The weekly report, written before the meeting

Recurring reports cost a person the end of every week, and the part that gets cut for time is the only part anyone reads. Dutta assembles the report on a schedule, with the source attached to every figure.

The work today

Friday is assembly. Numbers are pulled out of several systems by hand and pasted into the same document as last week, with the headings changed.

The commentary is the first thing cut. Copying the figures is the mechanical half and it always gets done. Explaining what moved and why is the half people actually read, and it is the half that runs out of time.

The numbers cannot be checked. Once a figure is pasted into a document it has no provenance. Whoever queried it knows where it came from; nobody else can verify it without asking them.

It only exists if someone is there. The week the author is on leave is the week the report does not go out, and the week the meeting has nothing to work from.

What Dutta does, in order

Through the weekWatches the systems the report draws on and records what moved, rather than reconstructing it on Friday.
The night beforeAssembles the report: what changed, what stalled, and what it did about the things inside its mandate.
On the hour you setSends it, whether or not anyone opened the app that morning — a workflow runs on its schedule, not on someone remembering.
With every figureAttaches the source it came from, so a number can be checked rather than trusted.

What it reads and writes

An AI employee holds scoped credentials — read, write or send, per system — and nothing beyond its mandate. Permission is granted per system, and revoking it takes effect immediately. For this job that normally means:

  • Connected systems — read, to gather what the report draws on
  • Documents — read, for the definitions and targets it reports against
  • Email — send, for the reports you asked for

Where a person stays in the loop

Dutta prepares, drafts and flags; a person approves anything with a consequence. You name the checkpoints, and for this job they usually are:

  • The first issue of any new report, before it reaches a wider audience
  • Any commentary that makes a claim about a customer or a result
  • Any change to how a figure is defined

Questions

Is this a dashboard?

No. A dashboard shows you the numbers and leaves the interpretation to you. This is a written account of what changed, what stuck and what it did about it, with each figure carrying its source.

What if a figure is missing?

It reports the gap and names the system it could not read, rather than carrying last week’s number forward. A report that hides a hole is worse than a late one.

Can it send to the whole company?

It sends where you point it, and the first issue of any new report waits for your approval before it goes anywhere wider.

The role behind this job

This work is what the Operations employee does on shift. Everything else it handles, and the whole shift it works, is on the role page: an AI employee for operations.

Put it on shift

Pricing is per AI employee on shift; humans are unlimited on every plan. See pricing or tell us the process that eats your team’s week.

Other jobs Dutta takes

Invoice reconciliation · Support inbox · Month-end close · Candidate screening · Overnight monitoring