We’re moving forward with Sola—what’s the recommended Ops vs IT ownership model for rollout, and what does Sola need from each team in week 1?

Getting Sola into production is less about “AI setup” and more about choosing a clear ownership model between Operations and IT from day one. The most successful teams treat Sola as an ops-led, IT-partnered platform: business experts own the workflows; IT owns the guardrails, access, and integration surfaces. In week 1, you’re not “implementing a giant system”—you’re aligning who does what so your first automations can go live quickly without creating security or governance debt.

Quick Answer: The recommended model is Ops-as-owner, IT-as-enabler. Ops (or the relevant business function) owns use case selection, process recording, and day-to-day bot management. IT owns security, access, environment configuration, and integration patterns. In week 1, Sola needs Ops to bring 1–3 high-value workflows and SMEs who can record them, and IT to confirm security posture, set up SSO/RBAC, and validate network/app access so bots can safely run across your systems.

Why This Matters

If ownership is fuzzy, Sola risks falling into the same trap as legacy RPA: long implementation cycles, dependency on a few specialists, and zero momentum outside a pilot. When Ops and IT know exactly where they lead (and where they partner), you get something very different: automations built by the people who know the work best, running inside a secure, well-governed environment IT trusts.

This alignment in week 1 shapes everything that follows—how fast you ship your first bots, how comfortable teams feel experimenting, and how easily you scale from “one automated process” to “an operational fabric” running across your back office.

Key Benefits:

• Faster time-to-value: Clear Ops and IT roles mean you can go from screen recording to live automation in days, not quarters.
• Reduced risk and rework: IT sets security, access, and integration patterns upfront, so Ops can move quickly without creating compliance or shadow-IT risk.
• Scalable, sustainable automation: Business experts—not just RPA specialists—own and improve workflows, while IT maintains centralized oversight, logs, and controls.

Core Concepts & Key Points

Concept	Definition	Why it's important
Ops-as-owner, IT-as-enabler	A model where operations (or the relevant business function) owns workflow design, recording, and iteration, while IT owns security, access, integrations, and platform governance.	Keeps automation close to the work while satisfying enterprise security and compliance expectations.
Agentic process automation	Sola’s approach: record a real workflow once and Sola turns it into an AI-native bot that can run, adapt, and improve across browser and desktop apps.	Lets SMEs automate fragmented, UI-driven work without code or consultants, reducing dependency on legacy RPA teams.
Week 1 implementation plan	A focused set of activities for Ops and IT in the first 5–7 days: choosing use cases, configuring security and access, recording workflows, and validating the first runs.	Prevents “pilot drift,” builds shared confidence, and sets patterns you’ll reuse for additional automations.

How It Works (Step-by-Step)

At a high level, rollout looks like this: IT creates a safe, governed environment; Ops turns real work into bots; both teams validate and monitor early runs together.

1. Define ownership and scope (Day 0–1):

   • Confirm that Ops (or the relevant function: Finance Ops, Claims, Legal Ops, Billing, etc.) will own workflow design and recording.
   • Name an IT counterpart who owns security, access, and integration decisions.
   • Agree on 1–3 starter workflows (e.g., invoice reconciliation, order entry, file verification, claims intake).

2. IT sets the guardrails (Day 1–3):

   • Configure SSO and role-based access controls so only the right people can build and run bots.
   • Validate network, VPN, and application access for Sola bots (browser + desktop).
   • Align on integration patterns (UI-level automation only vs. UI + API calls to internal systems) and any logging/audit requirements.

3. Ops builds and validates first bots (Day 2–5):

   • SMEs perform the target workflow while Sola records it, across all the tabs and applications they normally touch.
   • Sola converts that recording into a visual, editable workflow. Ops refines steps, adds branching logic, and defines error-handling with Sola’s no-code editor.
   • Together, Ops and IT run test executions, review logs, and sign off on success criteria before expanding to more users or higher volume.

---

From here, the model becomes repeatable: Ops keeps capturing and improving processes; IT keeps ensuring the environment is secure, observable, and integrated with the rest of your stack.

Recommended Ownership Model: Who Owns What?

Ops / Business Teams: Primary Owners of Automation

For Sola, “Ops” means the teams doing the work: operations analysts, compliance leads, legal operations, billing and revenue teams, logistics coordinators, claims managers—anyone whose day job involves 15 tabs and a lot of copy-paste.

Ops responsibilities:

• Use case selection and prioritization

  • Identify workflows where humans are currently stitching systems together: invoice matching, order entry, file verification, CRM updates, KYC checks, claims processing.
  • Prioritize by impact (volume, error rate, SLA pressure) and feasibility (access to systems, clear inputs/outputs).

• Process recording and design

  • Record real work in Sola: clicking through browsers and desktop apps, reading documents, entering data, reconciling across systems.
  • Annotate decisions (“if this field is missing, check System B”) and exceptions as they occur—Sola’s LLMs and computer vision turn this into an adaptive workflow.
  • Use the Visual Workflow Editor to adjust steps, names, conditions, and error handling.

• Day-to-day bot ownership

  • Monitor early runs with Sola’s logs and visual traces, validating that outcomes match business expectations.
  • Mark successes/failures, correct misclassifications, and use user feedback to improve decisioning over time.
  • Own business change management: communicating new workflows, ensuring teams know when a bot owns a step vs. where humans stay in the loop.

IT / Security: Platform Guardians and Enablers

IT’s role is not to build every automation; it’s to make sure Sola fits cleanly into your environment and meets your standards.

