Send information, materials or documentation
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 | 25 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 25 occupations that perform it.
- Send out notices about lost or overdue books.
- Submit artwork to shows or galleries.
- Send film to photofinishing laboratories for processing.
- Review or transmit images and information using picture archiving or communications systems.
- Forward orders to manufacturers.
- Prepare purchase orders and send copies to suppliers and to departments originating requests.
- Compose, type, and mail customer statements and other correspondence related to issues such as discrepancies and outstanding unpaid items.
- Mail charge statements to customers.
- Send out notices and accept fine payments for lost or overdue books.
- Collect payment for merchandise, record transactions, and send items, such as checks or money orders for further processing.
- Transmit information or documents to customers, using computer, mail, or facsimile machine.
- Fill orders for products and samples, following order tickets, and forward or mail items.
- Mail, fax, or arrange for delivery of legal correspondence to clients, witnesses, and court officials.
- Transmit correspondence or medical records by mail, e-mail, or fax.
- Mail newsletters, promotional material, or other information.
- Transmit, deliver, or mail publication master to printer for production into film and plates.
- Transmit claims for payment or further investigation.
- Mail merchandise samples or promotional literature in response to requests.
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
25 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Agricultural Inspectors
- Credit Authorizers, Checkers, and Clerks
- Desktop Publishers
- Electrical and Electronics Repairers, Commercial and Industrial Equipment
- Extruding, Forming, Pressing, and Compacting Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
- Fine Artists, Including Painters, Sculptors, and Illustrators
- Insurance Claims and Policy Processing Clerks
- Legal Secretaries and Administrative Assistants
- Library Assistants, Clerical
- Library Technicians
- Mail Clerks and Mail Machine Operators, Except Postal Service
- Medical Secretaries and Administrative Assistants
- Office Clerks, General
- Order Clerks
- Photographers
- Potters, Manufacturing
- Procurement Clerks
- Radiologists
- Receptionists and Information Clerks
- Sales Representatives, Wholesale and Manufacturing, Except Technical and Scientific Products
- Secretaries and Administrative Assistants, Except Legal, Medical, and Executive
- Statistical Assistants
- Stockers and Order Fillers
- Tellers
- Weighers, Measurers, Checkers, and Samplers, Recordkeeping
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Process shipments or mail”. In practice they tend to be done by the same person, in the same sitting.
| Activity | Jobs |
|---|---|
| Prepare outgoing mail | 7 |
| Route mail to correct destinations | 6 |
| Receive shipments | 3 |
| Prepare outgoing shipments | 2 |
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.