Automations and operations playbooks
How companies connect their software so work moves on its own: what they automate, which tools they use for it, and how to set it up. Free to read.
How companies run their operations
The jobs each kind of company needs software for, the tools commonly used for each, and the automations that join them up.
Service agency or consultancy
Teams selling client work: marketing, design, development or advisory.
5 jobs · 7 automations
Software startup
Small product teams building and selling an app.
5 jobs · 6 automations
Online shop
Businesses selling products online.
4 jobs · 6 automations
Growing team that hires often
Companies running several hiring processes at once.
4 jobs · 2 automations
Automation recipes
Built-in integrations are ones the software company lists on its own website. Others use an automation tool such as Zapier, Make, n8n or Power Automate.
Sales · Easy · Built-in integration
Log every booked meeting in your CRM
Sales calls booked through a scheduling link often never reach the CRM, so follow-ups are missed and reports undercount meetings. Connecting the two records each booking on the right contact without anyone typing it in.
Operations · Easy · Built-in integration
Add a video link to every booking automatically
Copying meeting links by hand causes wrong links and late starts. With the two connected, each booking gets its own link in the invitation.
Finance · Some setup · Built-in integration
Turn a won deal into an invoice
Re-typing client details and amounts from the CRM into accounting software is slow and causes mistakes. Creating the invoice from the deal keeps names, amounts and products the same in both places.
Finance · Some setup · Built-in integration
Bring card payments into your accounts
Matching card payouts to sales by hand is one of the most tedious bookkeeping jobs. Connecting your payment provider brings in transactions and fees so reconciliation is mostly matching, not typing.
Finance · Some setup · Built-in integration
Send online shop sales to your accounting software
Shops with many small orders can't enter sales one by one. Syncing them gives you up-to-date revenue and sales tax figures.
Marketing · Easy · Built-in integration
Keep your newsletter list in step with your CRM
When the CRM and email tool hold different lists, people get emails they unsubscribed from or miss ones they asked for. Syncing keeps one source of truth.
Marketing · Easy · Built-in integration
Email customers based on what they bought
Sending everyone the same email wastes your best customers' attention. With purchase data in the email tool, you can send follow-ups, restock news and thank-yous to the right people.
Operations · Easy · Built-in integration
Turn chat requests into tracked tasks
Requests made in chat get lost once the conversation scrolls away. Creating a task from the message keeps a link to it, with an owner and a due date.
Engineering · Some setup · Built-in integration
Turn app errors into issues the team will fix
Errors seen only in a monitoring tool are easy to ignore. Creating an issue from the error puts it into the normal planning flow, with the stack trace attached.
Engineering · Easy · Built-in integration
Move issues along when code is merged
Updating issue status by hand after every pull request is easy to forget, so boards drift from reality. Linking them keeps status accurate.
Engineering · Easy · Built-in integration
Tell the team the moment your site goes down
Finding out about downtime from customers is the worst way. An alert in the channel the team already watches gets someone looking within minutes.
Product · Some setup · Built-in integration
Give sales a view of how customers use the product
Sales and success teams work better when they know who is active, who is stuck and who has stopped. Sending usage groups to the CRM puts that on each contact.
Product · Some setup · Built-in integration
See revenue next to product usage
Knowing which features paying customers use helps you decide what to build. Bringing payment data into product analytics answers that without spreadsheets.
Hiring · Easy · Built-in integration
Let candidates pick their own interview time
Emailing back and forth to book interviews slows hiring and loses good candidates. Sending a booking link with live availability cuts days from the process.
Hiring · Easy · Built-in integration
Tell the hiring team about new candidates
Applicants left waiting for days often take another offer. Posting new candidates where the hiring team talks speeds up first reviews.
Sales · Some setup · Automation tool
Send website leads to the CRM and alert sales
A lead who fills in a contact form expects a fast reply. Adding them to the CRM and telling sales at once makes a same-day reply the norm.
Operations · Some setup · Automation tool
Start a client onboarding project when a deal closes
The hand-over from sales to delivery is where details get lost. Creating the project from a template when the deal is won means every client gets the same first steps.
Marketing · Some setup · Built-in integration
Build one marketing dashboard from Analytics and Ads
Pulling numbers from several Google tools into a spreadsheet every week is slow and easy to get wrong. A shared dashboard updates itself, so everyone looks at the same figures.
Marketing · Easy · Built-in integration
See which Google searches bring visitors
Analytics shows what visitors do, and Search Console shows what they searched for. Linking them puts search queries next to behaviour, so you know which topics are worth writing more about.
Sales · Some setup · Built-in integration
Let an AI voice agent answer calls and book meetings
Calls outside office hours, or when everyone is busy, are often lost leads. A voice agent can answer common questions and book a meeting in your calendar, then hand over to a person.
Operations · Easy · Built-in integration
Research a question across Slack and the web at once
Answers to "what did we decide about X?" are often buried in old chat threads. Searching Slack and the web together, with sources, saves digging and gives a summary you can share.
Operations · Easy · Built-in integration
Ask an AI assistant about your work email and files
Finding the latest version of a document, or what a client said three emails ago, takes time. An assistant that can read your Microsoft 365 content can find and summarise it for you.
Finance · Some setup · Built-in integration
Save email attachments to shared storage automatically
Invoices and documents that arrive by email get lost in personal inboxes. Saving attachments to a shared folder automatically keeps them where the team can find them.
Sales · Easy · Built-in integration
Celebrate and track new deals in a team channel
When a deal moves stage, the people who need to act often find out late. A short message in the right channel keeps sales, delivery and finance in step without extra meetings.
Operations · Easy · Built-in integration
Keep a live sheet of every online order
A shared spreadsheet of orders is still the easiest way for a small team to pack, chase and report. Filling it automatically means no copying and no missed orders.
Operations · Some setup · Built-in integration
Summarise incoming emails and post them to the team
A shared inbox, such as for support or sales, gets read late or twice. A short summary in a team channel tells everyone what came in and who should pick it up.
Engineering · Easy · Built-in integration
Follow code changes in a team channel
Pull requests waiting for review slow everyone down. Posting them where the team talks gets reviews done sooner and keeps others aware of what's shipping.
Finance · Easy · Automation tool
Review software renewals before they charge
Most wasted software spend comes from renewals nobody noticed. A short regular look at what renews next lets you cancel, downgrade or negotiate in time.
See what your own software can do
Add the tools you pay for to My stack. Ideas for your stack shows which of these automations you can set up with them today.