Templates

Workflow design worksheet

A workflow mapped on this worksheet is detailed enough for your FDE to scope and build from — and detailed enough for you to judge whether automating it will actually deliver value. It’s also a useful diagnostic: if you can’t fill in the trigger, the decisions, and the failure modes, the workflow isn’t understood well enough to automate yet.

Map one workflow per worksheet. Start with your top scorer from the AI opportunity audit.

What to capture

Seven fields, in order:

Name and owner — what the workflow is called and the one person accountable for it working.
Trigger — the event that starts a run. Be precise: “an email with a PDF attachment arrives in accounts@” is a trigger; “when invoices come in” is not.
Steps — what happens, in sequence, including the boring parts. Number them.
Decision points — every place the path forks, and the rule that decides which branch. Decisions are where AI judgment or a human gate lives, so vague rules here become bugs later. The DOE framework explains how we separate these decisions from the deterministic steps around them.
Data in / data out — what the workflow reads, and what it produces or changes, in which systems.
Human review gates — the points where a person must approve before the workflow continues. If a mistake is expensive, there should be a gate in front of it.
Failure modes — the ways runs go wrong today, and what should happen when they do. “It fails sometimes” is not a failure mode; “the PDF is an illegible scan” is.

Worked example: supplier invoice intake

A real pattern from the document-handling automations we build — extracting key information from invoices and entering it into an accounting tool (see workflow automation).

Name and owner: Supplier invoice intake — owned by the office manager.

Trigger: An email with a PDF attachment arrives in the accounts@ inbox.

Steps:

#	Step	Done by
1	Classify the email — is the attachment a supplier invoice?	System
2	Extract fields: supplier, invoice number, date, amount, tax, PO reference	System
3	Match the supplier and PO against existing records	System
4	Create a draft bill in the accounting tool	System
5	Review and approve flagged bills	Human
6	Archive the PDF to the shared invoices folder and log the run	System

Decision points:

Decision	Rule	If yes	If no
Is the attachment an invoice?	Classification confidence above threshold	Continue to extraction	Leave in inbox, notify office manager
Is the supplier known?	Supplier matches an existing record	Continue	Flag for human review
Is the amount under $5,000 CAD?	Amount field vs threshold	Create draft bill directly	Route to approval gate first

Data in / data out:

Direction	Data	System
In	Invoice PDF	Email inbox
In	Supplier and PO records	Accounting tool
Out	Draft bill	Accounting tool
Out	Archived PDF	Shared drive folder
Out	Run log entry and exception notifications	Workflow system

Human review gates: new suppliers, amounts of $5,000 CAD or more, and any extraction below the confidence threshold. Everything else flows through and stays visible in the run log.

Failure modes:

Failure	How it shows up	What should happen
Illegible or scanned-image PDF	Extraction confidence is low	Route to human queue with the original attached
Duplicate invoice	Invoice number already exists	Skip creation, notify with a link to the existing bill
Missing PO reference	PO field empty	Create the draft bill but hold it at the approval gate
Non-invoice attachment (statement, receipt)	Classifier flags mismatch	Leave in inbox untouched

Blank template

Copy this into a document and fill it in — one workflow per copy:


WORKFLOW DESIGN WORKSHEET

Name: ______________________  Owner: ______________________
Runs per week: _____  Hours/week it consumes today: _____

TRIGGER (the precise event that starts a run):
- ___________________________________________________________

STEPS (in sequence; mark each Human or System-candidate):
1. __________________________________________  [Human/System]
2. __________________________________________  [Human/System]
3. __________________________________________  [Human/System]
4. __________________________________________  [Human/System]
5. __________________________________________  [Human/System]

DECISION POINTS (where the path forks, and the rule):
- Decision: ____________________ Rule: ______________________
  If yes: ______________________ If no: _____________________
- Decision: ____________________ Rule: ______________________
  If yes: ______________________ If no: _____________________

DATA IN (what the workflow reads, and from where):
- ___________________________________________________________
- ___________________________________________________________

DATA OUT (what it produces or changes, and where):
- ___________________________________________________________
- ___________________________________________________________

HUMAN REVIEW GATES (where a person must approve):
- ___________________________________________________________

FAILURE MODES (how runs go wrong, and what should happen):
- Failure: _____________________ Handling: __________________
- Failure: _____________________ Handling: __________________
- Failure: _____________________ Handling: __________________

EDGE CASES / NOTES:
- ___________________________________________________________

What your FDE does with this

During week 0 of an engagement, your FDE maps your workflows in exactly this shape before anything is built — a completed worksheet shortens that work and sharpens the first sprint. The steps marked “System” become build candidates, the decision points determine where AI judgment versus fixed rules belong, and the failure modes become test cases. If you’re already a client, share completed worksheets with your FDE in Chat.

Next steps

AI opportunity audit — decide which workflow deserves this treatment
Automation basics — the concepts behind triggers, steps, and gates
How we work — where workflow mapping fits in the engagement