The step I refused to automate

I cut a weekly scheduling task roughly in half. The part I'm proudest of is the step I refused to automate.

In retail, someone has to build the floor chart every week: who's where, when breaks land, when lunches land. For 100 to 150 people, more in peak season.

It used to be done by hand. Cell by cell.

I built an Excel tool with a script that fills in shifts, names, breaks and lunches from the schedule. Prep time dropped by about half.

But I left one step manual on purpose. A person still reviews the chart before it goes out.

The script doesn't know that two people shouldn't close together this week, or that someone is coming back from time off. A human does.

My rule: automate the repetitive work, not the judgment.

The tool also broke a few times. Someone using it told me merged lunch cells were breaking the way they sorted the chart. I reproduced it, fixed it, and checked back with them. That feedback loop made the tool better than my first version ever was.

I'm building more small tools like this, at work and on my own through Clumsy Cloud Studio.

If you've built a tool for your team, where did you draw the line on what stays human?