Run a 60–90 minute mapping session
Set a 60–90 minute slot with the small team who run the process (2–6 people). Start by describing the normal path in one sentence: the trigger, the owner and the desired outcome.
Spend the next 30–45 minutes listing what goes wrong in practice: missing data, timing clashes, role cover gaps, conflicting rules. Keep each exception short and specific — one line each.
Finish by grouping similar exceptions and agreeing which ones are frequent or high impact. Label each as likely to cause failed automations, customer-visible problems, or extra admin.
Use a simple exception-map template (copy and use)
- Trigger: what starts the workflow (e.g. new contact, invoice paid)
- Exception type: missing data / timing clash / owner absent / conflicting rule
- Symptom: what the team sees (e.g. task not created, wrong email sent)
- Root cause (quick note): why it happens (e.g. no owner, source field blank)
- Frequency (low/medium/high) and Impact (low/medium/high)
- Auto-handled? (yes/no)
- Fallback rule: short text (default owner / default value / pause queue / handoff)
- Alert to: who gets notified and how (email, HubSpot task, Slack)
Use the template to capture 8–12 exceptions in the meeting. Examples of fallback rules you can paste straight into HubSpot or a lightweight app: default values for required fields, pause the record in a 'quarantine' list until a human reviews, assign to a cover-owner if primary owner is absent, set a retry with a 24-hour delay for timing clashes.
Prioritise, implement and test the fallbacks in HubSpot or a light app
- Score each exception quickly: Frequency x Impact (1–3 each). Tackle high-score items with automatic handling first, mid-score items with notifications plus easy human review, and low-score items with manual checks.
- Implementation checklist: set a clear default value (e.g. ‘unknown-source’), create a pause queue or property flag for records needing review, add an owner-handoff rule (if owner absent > assign to team-cover), and add a simple alert (task or list membership change).
- Testing checklist before switching an automation on: run 5 representative records through each exception path (include a clean case), confirm the fallback triggers, verify alerts land with expected text, check nobody is spammed by repeated alerts, and have a named reviewer sign off.
Keep the maps and fallback rules in an easily editable place (HubSpot property notes, a shared doc or the lightweight app itself) so you can tweak them after a week in production. If you’d prefer a hand getting this done, Optira can help with a single-session workshop and HubSpot implementation guidance.