Workflow audit
The fastest way to get a question answered about your own process.
Questions and answers
Straight answers about automation work
Cost, timelines, data handling, where AI belongs, who owns what we build, and how we measure whether any of it worked.
The short answer
The questions below are the ones we are asked most often before a first call. They cover what CanAutomate does, how automation consulting differs from buying a tool, what a project costs and why we will not quote before an audit, where we use AI and where we deliberately use a plain rule instead, how your data is handled, and how we agree a measure of success before building anything. Questions specific to one kind of work — documents, integrations, customer operations — sit on those pages, linked below.
General questions
- What does CanAutomate actually do?
- We find the repetitive operational work slowing a business down, and we design and build automations around how that business already runs. In practice that means four things: mapping the work as it really happens, deciding what should be automated and what should not, building it into your existing tools, and adjusting it once it meets real conditions. We are a consultancy and a build partner, not a software product you configure yourself.
- How is this different from buying an automation tool?
- A tool gives you the capability and leaves you the problem of working out which of your processes to point it at, how to model your exceptions, and who maintains it. Most tools are bought, half-configured and quietly abandoned for exactly that reason. We start from your process rather than from the tool, and the tool is chosen afterwards to fit it.
- What does an automation project cost?
- It depends on how many systems the work touches and how many exceptions the process carries, which is why we scope after the audit rather than before it. A single well-bounded workflow is a meaningfully smaller commitment than an integration across four systems. You get rough numbers and the risks in writing at the end of the audit, before you decide anything.
- Do you use AI for everything?
- No, and that matters. A lot of operational work needs a plain rule, not a model — rules are cheaper, faster, and they behave the same way every time. We use AI where the input is genuinely unstructured or ambiguous: reading a document, interpreting a free-text request, summarizing a thread. Using a model where an if-statement would do is a cost you carry forever.
- Is our data used to train AI models?
- Not by us, and we configure third-party services so that your data is excluded from training wherever that setting exists. Where a workflow is sensitive enough that we would not be comfortable sending it to a third-party model at all, we say so during design and build it differently. Cybersecurity and privacy is the barrier Canadian businesses report most often, and it deserves a straight answer rather than a reassurance.
- How do you measure whether an automation worked?
- We agree the measure before we build, and it is usually time, error rate or elapsed duration rather than a vanity number. How many hours a week went into this before, how many go into it now, how often does it need a human to intervene, and how long does a request now take end to end. If we cannot name the measure at design time, that is a sign the automation is not worth building yet.
- Are you hiring or do you take on partners?
- CanAutomate is a young practice. If you build automation work and you are in southwestern Ontario, we are always willing to have the conversation. Email hello@canautomate.ca.
Questions about specific work
Each service page answers the questions that only apply to that kind of work.
Customer operations questions
Chatbots, drafted replies, failure handling, and whether you need to replace your CRM.
Document automation questions
Handwriting, accuracy, where your data goes, and whether your forms need to change.
Integration questions
Software with no API, n8n versus custom code, ownership, and outage behaviour.
Internal operations questions
Undocumented processes, headcount, approvals, and what happens when a process changes.
Workflow audit questions
Cost, who should attend, what to prepare, and what happens if the answer is no.
Working with us in Ontario
Whether we work outside London, why local matters, business size, and funding.
Still deciding
How we work
The four stages, what each produces, and where you can stop.
About CanAutomate
Who we are and what we will not claim.
Question not answered here?
Email hello@canautomate.ca, or bring it to a workflow audit and we will answer it against your actual process.
Book a workflow audit