There's a type of process that almost every company manages by email. Not because someone decided email was the best tool. But because the process started small, with a request here, an approval there, and by the time the team realized, they had a chain of 47 emails with the subject "Re: Re: Re: Approval request #312".
Email is great for communication. Terrible for process management. It has no stages, no defined owners, no automatic deadlines, no status visibility, and most importantly, no reliable memory. When someone asks "who approved this?", the answer involves 15 minutes of searching and the phrase "I think it was Marcos, but I'm not sure".
Let's look at the 5 processes that suffer most from this — and how each one should actually work.
1. Expense and purchase approvals
How it works via email
Someone needs to buy something. Sends an email to their manager: "Need to approve the purchase of 10 licenses for software X, R$ 4,500." The manager replies "ok" — sometimes from their phone, without even reading the attachment with the quote. If the amount requires finance approval, the requester forwards the thread. Finance responds three days later with "approved, but we need three quotes." The requester sends the quotes. One of them ends up in spam. The process stalls.
What goes wrong
- Verbal or "ok" approvals via email, with no formal record
- No one knows what stage the request is at
- Amounts above the limit get through without the second approval because the rule lives in a spreadsheet no one checks
- When audit asks for approval evidence, someone needs to dig through emails from 6 months ago
How it should work
A structured form with required fields: description, amount, cost center, attached quotes. Clear authority rules: up to R$ 5,000, the direct manager approves; above that, it goes to finance. Each approval recorded with date, time, and justification. 48-hour SLA with automatic alerts for pending approvals. Complete timeline accessible to any auditor.
2. Client onboarding
How it works via email
Sales closes the deal and sends an email to the operations team: "New client: Company ABC. Contract attached. Start onboarding." Operations replies asking which services were contracted. Sales forwards another thread where this was discussed. Someone from technical support is CC'd to set up the environment. Three days later, support asks: "What's the client's access email?" No one knows. The client calls asking when they'll get access. General embarrassment.
What goes wrong
- Information scattered across 4 different threads
- No one knows if the environment has been set up
- The client has zero visibility — calls to ask
- When something is delayed, the blame game begins: "I sent the email, you didn't respond"
- Different clients get completely different onboarding experiences depending on who handled it
How it should work
A case created automatically when the contract is closed. Clear stages: data collection, environment setup, training, go-live. External form for the client to fill in data without emailing. Tasks assigned to each team with deadlines. Portal for the client to track progress. SLA per stage. All onboardings following the same structure, regardless of who's operating.
3. Leave and time-off requests
How it works via email
The employee emails their manager: "I'd like to take vacation from July 15 to 30." The manager replies: "Let me check with HR." Forwards to HR. HR responds that the period is available but asks the employee to fill out the form in the time tracking system. The employee fills it out. The manager forgets to approve it in the system. HR doesn't process it. On July 14, the employee asks if everything is set. No one knows.
What goes wrong
- Informal approval via email, with no record in the official system
- HR depends on the manager to approve in the system, and the manager forgets
- Vacation conflicts because no one cross-checked the team's dates
- Employee discovers their leave wasn't processed the day before
- When volume increases (end of year), HR becomes a bottleneck answering emails one by one
How it should work
A request form with fields for period, leave type, and justification. Automatic conflict checking with other team members. Approval flow: manager approves, HR validates remaining days and processes. Automatic notification to the employee at each stage. Integrated calendar showing who's on leave when. Zero emails. Zero oversights.
4. Internal service requests (IT, facilities, admin)
How it works via email
"My monitor isn't working." Email to it@company.com. The IT team has 47 unread emails in that inbox. Someone replies "I'll look into it" on Tuesday. On Wednesday, the requester sends another email: "Any updates?" No one responds because the person who said "I'll look into it" went on vacation. On Thursday, the requester sends it again CC'ing the IT manager. Now the manager needs to reconstruct what happened by reading a thread of 8 emails.
The same happens with facilities ("The AC in room 3 is broken"), admin ("I need a new badge"), and any department that receives internal requests via email.
What goes wrong
- Shared email inbox with no owner: emails fall into a void
- No prioritization: a broken monitor competes with a downed server
- No tracking: no one knows how many tickets are open, what the average resolution time is, or which ones are forgotten
- No accountability: when a ticket disappears, no one is responsible
- When someone goes on vacation, the tickets assigned to them simply stop
How it should work
A ticket creation form with type, priority, location, and description. Automatic assignment by type (hardware goes to one person, network to another). SLA by priority: critical in 4 hours, normal in 48 hours. Dashboard for the manager to see all open tickets by status and assignee. Automatic notification to the requester when the ticket progresses. Monthly report on volume, resolution time, and recurring items.
5. Document review and approval
How it works via email
Someone sends a contract by email: "Attached for review." The reviewer downloads it, makes changes in Word with track changes, and sends it back. The author accepts some changes, rejects others, and sends "version 2." The reviewer receives it but had the version from the previous email open. Makes changes to the wrong version. Now there are two version 2s. Someone sends a "final version." Then a "final version v2" appears, and inevitably, the "definitive final version THIS ONE."
What goes wrong
- No version control: no one knows which is the latest version
- Comments and changes scattered across multiple emails
- Approval by email ("ok, go ahead") with no formal record
- Confidential documents circulating as email attachments — no control over who accessed them
- When someone asks "who reviewed this contract and when?", the answer takes 30 minutes
How it should work
Document submitted for review within a case, with automatic versioning. Each version recorded with date and author. Comments linked to the document, not to an email thread. Formal approval flow: reviewer approves or requests changes, with mandatory comment. Complete history of who viewed, commented, and approved. Access control by permission, not by "who was CC'd on the email."
The pattern connecting all 5
If you noticed, the same problems appear in all five processes:
- Lack of visibility: no one knows what stage things are at
- Lack of traceability: there's no reliable history
- Lack of accountability: when something is delayed, no one is formally responsible
- Lack of standardization: everyone does it differently
- Lack of automation: everything depends on someone remembering to do it
Email doesn't solve any of these problems because it wasn't built for this. Email is a communication tool, not a management tool.
What to use instead
The five processes above have something in common: they're repetitive, involve multiple stages, multiple participants, and need traceability. That's exactly the type of problem a case orchestration platform solves.
In CaseFy, each of these processes can be configured as a template: with defined stages, required fields, automation rules, SLAs, permissions, and an auditable timeline. Each request becomes a case. Each case has its complete history, from start to finish.
You don't need to implement all five at once. Start with the process that hurts most — the one generating the most emails, the most follow-ups, and the most "who approved this?" moments. Configure the template, run it for two weeks, and see the difference.