Taking back Time: How Automation Optimizes Business Workflows

The Challenge of Managing Time Tracking Across Tools

Managing multiple projects across various business tools is one of the biggest operational challenges (and headaches) businesses face today. Often, this points to a crucial need for better business workflow automation. At Portage Labs, we can sympathize. While we use Airtable to manage project plans and deadlines, our time tracking was happening separately on the time tracking tool Toggl.

The  disconnect between these two tools created a manual and time-consuming reconciliation process for our team. Each week, we had to align time-tracking data with project records by hand: a tedious task that was prone to errors. Hours were lost on repetitive work, productivity suffered, and mistakes in reporting impacted billing accuracy.

BUT! Where there is a problem, there is a solution. So we began to brainstorm. How could we use automation to help us streamline our time tracking process?  

Understanding workflow automation

In a nutshell, workflow automation is about designing and implementing systems that execute repetitive workflow tasks automatically, eliminating manual effort and room for human error. Businesses automate less strategic (but important) processes so that employees and founders can focus on what really matters. It’s about letting technology do the heavy-lifting so that your team spends more time on high-impact work.

This principle applies whether you’re managing time, handling customer inquiries, or onboarding new employees.

Bridging the disconnect with Make

At Portage Labs, our solution came in the form of Make. Make is a no-code automation platform that helps to improve business efficiency by integrating complex systems and applications and automating workflows in one place. Make allowed us to bridge the disconnect between Airtable and Toggl, leading to significant cost savings, despite the initial investment, and eliminating the manual work.

Five Things to Know Before Building Your Time Tracking Automation on Make

Whether you're syncing time-tracking data, client info, or task updates, here’s what we learned from creating our Toggl to Airtable automation on Make that can help you build smarter and faster workflow automations.

1.  Don’t forget about Logic

When your time entries (or any data) stretch across multiple pages, Make doesn't automatically pull them all in. You'll need to build logic into your scenario to check for additional pages and loop through them to avoid missing entries.

2. Flexible Date Ranges Are Essential

Hardcoding dates can limit your automation. We recommend using dynamic date ranges like "yesterday" or "last week" to make your automation more adaptable and reduce the need for manual adjustments.

3. Expect API Errors (and Handle Them Gracefully)

APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) can time out, throw errors, or send incomplete data. Be prepared. Add error-handling steps, retries, and filters to catch bad data before it disrupts your entire workflow.

4. Data Mapping Can Get Tricky

Aligning fields between two tools often means transforming data formats or renaming fields. Plan for a step where you clean and match data, especially things like project names, durations, and descriptions. Accurate data mapping ensures your automated workflows are functioning seamlessly.

5. Performance Matters More Than You Think

As your data scales, so does the risk of overload. Optimize your workflows by batching operations and limiting API calls. Make.com is powerful but like any tool, it needs to be used efficiently.

How to set up the automation

To tackle the challenges above, here’s how we built our automation step-by-step using Make:

1. First, we assigned a unique identifier to each Airtable project or task. Team members then added this identifier in the description field when logging time in Toggl. This ensured every time entry could be easily matched to the right project.
2. Next, we configured the automation using Make to fetch time entries from Toggl for a set time period, such as “yesterday.” We also included logic to detect if the data spanned multiple pages and looped through them so nothing got missed.
3. To reduce errors, we implemented automatic retries and added filters that ensured only complete and valid data made it through the process.
4. Using Make built-in tools, we mapped data fields like project name, duration, and start time from Toggl to our Airtable schema.
5. Each time entry generated a new record in Airtable, automatically linking to the right project based on the unique identifier provided.
6. Finally, we optimized the system by batching entries and limiting API calls to ensure consistent performance even with large volumes of data.

Workflow automation results

The results were immediate. We saved hours of manual work every week which led to significant improvements in efficiency and productivity. Invoices became more accurate and easier to generate. Project reports are now clearer and give us better insight into how we spend our time, enhancing business intelligence

Now, we can plan resources more effectively and make faster decisions based on real data. And since the system scales with us, we’re ready to handle more projects without adding complexity.

Conclusion

Workflow automation isn’t just a convenience, it’s a competitive advantage. By integrating Airtable and Toggl through Make, we streamlined time tracking, reduced errors, and gained deeper insight into team performance.

If your business is still stuck reconciling spreadsheets and jumping between tools, it’s time to automate. Let the technology do the heavy lifting, so your team can focus on high-impact work.

Reclaim your time and elevate your marketing

Manual processes can be holding your business back. At Portage Labs, we are experts in implementing cutting-edge marketing automation strategies to spur growth and in developing intelligent workflow automation solutions that free up your team’s time.

Discover how a unified approach can transform your operations, elevate your customer engagement, and drive measurable results.

‍

Ready to begin automating workflows? Get started with Make.

‍

FAQ

‍

1. What exactly is workflow automation and how can it benefit my business?

Workflow automation is the process of using technology to automatically execute repetitive and time-consuming tasks that were previously done manually. Some of the most important benefits for your business include time savings, reduced errors, and operational efficiency. Your team benefits from spending less time on repetitive tasks and more on strategic work.

2. How do I get started with workflow automation?

First, identify some of your most time-consuming tasks and workflows that you don’t think requires a human eye. Then, explore automation tools like Make.com that integrate with the tools you already use. Finally, start testing and implementing a few simple processes, and gradually expand your automation efforts. If you need expert guidance to implement more robust automations, dedicated consultancies like Portage Labs can help you ensure a seamless and effective transition.

‍