Automate your weekly status report

Use this when

Someone spends hours each week chasing updates and writing the same report.

What you need

• Your best recent report
• Access to the source tools or exports
• The report's current owner

The steps

1. 1
   Write the report you want

   Take your best recent report, and turn its headings into a template.

2. 2
   List the sources

   For each section, note where the information lives and how to export it automatically.

3. 3
   Draft from the raw data

   Prompt: fill in the template using only this data, flag conflicts, and say when a section has no data.

4. 4
   Check it for a month

   The owner corrects every draft and compares it with the source. Note repeated mistakes and fix the prompt.

5. 5
   Schedule it

   Generate the draft before the owner starts work on report day. The owner still reviews and sends it.

A prompt to start from

Edit the parts in brackets, and test it on your own cases.

Fill in this report using only the data below.

Template:
[paste your headings]

Rules:
- Every number must come from the data
- If sources conflict, list both under "Needs checking"
- If a section has no data, write "No update"
- Under 300 words, plain language, no adjectives about performance

Data:
[paste exports]

How you'll know it's working

Decide your pass mark before you test. Measure how accurate your team is today on the same cases, and use that as the number to beat.

• Every figure traces to a source
• The owner's edit time keeps falling
• Leaders haven't reported any drop in usefulness

Where this goes wrong

• Letting it interpret causes the data doesn't show
• Dropping the owner's review too early
• Automating a report nobody reads. Ask first, and you may be able to delete it