Case study
ERP Workflow Automation for an Engineering Firm
Turned a manual, error-prone project coordination process into automated ERPNext workflows — tasks, approvals, and team messaging created without a single click.
Outcomes
- Task-to-messaging automation: every project task auto-creates its team channel and threads
- Multi-stage approval workflow with custom fields, states, and role-based transitions
- Compliance document generation (risk assessments & method statements) from task data
The problem
An OT/IT integration engineering firm ran project coordination by hand: when a task was created in their ERP, someone had to remember to set up the team’s chat channel, notify the right people, and prepare compliance paperwork before engineers could go on site. Steps were missed, and missed paperwork meant blocked site access and lost days.
The approach
Working inside their existing ERPNext system — no new platform, no migration — I built server-side automation that reacts to the records the team already creates:
- New project tasks automatically provision the matching team messaging channel and discussion threads, named consistently by team, stage, and year.
- A custom approval workflow moves compliance documents through draft, review, and approval states, with permissions per role.
- Risk assessment and method statement documents are generated from task data and a curated hazard library, instead of being copied from old Word files.
A subtle framework constraint made naive implementations fail silently: records created during an insert can’t link back to the not-yet-committed parent. The automation defers linked-record creation to the first update, which is invisible to users but makes the whole pipeline reliable.
The outcome
Coordination steps that depended on someone remembering them now happen in seconds, every time. New team members get the right channels on day one, compliance documents are consistent and auditable, and engineers stopped losing site days to missing paperwork.