Trust, control & human oversight
You decide what Deptly drafts, what it handles, and what always stays human.
Every workflow runs at a control level you choose, inside rules you set, with a record of everything that happened. None of that is fine print — it is the first setup conversation.
How do you stay in control of what Deptly does?
Every workflow Deptly runs is set to one of four control levels you choose: draft only, approval every time, approved routines, or rules with escalation. Every action is logged — what was sent, who approved it, what changed in your systems — and summarized in a weekly brief. Money movement, discounts, contract changes, contested complaints, sensitive promises, and domain-specific judgment always stay with you.
Four control levels, set per workflow
Every workflow gets its own level. Nothing starts looser than you want it, and nothing gets looser without you.
Draft only
Deptly prepares the work — a reply, a follow-up, an estimate nudge, a review response — and nothing goes anywhere until you send it yourself.
Example
A customer leaves a tough review. Deptly drafts a measured response with the job details in front of it. You edit two lines and post it yourself.
Approval every time
Deptly does the work and brings it to you finished. One tap approves it. Without that tap, nothing moves.
Example
An estimate has sat quiet for four days. Deptly writes the nudge, shows you exactly what it will send, and waits for your yes.
Approved routines
For routine actions you have already approved as a pattern — reminders, confirmations, standard updates — Deptly completes them and logs every one.
Example
Appointment reminders go out two days ahead, in your wording, on your schedule. Every send shows up in the action history.
Rules with escalation
Deptly acts inside written rules you have agreed to, and hands anything outside them to a person the moment it appears.
Example
A cancellation opens a Thursday slot, so Deptly offers it to the waitlist under your rules. A customer disputing a charge has no rule — so nothing is sent, and it goes straight to you.
Levels are set per workflow, not as one global switch. You can start every workflow at draft only and loosen a level only after the work has earned it. Tightening takes effect immediately; loosening only ever happens because you asked.
What Deptly logs and reports
Oversight only works if you can see what happened without asking. The record keeps itself.
Action history
Every message sent, reminder delivered, and follow-up made — with the channel and a timestamp.
Approvals
Who approved what, when, and exactly which version went out.
System changes
What changed in your calendar, invoicing, or customer records — and which workflow changed it.
Escalations
What was handed to a person, to whom, and why the rules stopped there.
Weekly brief
A plain summary of what was handled, what needs attention, and what is waiting on you.
The mechanics behind approvals and the audit trail are explained on approvals and oversight, and a full sample brief lives on proof and examples.
Your weekly brief
deptly · weekly summary
- 12 estimate follow-ups sent; 3 replies, 1 asked for a revised scope — waiting on you
- Every missed call this week got a text back within minutes; 4 turned into booked jobs
- 2 invoices past 30 days entered the reminder sequence you approved
- 1 escalation: a customer disputed a charge — routed to you Tuesday, resolved
- The new review-response workflow stayed at draft only; 5 drafts prepared, all sent by you
Numbers here are illustrative — your brief reports your actual week, including what stayed at draft only.
What always requires your approval
Six categories never run on routine, at any control level.
Money movement
Refunds, deposits, payment plans — anything that moves money in or out of the business.
Discounts
Price reductions and exceptions to your published pricing, at any size.
Contract changes
Changes to scope, terms, or warranties — anything a customer could rely on later.
Contested complaints
When a customer disputes what happened, a person handles it. Never a template.
Sensitive promises
Timelines, guarantees, or commitments a customer will hold you to.
Domain-specific judgment
Anything that calls for a licensed professional or your professional read of the situation.
These are not defaults you can toggle off. They sit above the control levels: even a workflow running on rules with escalation stops and asks the moment one of these appears.
Guardrails for regulated and safety-sensitive work
In some industries the line between administrative work and professional judgment matters most. Here is where Deptly draws it.
Health and wellness
Deptly never makes clinical judgments, gives treatment advice, or triages symptoms. It carries the scheduling, recalls, paperwork chasing, and payment follow-up around the care your team provides.
How Deptly works in private-pay health and wellnessLegal services
Deptly never gives legal advice or touches case strategy. It handles intake, document chasing, status updates, and billing follow-up under the supervision your practice already requires.
How Deptly works in boutique legal practicesSenior care
Deptly never makes care or safety decisions about a client. A family's concern about wellbeing goes to your care coordinator immediately — not into a queue.
How Deptly works in senior and private home careAnimal welfare
Deptly never makes health or behavior judgments about an animal. Anything that sounds like a sick or distressed pet goes straight to your staff.
How Deptly works in pet care businessesEmergency services
A genuine emergency is never queued. Urgent calls route to a person immediately, along the escalation path you define during setup.
