Workflow failed for 3 days before client noticed. 847 invoices stuck. Client furious.
Built monitoring dashboard same day. Never happened again.
THE PROBLEM:
Workflows run in background. Silent when working. Silent when broken. Only discover failures when clients complain.
THE SOLUTION:
Real-time monitoring dashboard showing all workflows. Status updates every 5 minutes. Alerts when something breaks.
THE DASHBOARD:
Built in Airtable with columns: workflow_name, last_run_time, status, items_processed_today, error_count_24h, client_name
Views: All workflows | Failed workflows | By client
THE MONITORING:
Every workflow reports status at completion with timestamp, success/fail status, items processed count.
Monitoring checks every 5 minutes for workflows that haven’t run on schedule.
THE ALERTS:
Slack notification when:
– Workflow hasn’t run in 30+ minutes
– Error rate >5% in last hour
– Critical workflow fails
THE IMPLEMENTATION:
Add 2 steps to workflows:
1. At start: Record execution
2. At end: Update status
Central monitoring runs every 5 minutes checking all records.
Setup: 10 minutes per workflow + 2 hours central monitoring
THE IMPACT:
Before: Failures discovered by clients, response time days, low trust
After: Immediate discovery, 15 minute response, high trust
THE NUMBERS:
3 months with monitoring:
– 127 issues detected proactively
– Average response: 12 minutes
– Client-reported issues: 0
– Uptime: 99.8%
Previous 3 months:
– 8 issues discovered by clients
– Average response: 2.4 days
– Uptime: Unknown
THE COST:
Airtable free tier
Monitoring: 720 executions monthly
Setup: 2 hours + 10 min per workflow
ROI: Prevented losing 2 clients = $2,880 monthly saved
CURRENT STATUS:
15 workflows monitored. 4 clients have dashboard access. Zero surprise failures in 3 months.
THE LESSON:
Can’t manage what you don’t measure. Build monitoring before crisis hits.
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