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Process automation workflow

Process automation transforms manual, error-prone workflows into reliable, repeatable systems. This overview shows you the complete workflow for both applications and infrastructure, from initial definition through deployment and monitoring. Understanding this complete picture helps you implement automation systematically and ensures you do not miss critical steps in your automation journey.

The complete process workflow

Process automation follows a natural progression where each step builds on the previous one to create a comprehensive automation strategy. This systematic approach ensures you establish the right foundation before moving to more advanced automation practices.

The process automation journey consists of five main phases that work together to create reliable, scalable workflows. Each phase addresses specific aspects of the automation transformation and prepares you for the next level of maturity.

  • Build your team culture - Establish the human foundation through high-performing teams, collaboration practices, and workflow-first thinking
  • Define your processes and systems - Map current workflows, define infrastructure as code, and create standardized processes across teams
  • Automate your workflows - Implement CI/CD pipelines, automate testing, and create deployment processes that eliminate manual errors
  • Deploy with confidence - Use zero-downtime deployment strategies, blue-green deployments, and canary releases for safe, reliable deployments
  • Monitor and operate - Set up comprehensive monitoring and alerting to ensure your automated systems run correctly and efficiently

Application and infrastructure workflows

Both applications and infrastructure follow similar automation patterns, but with different focuses and tools. Understanding these parallel workflows helps you implement automation consistently across your entire technology stack.

Application workflow

The application automation workflow focuses on delivering software reliably and efficiently. This workflow transforms how you build, test, and deploy applications to production environments.

The application automation journey consists of six key steps that create a complete delivery pipeline. Each step builds on the previous one to ensure your applications move smoothly from development to production.

  • Define application delivery process - Establish how applications move from development to production with clear handoffs and responsibilities
  • Package applications - Create containers, artifacts, or other deployable packages that ensure consistency across environments
  • Automate testing - Implement unit, integration, and end-to-end testing that validates application functionality before deployment
  • Implement CI/CD - Build pipelines that automatically test and deploy applications with minimal manual intervention
  • Deploy applications - Use automated deployment strategies for safe, reliable releases that minimize downtime and risk
  • Monitor applications - Track application performance, errors, and user experience to ensure optimal operation

Infrastructure workflow

The infrastructure automation workflow focuses on provisioning and managing the underlying systems that support your applications. This workflow ensures your infrastructure is consistent, reliable, and can scale with your application needs.

The infrastructure automation journey consists of six key steps that create a complete infrastructure management pipeline. Each step ensures your infrastructure supports your application requirements while maintaining security and compliance.

  • Define infrastructure as code - Use Terraform to define your infrastructure declaratively, ensuring consistency and version control
  • Create reusable modules - Build modular, reusable infrastructure components that standardize deployments across environments
  • Automate provisioning - Use CI/CD to automatically provision and update infrastructure based on your code definitions
  • Implement infrastructure testing - Test infrastructure changes before applying them to ensure they meet your requirements
  • Deploy infrastructure - Use automated strategies for infrastructure updates that minimize risk and ensure reliability
  • Monitor infrastructure - Track infrastructure health, performance, and capacity to maintain optimal operation

Integration points

The power of process automation comes from integrating these workflows together. These integration points create a unified automation strategy that spans your entire technology stack.

Several key integration points connect your application and infrastructure workflows. These connections ensure that your automation efforts work together rather than in isolation.

  • CI/CD pipelines connect application development with infrastructure provisioning, creating a unified delivery process
  • Infrastructure as code enables applications to define their own infrastructure requirements, ensuring alignment between applications and infrastructure
  • Monitoring provides visibility across both applications and infrastructure, creating a complete picture of system health
  • Security is implemented consistently across all automated processes, ensuring compliance and risk management
  • Version control tracks changes to both application code and infrastructure definitions, creating a complete audit trail

Maturity progression

Process automation typically follows a maturity progression that helps you understand where you are in your automation journey and what steps to take next. This progression provides a roadmap for continuous improvement.

The automation maturity model consists of five levels that represent increasing levels of automation sophistication. Each level builds on the previous one and provides the foundation for the next level of maturity.

  • Manual processes - Everything is done manually with high risk of errors and inconsistent results
  • Semi-automated - Some processes are automated while others remain manual, creating mixed efficiency gains
  • Fully automated - Most processes are automated with minimal manual intervention, providing significant efficiency improvements
  • Self-service - Teams can provision and deploy without operations involvement, enabling faster delivery and reduced bottlenecks
  • Continuous optimization - Processes are continuously improved based on data and feedback, creating a culture of ongoing enhancement

Next steps

In this section of Process automation, you learned high-level process automation and how the different components work together. Process automation workflow is part of the Define and automate processes pillar.

Refer to the following documents to learn more about each phase of the automation journey:

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