Hey, I’m not sure if this is the right place but thought I’d post in case someone had any ideas
I’m new to automation and want to learn it, I thought the best way for me to learn is just going straight into action so I’ve decided to automate a family members business, she has a small cleaning company and she does everything by paper, her calendar is in a notebook, she has a few cleaners who work for her and texts them their weekly schedule, when a customer wants an invoice she uses an old word invoice I made her a long time ago but she’s not very good at the computer so it takes her awhile to do, also with her texting, her spelling and grammar is really bad lol, she doesn’t seem to read what she writes so you have to kind of decipher it which obviously isn’t the greatest when dealing with customers, so I’m going to try and automate a lot of her processes to free up her time and make things easier for her, I think if anyone could use automation to improve things for themselves it’s definitely her.
What I want to automate
Invoicing, Calendars + Staff Calendars, Customer Database
I’m going to start with these then eventually I can do more for her such as customer quote forms and advertising automations etc… but i don’t want to get ahead of myself lol so basics first
I’m trying to do this with little to no monthly cost for her, so I’m going through a lot of the easier app routes, I’m making my own spreadsheets and doing a lot through google sheets etc.
I was going to use Zenmaid for the customer address book as the free version would work for this but unfortunately, it isn’t integrated yet
My question is if anyone has done these types of automation before, are these the best routes that I’m using or does anyone know of a better process, I keep changing my mind about how I’m going to do it as I know it can be done many ways. Below is what I’ve done so far and where I’m up too
** Automation 1 - Invoicing** - DONE
Process:
Google Form > Google Sheet > Fills in Invoice > Converts to PDF > Emails invoice to the customer
She fills in this Google form when her/a staff has completed a job
This fills in a sheet
Fills in this invoice (I’ve had to cut off her details)
and then does the rest… this one I feel like I may have done the best possible route, what I may do is change google forms to Cognito forms, If it looks more user-friendly (I haven’t fully checked it out yet)
Automation 2 - Customer Database
I’ve set up a database but I’ve not automated it yet as I’m currently thing how am I best to use this, wether I just get her to fill this in directly and do an automation further down the line as the most important at the moment is invoicing and calendar
Automation 3 - Calendar
This is the one I’m on and trying to figure out the most user-friendly way I can
I was going to use Google Calendar but I’ve just tested TeamUP Calendar which is free and has an app so I think this may be a good one to use, looks a lot more user friendly
The process I’m currently thinking
She inputs the weekly schedules manually > Emails or texts each staff member their weekly schedule
Or maybe go more in-depth to make sure there are no errors in her inputting, maybe I create a google sheet for her submission where it can have drop down menus of the customer names / staff etc so it’s less typing (it can pick up from the customer database so it would be…)
Google Sheet > Creates an event in the correct calendar > emails details of the week to the correct person
I’ve also seen an automation of attaching ChatGPT to gmail to help with rewording emails to people , i’m thinking of adding this in somewhere to help with her writing.
I’m sorry this is so long, I don’t really need any help in that way with this, It’s something i would be able to figure out myself, my question was more, If someone has already done something very similiar, what process did you use (can be very simply put, i’m just curious what scenarios and triggers people use and which way yous went about it)
Eg: for invoicing : Google Form > Google Sheet > Fills in Invoice > Converts to PDF > Emails invoice to the customer