What would you automate first in a shift-swap tracker?

Question

Week one of my swap tracker and I'm trying not to build everything at once. Honestly, the shared sheet fails because nobody knows who approved what. If you were starting from scratch, what would you automate first: the request, the approval, or the reminder? I only get two free evenings a week, so I'd like to pick the right one.

Marcus T. · Answer

From my own reporting work, I'd start with the approval, since that's the gap you named. Even a simple rule that every swap needs a named approver and a timestamp recorded in one place fixes the "who approved what" problem before you automate anything else. Request and reminder can stay manual for now, and they're easier to add once the approval record is reliable.