I just finished a Slack conversation with a nonprofit client.
The conversation started because I recently implemented a nightly batch job that automatically generated tax receipts for their donors. This is what she requested.
Her exact words were, “Do you think we could automate the tax receipts when a donation from an individual (over $20) comes in through the website?”
Sure, no problem. The core functionality already existed, I just needed to create a daily scheduled flow that basically executed the same steps.
Today she asked why her colleague, when manually generating receipts, was able to create 16 but noticed over 100 needed to be emailed. Why were there so many to be emailed, she asked.
Then it dawned on me. She didn’t just want the tax receipts to be generated, she wanted them to be emailed as well.
Obviously this was an oversight on my part. I should have asked her if she wanted something more. I should have asked her if all she wanted was to generate receipts. I should have asked if she wanted fries with that.
Summary
Always make sure you have all the business requirements before solutioning.