Checklists become workflows, and print as a manual

Every operation runs on knowledge that lives in somebody’s head. How the cool room gets checked, what happens when a supplier turns up early, which alarm code opens which door, who signs off the final numbers. It works right up until the person holding it is on leave, or leaves.

Checklists in 1pm already captured the shape of those jobs. They now capture the substance too, which is why they are called workflows.

Write the procedure into the step

Open any workflow on the Tasks page and each step gets an editor for the procedure behind it: how the step is actually done, in as many words as it takes. A step called “Check the cool room” stops being a reminder for someone who already knows and becomes something a new starter can follow.

Same feature, better name. A list of steps is a checklist. A list of steps with the method written under each one is a workflow.

Categories, in the order you work

Left alone, a library of workflows sorts alphabetically, which is fine for finding one and wrong for reading them all. Click Categories beside the Workflows heading and build the real sections: Safety, Setup, Service, Pack down, Admin. Drag them into the order somebody would work through them, and drag workflows within a section to set their order too.

Renaming a category relabels everything in it at once, and deleting one keeps the workflows, with every step and procedure intact, under a section called Other. The confirmation tells you how many will move before you commit.

Print the lot as a manual

Print procedures lays the whole library out as one document: every workflow under its category heading, steps numbered in order, the written procedure under each step. Nothing is generated and nothing goes stale. Edit a procedure this morning, reprint this afternoon, and the change is in the new copy.

There is a tick box option too, so the printed version works as the thing crew actually mark off on the day rather than only as a reference in a folder on the pass.

Crew get the ticking version

A workflow can also be dropped into a request, which puts the steps in front of the person doing the job rather than the person who wrote it down. They tick their way through on their phone, and the planner sees how far in they are without asking.