Automations are often set up by one helpful person: a freelancer, a member of staff, an agency, or a friend or family member who's good with computers. Everything works, so nobody thinks about it again.

Then that person moves on. Their contract finishes, they change jobs, or they simply get busy. Often the automations keep running for a while. Then their email account is closed or their password changes, and things stop, all at once.

This guide is about sorting it out calmly while they're still around to help. Writing everything down takes about twenty minutes, and you don't change anything while you do it.

Why automations depend on one person

  • The automations live in their account. If they signed up to Zapier, Make or n8n with their own email address, the automations belong to that account, not to your business.
  • The connections use their logins. Each automation reaches your shop, your email and your spreadsheet through a saved login. If that login is theirs, it stops working when their access ends or their password changes.
  • The warnings go to them. Error emails go to the account's email address, so after they leave, nobody hears about problems. This guide on automations that stop quietly covers what happens next.
  • The know-how is in their head. What each automation does, and why it was built that way, is often written down nowhere.

Make a one-page list together

For each automation, write down:

  • its name, and what it does, in one line
  • which tool it's in, and the email address of the account it lives in
  • which apps it connects to, and whose login each connection uses
  • what starts it, or when it runs
  • where its warnings go
  • who else knows how it works

Ask the person leaving to help you fill it in. Most people are glad to, and it's the kindest handover there is, for both of you.

Every tool lists its saved logins in one place: Zapier and Make call them connections, and n8n calls them credentials. Opening each one usually shows which account it was made with, and the person who set it up can tell you the rest.

The order to do things in

  1. Make the list, while they're still around.
  2. Set up an account the business owns, with an email address that belongs to the business rather than to one person.
  3. Move the automations into it. The person leaving, or whoever looks after your software next, can do this. How depends on the tool and your plan (see below).
  4. Connect each app again with a business login, and check that the warnings go to an address someone reads.
  5. Watch a few runs work in the new account. The run history shows each one.
  6. Only then, end their access.

When step 6 happens first, that's how automations come to stop the day after someone leaves.

Ending their access at the end matters too. Automations often handle customer details, and keeping those to the people who need them is part of looking after personal data under UK GDPR.

How each tool moves automations

  • Zapier: within one account, a Zap can be given a new owner (Change owner). Between accounts, it can be copied, but the copy arrives switched off, and each app has to be connected again.
  • Make: the owner of the organization can hand ownership to someone else in Organization settings, so the scenarios stay where they are.
  • n8n: when someone's n8n account is removed, their workflows and credentials can be passed to another person first, rather than deleted with them.

One detail to mention to whoever does the move: if another app sends information to an automation through its own web address (called a webhook), that address can change when the automation moves. The app sending to it then needs the new address.

If they've already gone

Don't worry, and don't close anything yet. Make the list as far as you can from what you know, then get in touch with them kindly and ask for an hour of help. Most people are happy to help with a handover, especially with a list in front of them.

Until it's sorted, put a weekly look at the run history in your diary, so you notice early if something stops.

What to do with what you found

If every automation is already in a business account, on business logins, with warnings going to someone who reads them, well done. Keep the list somewhere safe and update it when anything changes.

If not, you now have the list that makes the move straightforward. Take it to whoever looks after your software.

And if there's nobody to ask, I can look at it for you, read-only. Here's an example of the findings note you'd get, which includes a stock update that runs on one person's login.