Best practice

Workflows save time when designed well and create work when designed badly. A few principles.

Start simple

Build the minimum viable workflow first. Three steps is plenty for most arrears workflows. Add steps only after you have run a quarter and identified what is missing.

Mirror your manual process

A workflow should automate the process your team already uses, not invent a new one. Document the manual process first, then map each step to a workflow action.

Test before going live

1. Build the workflow.
2. Pause it.
3. Run it manually against a test case (a dummy site, or a closed historic case).
4. Review the output for each step.
5. Activate.

Review templates with the workflow

The wording of each email, letter and task is part of the workflow's behaviour. Review templates whenever you review the workflow itself.

Define pause and skip rules

For every workflow, agree with the team:

• When to pause — payment plan agreed, dispute raised, tribunal pending.
• When to skip a step — vulnerable resident, exceptional circumstances.
• Who has authority to pause or skip — usually senior managers only.

Record these as written rules so the team is consistent.

Audit annually

Open the execution log filtered to the last 12 months. Look for:

• Steps that fire rarely (consider removing).
• Steps that fail often (fix the template).
• Cases stuck in the workflow (intervene manually).

Coach the team

The workflow is a tool, not a replacement for judgement. Make sure everyone using PropLink understands what the workflow does and how to take a case out of it.