How XRay Handles the Transition from Manual to Automated

Making the switch from manual processes to automated workflows is a big change for any organization. If you’re considering automation for your business, you might be worried about a messy transition as you overhaul your systems. 

At XRay, we have a simple method that makes the conversion from manual to automated quick and frictionless. In this post, we’ll explain how we handle that crossover with parallel systems and extensive documentation.

Building in parallel

Whenever we build a new automation for one of our members, we start by creating a basic version of the automation that handles only the most common use cases for its business process. 

We quickly refine this prototype through a series of tests of conversations with your team, until we have an automated system that approximates the results of your manual process. That’s when we begin to run the two systems together in parallel. 

If, for instance, you’re automating your inbound sales process, you can continue to have your sales team monitor your CRM and email the way they always have, while also seeing how the automation processes leads and sends automatic notifications (note: until you’ve made the decision to switch, any messages or forms that would go to your customers will instead go to one of your internal accounts for testing purposes). 

By running both systems at the same time, we can evaluate the performance of the automated workflow and adjust it as needed to accommodate for a wider range of scenarios or to perform additional actions.  

Make the Switch When You’re Ready

Once the automation meets your expectations, you can switch over and start relying on the automated steps to complete your workflow. Any remaining test data will be replaced with live data coming in from your company or your clients. 

For your first automation, we’re confident that you’ll be ready to make the transition well before your initial 45-day trial period ends (unless we previously agreed to a longer time frame for a particularly complex workflow), but the exact timing will be entirely up to you. We won’t push you to make the change until you’re happy with the automation’s performance during the parallel testing period. 

To help ensure an easy transition for your team, we provide all of our members with thorough documentation that explains what each automation does, how it works, and what they need to do to use it (if anything). 

All of the documentation, along with other helpful links and resources, will be delivered through our own app called the Workflow Dash. The Workflow Dash organizes web pages and links into easily accessible, context-rich Pins, and is free for our members. 

Between the practice they get using the automation during testing and the extensive documentation available in the Workflow Dash, your team will have no problem making the switch.

Refine Your Automations Throughout Your Membership

With an XRay membership, our work doesn’t stop once your automation is live. For as long as your membership is active, we’ll keep improving your existing automations in addition to building new ones. 

Every automation we create will be connected to an Activity Log, which will track every automated action performed. This data, along with you and your team’s experience in using the automation, will help guide us as we refine the automation to add new paths, remove outdated functionality, or integrate new software if you decide to switch tools. 

Most of our updates will be done as quickly as possible, and will incur minimum downtime. Much like our process for building a full automation, we’ll run tests on any new feature before we incorporate it into the live automation. 

If you maintain your XRay membership, your automations will only get better over time as we continue to fix any bugs that crop up and make incremental improvements to your entire automated infrastructure. 

A Seamless Transition

XRay.Tech’s process for building and implementing automations makes it easy to switch when you’re ready and puts you in charge of the transition. Our documentation delivered through the Workflow Dash makes it easy for your team to adopt each new automated workflow, and our membership model ensures that your automations keep up with your business as your needs change. 

If you’d like to learn more about XRay’s method for building automated workflows to create more time for mindful work, you can check out our blog or our YouTube channel. You can also follow XRay on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn, and reach out to us directly if you have any questions.