XRay's Strategies for a Seamless Post-project Transition

What happens when your XRay membership or project ends? In this post, we'll explain how we handle offboarding and make sure that you have easy access to all of the automated workflows we've built for you.

Written by
Matt Jasinski
and

September 21, 2022

For XRay, a key part of any successful engagement is enabling our members and clients to be fully self-sufficient.

We’re happy to help automate and refine your workflows for as long as you’d like to work with us, but we know your long-term plan will usually be to manage your automations on your own. 

To ensure a smooth, successful transition for everyone, we plan for offboarding from day one with a few key strategies. 

First, we build your workflows on your accounts whenever possible. Second, we train your team to operate and maintain your workflows. Finally, we provide free software for managing and accessing your workflows in one convenient place.

Let’s take a closer look at each of these components of offboarding. 

Building automated workflows on your accounts

From day one, we’ll build everything that we can in your accounts instead of our own. If you don’t have accounts for automation platforms like Zapier or Make.com, we’ll create them for you.

By sharing login credentials through a password manager like Lastpass, you’ll have full control over our access to your accounts, and you can revoke access at any time if you wish. 

Building automations in your accounts makes for a smooth transition, with very little data that actually needs to be transferred.

However, there is one key exception to this rule.

Sharing our Airtable infrastructure

Most of the workflow automations that we build require an Airtable database to manage the flow of information.

When we start building your automations, we’ll typically use our own Airtable account to build your operational database. We do this because the features included in Airtable’s enterprise plans are often essential for building no-code workflows, but an Enterprise plan doesn’t come cheap. 

You could be paying up to $15 thousand a year for the subscription, and we don’t want you to have to make that kind of commitment to Airtable upfront. 

Instead, we’ll host your data on our Airtable account for as long as you’re a member. When you’re ready to offboard, you can either purchase your own Airtable subscription, or you can start a maintenance plan with us to keep access to our Airtable infrastructure at a lower price.

Ultimately, you won’t have to worry about a complicated migration process when you end your XRay membership. The automations we’ve built will already be stored in your accounts, and we’ll walk you through your options for maintaining your Airtable database. 

Workflow documentation and training

Of course, offboarding isn’t just about moving data.

Having access to all of your automations and data won’t do you much good if you and your team don’t know how to use them. To make sure you can operate your workflows with or without us, we’ll provide you with all of the documentation and training you need. 

Our documentation will include flowcharts, process pages, and video walkthroughs. 

The flowcharts will give you a detailed visual overview of an entire automated workflow. They’re great for seeing exactly how data will move between your apps and how each person or department gets involved. 

The process pages consist of simple, non-technical written instructions for using each workflow. They’ll explain how to conduct the workflow, and will link directly to any key apps or resources involved.

The video walkthroughs will demonstrate the workflow from beginning to end, so your team can see exactly what they need to do every step of the way.

Training your team to manage the automations

All of this documentation that we’ve outlined is primarily focused on using the automations, rather than maintaining them behind the scenes. 

Once you’re no longer working with XRay, you’ll probably want to have someone on your team take over the maintenance of your automated workflows.

We’ll meet directly with anyone who’s responsible for the technical aspects of the automation to explain anything they need to know.

Alternatively, you can sign up for an XRay maintenance plans for continued support at a lower price than a full membership. 

At XRay, we want to ensure that everyone on your team is enabled to keep using their automated workflows, even after your membership ends. With thorough documentation and training resources, you’ll be able to keep using your automations without needing to consult us. 

Using XRay Workflow to access your workflows and their resources

To easily access all of your automations and documentation, we’ll set you up with XRay Workflow, our own software for managing and sharing resources. 

XRay Workflow lets you save any web content as a pin. With pins, you can access web sites and web apps, save and copy text with a click, create markdown documents, or even launch automations. 

We use XRay Workflow to deliver every workflow that we build for our members. You’ll see every resource you need to use your automations with full context on a single board.

Accessing your automations and documentation through XRay Workflow is totally free, and you’ll continue to have access to the app even after your membership ends. 

Some optional premium features, like publishing public boards, will require a small fee. However, these features won’t be necessary for accessing the workflows that we’ve built for you. 

With XRay Workflow, you and your entire team can easily manage your workflows and the critical resources you need to accomplish them. 

Preparing for a seamless transition

At XRay, we don’t want to trap our members into being reliant on us. By building on your accounts, providing training and documentation, and giving you free lifetime access to XRay Workflow, we make sure that your team can keep using your automated workflows when you decide to move on. 

If you have any questions about offboarding or other stages of the membership lifecycle, don’t hesitate to reach out and ask. 

If you’d like to learn more about how we design and build automated workflows for our members, check out our blog or our YouTube channel. You can also follow XRay on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

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