Build an Automation Portfolio

Your Automation Resume

In the previous lesson, we explored testing, monitoring, and improving automations. Now let’s build on that foundation. Over the past seven lessons, you’ve learned to spot automation opportunities, design workflows, build email sequences, connect multi-step systems, handle errors, test thoroughly, and monitor continuously.

Now it’s time to prove it. In this capstone, you’ll design three complete automations – each demonstrating a different level of complexity – and document them in a portfolio format that you can use, share, and build on.

What You’ll Build

By the end of this capstone, you’ll have three fully designed automations:

1. A simple triggered automation (Lessons 2-4) – A single-trigger, single or few-action workflow
2. A multi-step data workflow (Lesson 5) – A workflow that connects multiple systems and transforms data
3. A complex conditional process (Lessons 5-6) – A workflow with branching logic, error handling, and monitoring

Each automation will include complete documentation: problem statement, workflow design, error handling, testing plan, and projected impact.

The Portfolio Format

For each automation, create a document with these sections:

Section 1: The Problem

What manual process does this automation replace? Be specific:

• What task is being done manually?
• How often does it happen?
• How long does it take each time?
• What errors or inconsistencies exist?
• Who does this work currently?

Help me write a problem statement for an automation that
replaces [manual process].

Include:
- Current process description (3-4 sentences)
- Time cost (per instance and annually)
- Error rate or inconsistency issues
- Who's affected (direct workers and downstream people)
- The opportunity: what could these people do instead?

Section 2: The Design

The complete workflow specification:

• Trigger definition
• Every action with inputs and outputs
• All conditions and branches
• Data transformations
• Integration points

This is the specification you’d hand to someone building the automation.

Section 3: Error Handling

For each step:

• Failure modes
• Recovery actions
• Retry strategy
• Escalation rules

Section 4: Testing Plan

• Test cases (happy path, error path, edge cases)
• Staged rollout plan
• Acceptance criteria

Section 5: Impact Assessment

• Time saved per run and annually
• Error reduction
• Consistency improvement
• Build time estimate
• ROI calculation

Automation 1: Simple Triggered Workflow

Pick a task from your opportunity list that follows a straightforward trigger-action pattern. This is your warm-up.

Good candidates:

• New form submission → create record + send confirmation
• Calendar event created → send preparation email to attendees
• File uploaded to shared folder → notify team + log in tracker
• Customer feedback received → categorize + route to team

Walk-through example: Meeting prep automation

Problem: Before every external meeting, you spend 10 minutes looking up the attendee’s company, recent interactions, and open deals. You do this 8 times per week.

Design:

Trigger: Calendar event created with external attendee(s)

Step 1: Extract attendee email(s) from calendar event
Step 2: Look up each attendee in CRM
  → Get: company, role, last interaction, open deals, notes
Step 3: Format a meeting prep brief
  → Include: who they are, last touchpoint, current deals,
    suggested talking points
Step 4: Add the brief as a note on the calendar event
Step 5: Send brief to the meeting organizer via email
  (30 minutes before meeting)

Conditions:
  IF attendee is internal → skip (no prep needed)
  IF attendee not found in CRM → note "new contact" in brief
  IF meeting is in less than 1 hour → send immediately

Impact: 10 minutes x 8 meetings/week x 50 weeks = 66 hours/year saved. Plus: you’re always prepared, even for last-minute meetings.

Quick Check

For your Automation 1 candidate, can you describe the trigger, the actions, and the expected output in under 30 seconds? If not, simplify it. Your first automation should be straightforward enough to build in a day.

Automation 2: Multi-Step Data Workflow

Pick something that involves moving data between systems, transforming formats, and producing a combined output.

Good candidates:

• Daily/weekly report that pulls from multiple data sources
• New customer setup across 3+ systems
• Invoice generation from project management data
• Lead scoring based on multiple data points

Walk-through example: Weekly department report

Problem: Every Monday morning, the ops manager spends 90 minutes pulling data from 4 systems, formatting it into a report, and distributing it. Some weeks they’re late, and the data format varies.

Design:

Trigger: Every Monday at 7 AM

Step 1: Pull sales data from CRM
  → Total deals, pipeline value, conversion rate, top deals
Step 2: Pull support data from help desk
  → Ticket count, average resolution time, satisfaction score
Step 3: Pull project data from PM tool
  → Active projects, milestones hit, overdue items
Step 4: Pull financial data from accounting
  → Revenue, expenses, cash flow

Step 5: Transform all data to consistent format
  → Standardize dates, currencies, percentages
Step 6: Calculate week-over-week comparisons
Step 7: Generate report with charts and narrative
Step 8: Distribute via email to leadership team
Step 9: Archive report in shared drive

Conditions:
  IF any data source is unavailable → include "data
    unavailable" note for that section, continue with rest
  IF any metric changed more than 20% week-over-week →
    highlight and add flag

Impact: 90 minutes x 50 weeks = 75 hours/year. Plus: reports are consistently formatted, always on time, and highlight important changes automatically.

