First published: July 7, 2021 @ 6:00 pm
Automation technology is one of the best tools in a developer’s arsenal. We’ve all heard the adage “the right tool for the right job” and it is true in most cases.
A lot of developers seem to be in a rut and just start building tools to automate their own jobs. It’s an easy way to justify working late because you know you’ll have more time to spend on development projects.
There are some amazing tools out there that can help you do just that. One such tool is Automation software (i.e., Flowdock, Zendesk, Asana, etc.).
So why would a developer invest time and money into building an automation tool? The answer is simple: speed!
The valuable time spent waiting for your builds to finish takes away from what could be a productive time. The less time you spend debugging and fixing issues, the more time you have to build your software product.
With automated builds, it becomes easier to deploy your software and keep it up-to-date on all your servers. The more time you spend building your software, the more time you have to spend making it better.
However, because of its speedy and effective nature, automation workflow have an unfair advantage over manual labor.
In this article, we will discuss the reasons automation workflow has an unfair advantage and how to use it to your advantage.
Automation: The Right Tool for the Right Job
The first thing that you should consider when deciding on whether to automate your builds is what kind of work you need it to complete. The more complicated and time-consuming a build is, the more benefits you’ll get from automating it.
Building complex projects is very rewarding. You can spend a lot of time trying to find bugs and fixing them rather than spending your time doing other things.
You have fewer constraints on what you can do during development.
When you’re automating complicated builds, you’ll probably end up with better quality code. You won’t have as many distractions and you will focus all your attention on solving problems rather than finding them.
I’m not saying that automating complex business processes is a bad idea, it’s just important to remember that automating is only effective when you know what kind of work you’re doing.
Automation: The Right Tool for the Wrong Job
So, how do you know what kind of work you’re doing? If you’re not sure what kinds of things your build needs to do, then process automation isn’t going to be very helpful.
It’s important to make sure that you understand what the automation workflow has to do and if it is performing that task correctly. If it isn’t performing as expected, then you need to fix something before your automated workflow can continue running smoothly.
You can use tools like Zendesk or JIRA for this purpose. You should also consider what tools are already in place and how they work before deciding on whether you should automate them as well.
For example, if there are many developers working on a single project, they may have their own unique way of testing and deploying their code.
If you automate the build process, everyone’s workflow will have to change (and potentially create conflicts) since some people may not want certain things automated (i.e., don’t want Zendesk notifications, etc.). Process automation should make your life easier, not to make everyone’s life harder.
How to Use Automation Workflow to Your Advantage
The biggest benefit of automation workflow is that it can help you save time by making the process of testing and deploying your code much easier. This means that you’ll have more time to focus on what really matters: building your software.
If you have a lot of other things you need to do, then it’s probably best if you automate them as well so that you don’t have to spend as much time on them.
For example, if you have meetings and conferences scheduled every week, it would be nice if you automate them so that you could take some time off from work without missing out on anything important.
I’m not saying that meetings are a bad thing, but I am saying that they are something that we can easily automate (i.e., put into a calendar application).
It may also help if we record these meetings for reference or if the attendees can watch them later since there’s nothing worse than forgetting what they said during a meeting.
However, just because we can automate something doesn’t mean we should; there are plenty of things that we should never automate, especially if you’re not a computer expert.
This is because some things just don’t work properly when you automate them and you could end up spending more time fixing them than you would have spent on doing them manually in the first place.
I’ve had to fix broken automation tools before and I’ve even had to write my own tools from scratch, so I know that they can break too. For example, one of the problems that I’ve run into is that some tools I’ve used simply do not support some languages.
Even if you’re using Python, it’s still a good idea to use a Python-specific tool because sometimes the best way to fix something is by making changes in code rather than in code snippets (i.e., just adding more automation).
Automation Vs Manual Workflow
To summarize, automation workflow can be useful but it’s also dangerous since it can break down without proper testing of the dynamic workflow.
If this happens, then it’s best to just go back to using manual testing and deployment so that you can spend your time on things that really matter instead of fixing things that don’t work properly.
There are two kinds of process automation: hard and soft. We can do hard automation with automated testing tools such as PythonUnit or py.test. This kind of automation requires a lot of work and is not necessarily easy to do.
On the other hand, we can do soft automation with code snippets. They have fewer restrictions on what you can automate. The main difference between hard and soft automation is that soft automation requires less code but it’s also more prone to break down if something goes wrong.
In other words, if you’re working with hard automation, then it’s a good idea to write a test that ensures everything works properly before deploying your code so that you can be sure everything works as expected.
However, if you’re working with soft automation, then it’s better to deploy your code automatically without worrying about whether or not everything works properly since there’s no need for a test (i.e., we do not expect the automation to fail).
On WorkDeputy, you can find more useful information and articles about workflow automation to help you run your business more effectively!
