Explainer
Human in the loop: automation you can supervise
What "human in the loop" means in a back office, where people should sit in the work, and the five things that make automated work safe to trust: approvals, limits, logs, undo and supervision.
Key takeaways
- Human in the loop means people decide at the points that matter, not that they redo every step.
- The work should stop and ask at clear, written points: new people, big amounts, anything personal.
- Prepare, don't send: payments wait for your own people to approve them.
- Every action should be logged with its reason, and be possible to undo.
What "human in the loop" means
"Human in the loop" is one of the most used phrases in automation right now, and one of the least defined. In a back office it means something specific: the routine work is done for you, and people make the decisions at the points that carry risk or need judgement.
It doesn't mean a person checks every step. If someone has to review every bill and every leave request, nothing has been handed off; the work has just moved. The point is to put people exactly where they add value, and nowhere else.
Three places a person can sit
There are three ways to involve people, and a good set-up uses all three.
- Before: a person approves the action before it happens. Right for payments, new suppliers and anything personal.
- After: the action happens and a person reviews it afterwards. Right for routine work with clear rules, like recording a known supplier's monthly bill.
- Over: people watch the work as a whole, spot patterns, and tighten the rules. Right for everything, all the time.
When the work should stop and ask
The most useful rule in any automated process is the one that says when to stop. Good stopping points are written down, specific and boring. They tend to be the same in most companies.
- Anyone new: a supplier, employee or customer not seen before
- Amounts above a threshold you set
- Changed bank details, always confirmed with a person
- Anything personal or sensitive: pay, health, performance
- A document that doesn't match the records
- Anything that needs judgement rather than a rule
Prepare, don't send
Some actions should never be fully automated. Moving money is the clearest one. At OFFHOURS the Accountant prepares payments, with the invoice, the approval and the bank details checked, but it never sends money. The payment waits in your bank for your own people to approve it.
The same idea applies elsewhere: a contract is drafted for someone to sign, a big order is prepared for someone to confirm. The work is done up to the point of commitment, and the commitment stays with you.
A record of everything
You can only trust work you can see. Every action should leave a record: what was done, in which system, under which rule, who approved it if anyone did, and when. Not a summary at the end of the month, but a line for each action as it happens.
A good log answers the question people actually ask, which is rarely "what happened?" and usually "why did this happen?". If the answer is "rule 4: known supplier, amount matches the order", you can check it in seconds.
Everything can be undone
Mistakes happen, whoever does the work. What matters is how cheap they are to fix. Every action OFFHOURS takes is logged and can be undone, so a wrong entry is a click to reverse, not an afternoon of detective work. That makes it reasonable to let routine work run without approving each step in advance.
Who supervises the supervisor
Rules and logs only help if someone reads them. OFFHOURS roles are supervised by Sogody's engineers, who review the work, look at what was sent back to people and why, and tighten the rules as the role learns your business. You see the same work in the app and answer what the roles bring back.
A new role starts on probation: for its first days every output is reviewed before anything else changes. Only once the work is right does it run around the clock under supervision.
Questions to ask any provider
- Where exactly does the work stop and wait for a person?
- Can it move money on its own? (The right answer is no.)
- Can we see every action, and the rule behind it?
- Can we undo an action, and how long does that take?
- Who reviews the work on your side, and how often?