Automation 3: Complex Conditional Process

Your most ambitious automation. This should involve multiple conditions, error handling, and monitoring.

Good candidates:

• Employee onboarding with multiple system setups and conditional steps
• Order fulfillment with different paths based on product type, location, and priority
• Customer support routing with escalation paths
• Content approval workflow with multiple reviewers and conditional requirements

Walk-through example: Customer onboarding pipeline

Problem: New customer onboarding involves 12 steps across 5 people and 6 systems. Steps are often missed, timing varies, and the customer experience is inconsistent.

Design:

Trigger: Deal moves to "Closed Won" in CRM

Phase 1: Setup (automated, immediate)
  Step 1: Create customer profile in billing system
  Step 2: Generate contract using template
    IF enterprise tier → use enterprise contract
    IF professional tier → use standard contract
  Step 3: Create project in PM tool
  Step 4: Create shared folder in document system
  Step 5: Add to customer success CRM queue

Phase 2: Communication (automated, immediate)
  Step 6: Send welcome email to customer
    Personalized by tier and product
  Step 7: Send internal kickoff notification
    To: assigned CSM, PM, and technical lead
  Step 8: Schedule kickoff call
    Auto-suggest 3 time slots based on availability

Phase 3: Follow-up (automated, time-delayed)
  Step 9: Day 3 -- Send prep materials for kickoff call
  Step 10: Day 7 -- If kickoff not scheduled, escalate to CSM manager
  Step 11: Day 14 -- Send "how's it going?" check-in
  Step 12: Day 30 -- Trigger 30-day review process

Error handling:
  - Any step failure → log error, continue with remaining steps,
    alert CSM
  - Billing system failure → critical alert, pause automation,
    require manual resolution before continuing
  - Duplicate detection → check if customer already exists in
    each system before creating

Impact: Reduces onboarding setup from 2 hours (across 5 people) to 5 minutes (fully automated). Eliminates missed steps. Standardizes customer experience. 2 hours x 10 new customers/month x 12 months = 240 hours/year.

Calculating Your Total Impact

After designing all three automations, calculate your total portfolio impact:

Beyond time savings, estimate:

• Errors eliminated per year
• Consistency improvements (every output identical)
• Speed improvements (minutes instead of hours)
• Team capacity freed up

Presenting Your Portfolio

Format your three automations as a single document or presentation:

Organize my three automation designs into a portfolio document.

For each automation:
1. Title and one-sentence description
2. Problem statement (3-4 sentences)
3. Workflow diagram (text-based)
4. Key specifications (trigger, main actions, conditions)
5. Error handling summary
6. Impact metrics (time saved, errors reduced)

Also include:
- Portfolio summary (total impact across all three)
- Skills demonstrated (workflow design, data transformation,
  error handling, etc.)
- Next steps (what I'd build next)

Maintaining Your Portfolio

Your portfolio isn’t a one-time project. It’s a living collection that grows as you build more automations:

After building each automation:

• Record actual (not estimated) performance metrics
• Document lessons learned
• Note any modifications made after initial deployment

Every quarter:

• Add new automations you’ve built
• Update metrics on existing automations
• Retire automations that are no longer needed
• Identify the next set of automation opportunities

Exercise: Complete Your Portfolio

Build the full portfolio:

1. Choose your three automation candidates (one simple, one multi-step, one complex)
2. For each, complete all five sections of the portfolio format
3. Calculate total projected impact
4. Identify the one you’ll build first

The “build first” choice should balance impact (how much time it saves) with complexity (how confident you are in executing it). Start with a quick win to build momentum.

Key Takeaways

• A portfolio of three automations demonstrates breadth: simple triggers, multi-step data flows, and complex conditional processes
• Each automation needs a complete story: problem, design, error handling, testing plan, and impact
• Calculate ROI honestly: time saved minus time to build and maintain
• Your portfolio is a living document – update it with real performance data and new automations
• Start building with the automation that has the best ratio of impact to complexity
• The skills you’ve built in this course – workflow design, data transformation, error handling, testing, and monitoring – apply to any automation tool or platform

Congratulations on completing the Automate Your Work with AI course. You now have the frameworks to identify, design, build, and maintain automations across any business context. Claim your certificate and start automating.