IT responsibilities:

• Security and identity

  • Configure SSO (Okta, Azure AD, etc.) to ensure secure, centralized access control.
  • Set up role-based access controls so builders, reviewers, and approvers each have appropriate permissions.
  • Validate that Sola aligns with your policies for SOC 2, HIPAA, data residency, and retention.

• Environment and access

  • Confirm how Sola bots will access internal systems (network paths, VPN, VDI, Citrix, etc.).
  • Support app permissions for UI-level automation (browser and desktop) and APIs where needed.
  • Decide on environments (e.g., sandbox for experimentation, production for scaled runs) and promotion patterns.

• Integration and observability

  • Establish integration patterns: whether bots should call internal APIs, message queues, ticketing tools, or data lakes as part of workflows.
  • Integrate Sola’s logs and audit trails with your existing observability stack if desired.
  • Set policies for who can create, approve, and schedule production automations.

This split keeps the work with the people who know it best, while giving IT confidence that the platform behaves like any other enterprise system: authenticated, observable, and governed.

Week 1: What Sola Needs from Ops vs IT

Think of week 1 as laying the operational and technical foundation for everything that follows.

From Ops (Days 1–5)

1. Named sponsors and builders

   • A business owner for the first set of automations (e.g., Head of Revenue Ops, Director of Claims, Legal Ops lead).
   • 2–5 hands-on SMEs who will record workflows and iterate on bots.

2. 1–3 concrete workflows Each should be:

   • High-volume or high-friction (e.g., daily invoice reconciliation, order entry from emails, intake triage, onboarding checks).
   • Executed today through a browser and/or desktop apps—exactly where Sola’s agentic process automation shines.
   • Governable: clear definition of success/failure, and where human review is required.

3. Access to real but safe sample work

   • Representative examples of documents, emails, and system records (with appropriate masking or test data if needed).
   • A clear description of edge cases (“sometimes the supplier name doesn’t match exactly,” “some claims arrive without policy numbers”).

4. Documented success criteria

   • What “done” looks like for week 1: e.g., “bot can process 20 sample invoices end-to-end with <1% error,” or “bot can successfully create and update orders in both CRM and ERP for 10 sample cases.”
   • Initial guardrails: which steps must always be human-reviewed in early runs.

From IT (Days 1–5)

1. Security and access configuration

   • SSO and RBAC configured so only the right users can log in and build.
   • Confirmation of compliance posture: mapping Sola’s SOC 2 and HIPAA capabilities to your internal standards.
   • Decision on any data or app boundaries for pilot (e.g., limit to test tenant for ERP during week 1).

2. Network and application readiness

   • Network paths open so Sola bots can reach required systems (web, SaaS, internal apps).
   • Any necessary agent or runner installation validated (if applicable for your environment).
   • Agreements on how bots will access systems that currently require per-user logins or MFA (service accounts, delegated access, or supervised runs).

3. Observability and governance setup

   • Determine where Sola logs and audit trails will be reviewed (within Sola, SIEM, or both).
   • Create a simple approval workflow for moving a process from “experiment” to “production.”
   • Define naming conventions and basic standards (e.g., how to name workflows, environments, and credentials) to avoid chaos later.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Mistake 1: Treating Sola like legacy RPA owned entirely by IT.
  This recreates old bottlenecks—automation becomes a project queue instead of a capability. Avoid this by explicitly naming Ops or business teams as the primary builders and owners, with IT focused on platform, security, and integrations.

• Mistake 2: Starting with edge-case-heavy, politically sensitive workflows.
  If your first use case touches every exception in the company, you risk stalling and losing trust. Start with a painful but structured workflow (e.g., invoice reconciliation in one region, or a specific claims line of business) where the rules and systems are clear, then expand once the pattern is proven.

Real-World Example

Imagine a national logistics company that decides to roll out Sola for order entry and billing reconciliation.

• Ops takes point: The Billing Ops lead identifies two workflows: turning emailed purchase orders into system orders, and reconciling carrier invoices against contracted rates. Two analysts record how they open emails, extract details, flip between TMS, ERP, and shared drives, and apply business rules when fields don’t match.
• IT sets the rails: IT configures SSO and RBAC, confirms that Sola can access the TMS and ERP through the company’s VPN, and sets up a non-production ERP tenant for initial tests. They define that any workflow touching invoices over a certain threshold must still go through human review.
• Week 1 outcome: By the end of the first week, Billing Ops has a bot that can read new POs from a test inbox, enter them into the TMS, and create draft invoices in ERP. IT has full visibility through logs and audit trails and knows exactly which users can change workflows. The team proves that Ops can build and adapt automations themselves—without new headcount or months-long IT projects.

Pro Tip: Treat your first week as a template. Document the Ops vs IT responsibilities, access decisions, and approval pattern you used for those first workflows—then reuse that playbook for every new automation. It’s the fastest way to scale without sacrificing control.

Summary

The best Sola deployments are not IT-only or Ops-only—they’re Ops-led, IT-governed. Operations teams own the workflows, record the real work, and iteratively refine automations. IT owns the environment, security, access, and integration surfaces so those automations can run safely at scale.

In week 1, Sola needs three things: clear ownership (who in Ops, who in IT), 1–3 well-chosen workflows with real SMEs, and basic security/access configuration. Nail those, and you move from “we’re testing a tool” to “we’re building an automation capability” in a matter of days.

Next Step

Get Started