Maintain data in information systems or databases
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 | 18 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | Tools and auth, Builders |
| O*NET activity | Documenting/Recording Information (4.A.3.b.6) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 18 occupations that perform it.
- Maintain records of business transactions and product inventories, reporting data to companies or government agencies as necessary.
- Maintain and review computerized or manual records of purchased items, costs, deliveries, product performance, and inventories.
- Enter claim payments, reserves and new claims on computer system, inputting concise yet sufficient file documentation.
- Prepare, organize, and maintain inspection records.
- Compile and maintain regulatory documentation databases or systems.
- Prepare and maintain a directory of suppliers, contractors and subcontractors.
- Prepare or maintain employment records related to events, such as hiring, termination, leaves, transfers, or promotions, using human resources management system software.
- Prepare or validate documentation on automated logistics or maintenance-data reporting or management information systems.
- Enter logistics-related data into databases.
- Create or update donor databases.
- Maintain and update organization information technology applications and network systems blueprints.
- Create or maintain database of customer accounts.
- Create and maintain a database of completed appraisals.
- Prepare and maintain current data on each parcel assessed, including maps of boundaries, inventories of land and structures, property characteristics, and any applicable exemptions.
- Maintain input or data quality of risk management systems.
- Review and update credit and loan files.
- Enter tax return information into computers for processing.
- Create and maintain logs, records, or databases of information about fraudulent activity.
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
18 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Appraisers and Assessors of Real Estate
- Appraisers of Personal and Business Property
- Business Continuity Planners
- Buyers and Purchasing Agents, Farm Products
- Claims Adjusters, Examiners, and Investigators
- Cost Estimators
- Environmental Compliance Inspectors
- Financial Risk Specialists
- Fraud Examiners, Investigators and Analysts
- Fundraisers
- Human Resources Specialists
- Loan Officers
- Logistics Analysts
- Logistics Engineers
- Online Merchants
- Purchasing Agents, Except Wholesale, Retail, and Farm Products
- Regulatory Affairs Specialists
- Tax Examiners and Collectors, and Revenue Agents
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Maintain operational records”. 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.