›Can it be disabled without deleting?
Yes, and that is the way: if it turns out to be needed, switch it back on.
›What if it only annoys one person?
Check whether that person is the heaviest user. Usually they are.
›How many should we have?
As many as someone can explain. If nobody knows what one does, it is surplus.
A real case
The situation
A team parks files in the wrong status to stop an automatic notice firing.
What you do
- Disables the rule for two weeks and checks whether anyone misses it
What you get
Nobody misses it, and the statuses go back to saying what is actually happening.
The situation
An automation has run for eight months and nobody knows whether it is still needed.
What you do
- Checks how many times it fired last quarter
- Checks whether the process that justified it is unchanged
- Switches it off if it adds nothing, noting what it did
What you get
The system does what the company needs today, not what it needed a year ago.
The situation
The automation annoys more than it helps.
What you do
- Asks whoever receives it
What you get
The decision is taken with whoever bears it.
The situation
It is switched off and something needed stops happening.
What you do
- Notes what it did before switching it off
What you get
The gap is visible rather than discovered.
The situation
It is switched off and nobody picks up what it did.
What you do
- Assigns somebody what it was doing
What you get
Switching off leaves no orphaned work.
The situation
It is kept just in case, without knowing whether it works.
What you do
- Checks the run history
What you get
What works is what gets kept.
The situation
Nobody knows who may switch it off.
What you do
- Records an owner for each rule
What you get
The decision has an owner.
The situation
It is switched off unannounced and somebody misses it.
What you do
- Communicates the change before applying it
What you get
Nobody discovers the change through a failure.
This article answers
- an automatic rule hurts more than it helps
- disabling an automation
- the team works around the rule
- too many automatic notices