Practical advice
Add human approval before an automation acts
Use a draft or review stage when an automated result could affect a customer, payment, booking or important record.
The practical answer
Start with this principle
Automate preparation before automating the final decision. A review step keeps speed benefits while a person remains responsible for material actions.
Do this in order
Three steps you can use today
Identify the consequence
Ask what happens if the output is wrong. Customer promises, payments, cancellations and record changes deserve a stronger control than an internal draft.
Create a visible review queue
Send proposed actions to one place with the source information beside them. The reviewer should be able to approve, edit or reject without hunting for context.
Record the decision
Keep a simple log of what was proposed, who approved it and when. Use rejected outputs to improve the workflow rather than hiding them.
Copy and adapt
Approval rule
This automation may act on its own when ALL of these are true:
- The value is under .......................
- The recipient is an existing client
- Nothing in the request mentions ..............................
Otherwise it drafts and waits for approval from: ..............
If no approval within ....... hours, it: ......................
Anything touching money, dates, contracts or a complaint goes to a person
every time, regardless of the rules above.