Low-code/No-code Automation — Evaluation & Governance Checklist

Purpose

Use this checklist to quickly evaluate low-code/no-code automations (citizen-developed workflows, macros, bots, apps). The goal is to surface safety, security, maintainability, and ownership issues so teams can decide whether to approve, remediate, or replatform an automation.

Quick facts to capture

• Automation name: (who, what)
• Owner / Requester: (business owner / team)
• Platform: (e.g., Zapier, Power Automate, Make, AppSheet, Retool, other)
• Primary purpose: (short description)
• Business impact if fails: (low / medium / high)

Checklist

1. Data & access
   • Does the automation access production data? (yes / no)
   • Does it handle sensitive or regulated data (PII, PHI, payment data, IP)? If yes, list the types.
   • Are credentials, API keys, or connection strings stored securely (not in plain text)?
   • Is the minimum required scope used for any service/API calls?
2. Authentication & authorization
   • Does the automation use organizational SSO or personal credentials?
   • Are role-based permissions applied where possible?
   • Is there a documented list of accounts/roles the automation runs as?
3. Resilience & error handling
   • Does it detect errors and retry where appropriate?
   • Are failures logged and visible to owners/ops?
   • Is there an alerting mechanism (email, Slack, ticket) for critical failures?
4. Backup, recovery & data integrity
   • Are input and output data checkpoints captured so work can be re-run or undone?
   • Is there a rollback or manual recovery plan if the automation corrupts data?
5. Maintainability
   • Who owns ongoing maintenance (name / role)?
   • Is there documented runbook and change log for the automation?
   • Is version control or an export/import strategy used to preserve history?
   • Is the automation structured so future edits are straightforward (clear inputs/outputs, small steps)?
6. Integration & patterns
   • What systems does it integrate with (list)?
   • Are integration patterns supported by platform APIs or done via brittle UI-scraping/workarounds?
   • If a system change occurs, how likely is the automation to break?
7. Security & compliance
   • Has a security review been completed (yes / no)? Summary of findings.
   • Are there compliance or regulatory concerns (list)?
8. Operational readiness
   • Is monitoring in place (logs, metrics, run history)?
   • Is there a schedule for periodic review (e.g., quarterly)?
   • Are SLAs or expected runtime windows defined?
9. Business fit & cost
   • Does the automation deliver clear measurable value (time saved, error reduction, revenue impact)?
   • Are platform or execution costs understood and acceptable?

Scoring guidance (quick riskLens)

Use a simple 1–5 scale where 1 = low risk/low impact and 5 = high risk/high impact. Consider three factors: data sensitivity, business impact, and maintainability. Add scores to reach a combined risk indicator:

• Data sensitivity (1–5)
• Business impact (1–5)
• Maintainability / fragility (1–5)

Total >= 11: high risk — do not approve without remediation. 7–10: moderate — conditional approval with mitigations. <= 6: low risk — approve with recorded owner and review cadence.

Suggested minimum remediation actions

• Add secure credential storage and remove hard-coded secrets.
• Create a basic runbook and assign an owner with contact details.
• Add logging and simple alerting for failures that affect business processes.
• Export or place source/configuration into versioned storage where possible.
• Schedule an annual review and update checklist if platform or integrations change.

Simple approval flow (example)

1. Submit evaluation with scores and remediation notes.
2. If total risk >= 11: automation paused or disabled; remediation required; security & IT review mandatory.
3. If 7–10: conditional approval — require remediation items tracked and completed within agreed timeframe and owner assigned.
4. If <= 6: approve; record owner and schedule periodic review.
5. Record decision, owner, review date, and any required follow-up actions in the team's governance register.

Templates & quick text snippets

Use these snippets when documenting actions:

• Ownership: "Owner: [name], Role: [role], Contact: [email]"
• Runbook header: "Purpose, Inputs, Outputs, Schedule, Error modes, Recovery steps"
• Remediation item: "Remove hard-coded credentials; move to secure vault by [date]; owner: [name]"

When to replatform

Consider moving to an approved engineering platform when automations are high impact, touch sensitive data, require complex integrations, or need SLAs. Replatforming should be a deliberate lifecycle decision documented in the governance register.

Next steps & capability note

This static checklist is a practical starting point. If your organization wants to capture evaluations, track approvals, and generate reports, consider turning this into an interactive evaluation form that stores responses (who, when, scores, remediation items) and feeds a governance dashboard.