We host it
The platform and your applications run in our cloud, a flat monthly fee per environment, unlimited users. Nothing to install, nothing to patch.
For businesses
Automate the work that has always needed a person.
The approvals, exceptions and month-end routines that only your experienced people can do, because only they know the rules that aren't written down. Describe them to Outline and run them as software over your own systems.
Examples
The work this is for.
Not the work that is already automated, and not the work that needs a human conversation. The layer in between: decisions that follow rules nobody has written down, over data that lives in three systems.
| Example | What the software does |
|---|---|
| Purchase and credit approvals | Checks the order history, the customer's payment pattern and the current exposure before it asks anyone. Approves what your rules would approve. Escalates the rest with the reason attached. |
| Exception handling | Watches orders, deliveries and invoices for the cases your best person would catch, and handles the ones they would handle the same way every time. |
| Month-end | Reconciles across systems, flags what won't reconcile, and prepares the adjustments for sign-off, with its working shown. |
| Expert decisions | Captures how your specialist decides (the buyer, the planner, the underwriter) and applies it consistently, with their judgment recorded and reviewable. |
| Reporting that acts | Reports that notice a problem and raise it, rather than waiting to be read. |
If you can explain it to a new hire, Outline can build it. If you can't explain it, Outline will interview the person who can.
Getting started
What the first few weeks look like.
The first application needs the platform underneath it, and that is a short, defined piece of work rather than a programme. After that, every application is a conversation.
| Stage | What happens | Who is involved |
|---|---|---|
| A conversation | Half an hour. You bring one process that takes a person's judgment today. We tell you what Outline would make of it and what the platform needs from your systems. Free. | You, us |
| Connecting the platform | We connect the data platform to your ERP and systems and set up access rules. If your people's knowledge is part of the picture, the knowledge platform interviews them. Estimated in days, capped, and the only part of this priced by time. | Your IT, your experts, us |
| The first interview | You talk to Outline about the process. It drafts the spec and the screens. You approve. | You and whoever owns the process |
| The first application | Built from the approved spec at a fixed price, tested against it, reviewed, and running in your tenant. Days, not months. | Us, then you |
| Everything after | More applications, each a conversation. Changes, each a conversation. The platform and software kept current by us. | You, with us behind it |
We are deliberately keeping first applications short and quick at the moment. They teach us what the factory does on its own and what still needs a hand, and we fix the hand. You get a fast first result and a direct line to the people building it.
Hosting and management
Run it where you want. We'll keep it right either way.
You host it
Run it in your own cloud or on a server in your building. No hosting charge. We still manage the software if you want us to.
We manage it
Security patches, platform and model upgrades, monitoring, and the changes you describe. A monthly fee per application. This is what keeps the software living rather than ageing.
Your data stays yours, under your access rules, and is deleted on a schedule you can see if you leave. The specification and the application are yours too. How you pay, in full.
Bring us one process.
The one that always ends up on the desk of the same person. Half an hour, and you'll know what it would take to run it as software.