Thinking in unit terms
Design your Tallyfy templates to handle one instance at a time - one employee, one invoice, one customer - not multiple items in bulk. This fundamental principle ensures clear task ownership, proper tracking, and workflow flexibility.
Here’s the thing: when you think in unit terms, you create templates that scale perfectly. Run them once or a thousand times - they just work.
You’ve probably seen workflows like these:
- “Process all invoices for the month”
- “Onboard the new hires starting Monday”
- “Review all contract renewals”
Sounds efficient, right? Wrong. This bulk thinking creates serious problems:
- Unclear ownership - Who handles which specific invoice?
- No individual tracking - Can’t see status of each item
- All-or-nothing completion - One delayed item blocks everything
- Poor accountability - “Someone else probably did it”
Instead, design templates for single instances:
- “Process invoice #12345”
- “Onboard John Smith”
- “Review Acme Corp contract renewal”
The benefits? Immediate:
- Clear ownership - John owns the Acme renewal task
- Precise tracking - See exactly where each instance stands
- Parallel processing - Run 50 instances simultaneously
- Perfect accountability - Every task has one owner
Template name: “Manage all conference speakers”
Watch what happens with this approach:
- Task: “Collect bio from speakers” - But who contacts which speaker?
- Task: “Arrange travel” - You’re mixing 10 speakers’ flights in one task
- Task: “Process payments” - No visibility on individual speaker status
- If one speaker delays, the entire process stalls
Messy.
Template name: “Onboard conference speaker”
Here’s how it actually works:
- Launch a separate process for each speaker
- Each process tracks one speaker’s complete journey:
- Collect bio from Jane Doe
- Arrange Jane’s travel (local vs. remote logic applies)
- Process Jane’s payment
- Send Jane’s session details
Result: Perfect visibility, clear ownership, parallel processing. That’s more like it.
Start with this question: “What’s the single thing we’re processing?”
- Not “employees” → One employee
- Not “orders” → One order
- Not “maintenance tasks” → One equipment item
- Poor: “Monthly invoice processing”
- Good: “Process single invoice”
- Best: “Process invoice - Standard workflow”
Your template handles one invoice. Need to process 100 invoices? Simple - launch 100 processes. Tallyfy’s bulk launch features make this effortless.
When you’re launching, use specific identifiers:
- “Invoice #2024-1234 - Acme Corp”
- “Onboard: Sarah Johnson - Marketing Manager”
- “Equipment Inspection: Crane #5 - Q1 2024”
Wrong: “Onboard Q1 new hires” Right: “Onboard new employee” (launch for each hire)
Makes sense when you think about it - each employee has different:
- Start dates
- Department requirements
- Equipment needs
- Training schedules
Wrong: “Implement all January customers” Right: “Implement customer account” (launch per customer)
Why? Each customer brings unique:
- Requirements
- Timelines
- Contact persons
- Success criteria
Wrong: “Review all contracts”
Right: “Review contract” (launch per contract)
Each contract needs:
- Specific reviewer based on type
- Individual negotiation tracking
- Separate approval chains
- Unique deadline management
See the pattern?
This is where it gets powerful. When you design for units, conditional logic just works:
IF Speaker Location = "International" THEN - Add visa assistance task - Include customs forms - Extend timeline by 2 weeks
Each speaker process adapts to their specific needs. No manual checking required.
Picture this: you’re running 20 employee onboarding processes simultaneously.
- HR handles all background checks in batch
- IT provisions equipment based on start dates
- Managers review their specific new hires
- No waiting for “the slow one”
Everyone moves at their own pace.
Unit-based design gives you real analytics:
- Average time to onboard one employee: 5 days
- Bottleneck: IT equipment task takes 2 days
- Success rate: 95% complete within deadline
Compare that to bulk processes - they only show: “Monthly onboarding completed or not.” Not very helpful.
Don’t get me wrong - some tasks within a unit process can absolutely be bulk:
- “Send welcome email to all attendees”
- “Generate monthly report of all processed invoices”
- “Archive completed contracts”
These work because they’re:
- Single tasks within unit-based processes
- Reporting or communication activities
- End-of-period administrative work
The difference? Nobody’s waiting on these to continue their work.
Ask yourself:
- Can tasks be assigned to specific people for specific items?
- Do you need to track individual item status?
- Could one item’s delay affect others unnecessarily?
- Would parallel processing improve efficiency?
Got a “yes” to any of these? Time to convert to unit-based design.
Here’s your roadmap:
- Document current bulk process
- Identify the natural unit (invoice, employee, order)
- Redesign for single unit with clear ownership
- Test with one instance
- Use bulk launch for multiple instances
- Track improvements in clarity and speed
Most teams see results within the first week.
{{Employee Name}}
{{Invoice Number}}
{{Customer Company}}
This makes each instance clearly identifiable. No more guessing which process is which.
Build for the 80% standard case, then use conditions for exceptions. Don’t overcomplicate.
Use task comments to reference related processes:
- “See also: Contract Review #123”
- “Parent project: Q1 Implementation”
It’s like leaving breadcrumbs for yourself (and your team).
Here’s the beauty - while processes are unit-based, you can still:
- Launch multiple instances at once
- Run reports across all instances
- Bulk update template for all future instances
Best of both worlds.
Think in units, benefit in multiples. Design your templates for one perfect instance - then run as many as needed with complete visibility and control.
This shift from bulk to unit thinking? It transforms chaotic group activities into manageable, trackable, improvable workflows. Your team will thank you.
Tracking And Tasks > More about processes
Pro > Tallyfy vs. project management tools
Miscellaneous > Tallyfy vs. project management tools
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