How Deptly works in home services and emergency tradesInsurance and claims
Deptly never makes coverage judgments or commitments to carriers or adjusters. It organizes documentation, chases missing items, and keeps every party informed.
How Deptly works in auto services and collision workSafety-sensitive work
Deptly never makes site-safety or go/no-go calls on hazardous work. Your crew leads decide; Deptly carries the scheduling, updates, and paperwork around the decision.
How Deptly works in landscaping and tree servicesData access, permissions and least privilege
Principles we set up against on every engagement — with the specifics put in writing before anything is connected.
- Least privilege by default. A workflow gets access only to the systems it needs, at the lowest permission level that works.
- Your accounts stay yours. Access is granted by you, scoped to the engagement, and revocable at any time.
- Your systems remain the system of record. Deptly works inside the tools you already have rather than pulling your data into a replacement.
- Sensitive fields are excluded wherever a workflow does not need them.
- Access lists, data retention, and vendor responsibilities are documented in writing as part of setup — finalized per engagement, not buried in fine print.
A note on certifications: we tell you exactly what we do and do not have, and we do not claim compliance certifications we have not earned. Data-handling specifics for your engagement are put in writing before anything is connected. If your industry has a requirement we cannot meet yet, we will say so plainly.
What Deptly will not do
The list that matters as much as the feature list.
- Send anything before the control level for that workflow is agreed with you
- Move money, issue refunds, or change your pricing on its own
- Make clinical, legal, coverage, care, or safety judgments
- Argue with an unhappy customer — contested complaints go to a person
- Make promises to customers that you have not approved
- Hide what it is — a customer who asks gets a straight answer
- Sell or share your customer list or business data
- Hold your work hostage — your accounts, your data, and access you can revoke at any time
The standing boundary
Every engagement starts from this default split. Your rules can tighten it; nothing loosens it without you.
Deptly handles
Routine work done within the rules you approve.
- Approved routine follow-ups, reminders, confirmations, and status updates, in your tone
- Drafting anything judgment-adjacent for you to review, edit, and send
- Watching for missed calls, stale estimates, unpaid invoices, and schedule gaps — acting only within approved rules
- Logging every action so the record is always complete
Deptly asks first
Anything judgment-shaped waits for your okay.
- Anything touching money, discounts, or agreed terms
- First-of-a-kind situations no rule covers yet
- Messages to upset customers, or anything reputation-sensitive
- Loosening a control level — that change is always yours to make
Always human
The decisions that stay yours, always.
- Clinical, legal, coverage, care, and safety judgments
- How you price, who you hire, and how you run your team
- Contested complaints and relationship repair
- The rules themselves — what Deptly may handle is always your call
Questions owners ask about control
The honest answers, before you ever get on a call.
Yes — per workflow, at any time. Most owners start new workflows at draft only or approval every time, then move specific routines to approved routines once they have watched them run for a few weeks. Tightening a level takes effect immediately; loosening one only happens when you ask for it.
It escalates to the person you named for that workflow, with the context attached: who the customer is, what happened, and what has already been said. Nothing is improvised — no rule means no action, just a clear handoff. The escalation itself is logged, so you can see how often it happens and decide whether a new rule is worth writing.
Yes. There is no minimum level of autonomy. Some owners run draft only for weeks before approving a single routine, and some workflows — review responses are a common one — stay at draft only permanently. The setup is still useful at that level, because the work of noticing, preparing, and tracking gets done either way.
Every message sent and on which channel, every approval and who gave it, every change made in your systems, and every escalation and why. The weekly brief summarizes it, and the underlying history is available when you want the detail. If you are ever asked what was sent to a customer, there is one place with the answer.
Yes, with guardrails: Deptly never makes clinical, legal, coverage, care, or safety judgments, and the scope of what it touches is agreed in writing during setup. In regulated work it typically carries scheduling, document chasing, status communication, and payment follow-up — the administrative load around the professional work, never the professional work itself.
They get a straight answer. Deptly does not pretend to be a person when asked directly, and how it identifies itself on each channel is one of the things you decide during setup. Most customers care that the response is fast, accurate, and in your voice — and that a real person is one step away when it matters.
On your side, access is whatever you grant: scoped to the systems each workflow needs, at the lowest permission level that works. On our side, access is limited to the people who configure and oversee your workflows, and the specifics — who, what, and for how long — are documented per engagement. You can revoke access at any time; the accounts are yours.
Yes. Any workflow can be paused or moved back to draft only immediately, and because Deptly works inside your own tools and accounts, ending the engagement means revoking access — your data, history, and systems stay exactly where they already live.
Next step
Set the rules once. Keep the final say.
Take the two-minute assessment to see which workflows Deptly could carry inside your rules — or talk it through with a person first.