Business process automation and system integration

Zapier, Make or custom code?

For a handful of simple triggers, no-code tools like Zapier or Make are the right choice and we will tell you so. Custom automation makes sense when one of these is true:

• the workflow has many steps, conditions or exceptions and keeps breaking in a no-code tool;
• task volume is high (thousands of runs per month);
• you need a system that no-code tools do not support well — telephony events, accounting with per-job tracking, an internal database;
• the data is sensitive and should not pass through yet another third-party service.

Typical automations we build

• CRM ⇄ QuickBooks Online: customers, estimates and invoices created once, payment status synced back. See QuickBooks integration.
• Phone ⇄ CRM: incoming calls from RingCentral or Twilio open the customer record; calls and recordings attach to the job. See RingCentral & Twilio integration.
• Marketplace leads: Thumbtack, Angi or website leads created in the CRM with the source, and the right person notified.
• Operations reporting: numbers from several systems collected every morning into one dashboard or message.
• Store and listing monitoring: we built a bot that collects App Store and Google Play data for a portfolio of apps and sends a daily summary — see the case study.

How an automation project runs

We start by mapping the current process with the people who do it: which system, which fields, who does what and how often. That map usually shows where the hours go. Then we agree a fixed scope and timeline, build in one- or two-week iterations, run the automation in parallel with the manual process for a short period, and switch over once the numbers match.

Reliability

Every automation we deliver logs what it did, retries temporary failures and alerts a person when something needs attention. An automation that fails silently is worse than none. Credentials stay in your accounts, and you get documentation of every connection.