Custom ETL automation

We automated input-file processing for a client whose pipeline was too complex to leave as a person-in-the-loop chore. Before the engagement, each file meant extensive visual checks, database queries, DOS batch programs, Windows Task Scheduler jobs, cross-server logging, and a custom email chain for that individual file.

Because so much of the work was manual, the process could only run during business hours. Files that arrived overnight or on weekends waited. Labor cost and risk both sat on the same bottleneck: someone had to be at a desk to run the chain.

Successful automation took a great deal of custom T-SQL, wired into the existing Windows scheduling and logging world rather than a greenfield product. We replaced the hand-run steps with a job that validates, loads, logs across servers, and notifies the right people when a file finishes or fails—without inventing a parallel process staff would ignore.

When we left, manual processing time of about 35–45 minutes per file was reduced to zero. Computing time fell to under seven minutes. File processing runs 24×7 instead of business hours five days a week, and the automation cut labor costs at the company by about 25%.