Finance built an expense approval workflow

“It's more of a prototype.”— Katrin, Finance

Reason:

Officially because the workflow has 71 steps and nobody wants to open it. With 99 users and zero documentation.

Built by:

Katrin, a working student

Build time:

an afternoon, mostly

Built with:

an AI agent with shell access

Database:

a Git repository with one JSON file per customer

Authentication:

passwords are stored in plaintext, for troubleshooting

Deployment:

deployed by emailing Leads_final_FINAL.xlsx to Lukas

Responsible:

Operations, but they strongly disagree

Documentation:

a calendar invite description from June

Security situation:

no security review, no plans for one

Future disaster:

It will gain 418 users before anyone approves it.

Age: 3.8 years · originally expected to last 3 weeks · 5 owners so far · survived 1 reorganisation · last meaningful change 19 days ago

Rated rare mostly because: 278 users, €433k per year, 59% chance of becoming business critical.