There are two parts to this. First, you need to be able to break down the process you want to automate into a series of steps. Second, you need to figure out how each step can be automated.
The first part is relatively straightforward. It is the same process you use to break down any problem into steps. For example, if you want to automate the process of booking a flight, you might break it down into these steps:
- Find a flight that can get you to your destination.
- Check to see if there are any seats available.
- If there are seats available, book the flight.
- If there aren’t any seats available, book a different flight.
- If there aren’t any flights, call the airline to book a flight.
- If you can’t book a flight, call the airline to complain.
- If you can’t book a flight and you’ve called the airline to complain, go back to step 1.
This is a very simple example, of course. But it shows how you can break a process down into steps.
The second part is a little more tricky. It involves figuring out how to automate each step of the process. For example, how can you automate the process of finding a flight that can get you to your destination?
One way to do it is to write an RPA program or a third party workflow tool like Zapier, Parabola or Integromat that scans all the flights every day through an API and finds one that can get you to your destination.
Once you have a way to automate each step, all you have to do is combine them into a single workflow.
These workflows also involves deciding what to do when the automation fails. For example, what do you do if you can’t book a flight?
So in a nutshell, the thinking process to master automation is breaking down a process into steps, figuring out how to automate each step, and deciding how to handle failures.
PS: Did you know that your Adalo app also has an API?