File documents or records
Most of the output can be produced by software today.
This is the most automatable shape of work there is, and also the shape that most needs a live connection to the system the record lives in. Without that connection an agent can prepare the entry but cannot file it.
| How automatable | Mostly automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Recording, documentation and administration |
| Jobs that do it | 17 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | Tools and auth, Builders |
| O*NET activity | Performing Administrative Activities (4.A.4.c.1) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 17 occupations that perform it.
- File a legible transcript of records of a court case with the court clerk's office.
- Assist coroners at death scenes or at autopsies, file police reports, and testify at inquests or in court, if employed by a coroner.
- Stamp messages with time and date and file them appropriately.
- Sort and file correspondence and perform miscellaneous clerical duties, such as answering correspondence and writing reports.
- Perform general office duties, such as filing, answering telephones, and handling routine correspondence.
- Prepare and file payroll tax returns.
- Sort and file deposit slips and checks.
- File, type, or operate standard office machines.
- File sales slips in customers' ledgers for billing purposes.
- Add new material to file records or create new records as necessary.
- File copies of orders received, or post orders on records.
- File and maintain records.
- Perform general office or clerical work, such as filing materials, operating duplicating machines, or running errands.
- File and retrieve corporate documents, records, and reports.
- Compile, copy, sort, and file records of office activities, business transactions, and other activities.
- Archive documents, conduct research, and read copy, using the internet and various computer programs.
- File data and related information, and maintain and update databases.
What we would actually use
One recommendation rather than a shortlist, because a shortlist is just your problem handed back. This is what we would buy for recording, documentation and administration, and what it costs.
The work is not writing the record, it is filing it where the record lives. Make reaches most of those systems from $9 a month, which is the cheapest honest start; Composio is for when you are writing the agent yourself.
Chosen for the cheapest thing that does the job, not the best funded. Nothing on this site is sponsored, and the full landscape is there when you want to disagree with us.
The rest of the category
Context, not alternatives to weigh up. We name the layer rather than promise a named product does your specific task.
Matched from the kind of work, not from vendor marketing. Check any of them can reach the system your records actually live in — that connection, not the model, is where these projects stall.
How people actually do it
No workflow names this activity yet, but these automate the same kind of work, with the prompts to paste and what to keep for yourself.
Who does this work
17 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Bill and Account Collectors
- Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks
- Brokerage Clerks
- Couriers and Messengers
- Court Reporters and Simultaneous Captioners
- Credit Authorizers, Checkers, and Clerks
- Embalmers
- Executive Secretaries and Executive Administrative Assistants
- File Clerks
- Office Clerks, General
- Order Clerks
- Payroll and Timekeeping Clerks
- Proofreaders and Copy Markers
- Receptionists and Information Clerks
- Statistical Assistants
- Switchboard Operators, Including Answering Service
- Tellers
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Perform administrative or clerical activities”. In practice they tend to be done by the same person, in the same sitting.
Method. The activity, its taxonomy placement and the occupations that perform it come straight from the public-domain O*NET 30.3 database. The automatability band is ours: we map each of O*NET’s 41 generalized work activities to how much of its output current software can produce, assuming a person still reviews and owns the result. It is a coarse three-way judgment on purpose. A precise-looking percentage here would be invented.