This business case was shared by Northern GeoSeptic, a Minnesota-based septic design and site development company, and Todd Heiman, Owner at the company, who built an automated workflow with Airtable, Make, Plumsail Documents, and Plumsail Forms to manage proposals, site reports, and other administrative processes.
Further in the article:
At Northern GeoSeptic, we view ourselves as more than just a service provider; we are strategic partners dedicated to protecting your land investment.
We combine engineering expertise with advanced mapping technology to offer a personalized approach to site development and septic services, moving far beyond one-size-fits-all solutions. Our goal is simple: to help you understand the long-term value of your project upfront, so you can move forward with total confidence and zero costly surprises.
Running this family operation alongside my son in Minnesota means our rhythm is dictated by the seasons, requiring 50% technical expertise and 50% battling an absolute mountain of paperwork.
The on-season (Mid-April to November): My son, a professional engineer, is out in the field—likely getting eaten by mosquitoes—performing septic inspections and designs. He handles the high-level expertise and complex state regulations, while I stay in the office managing the admin and keeping the gears turning.
The off-season (Winter): When the ground freezes, I switch hats. Using my degree in Computer Science, I become our dedicated programmer. I take this role seriously—I even flew to the Make conference in Munich this year to stay on the cutting edge of automation.
My mission during the winter is to automate every manual task possible, ensuring that when spring hits, we aren't drowning in forms, but are ready to focus entirely on our clients' projects.
Before we found a workaround, our reporting process was what I call a loop of repetitive, soul-crushing tasks. In the septic industry, everything is form-heavy and marked by regulations. You wouldn't believe the amount of paperwork required by the counties and the state. We were sitting down and retyping the exact same client names, addresses, and parcel IDs for the tenth time that day.
Whether it was proposals, invoices, or site requests, the impact was clear:
I knew at that point that we needed a technology stack that was flexible enough to handle our data but easy enough for a two-man team to maintain.
I did some pretty extensive research, looking at different databases and automation solutions. Eventually, we settled on Airtable as our central database and Make as the engine to move everything around. But there was still a gap in how we actually collected info and generated the final documents.
That’s where Plumsail became the missing piece of the puzzle:
It doesn’t matter if it’s me in the office or my son out on a job site; Plumsail does the heavy lifting for all of it.
Most of our automation flows actually follow a reliable, few-step path between Plumsail, Airtable, and Make.
Make scenario for document generation and Airtable updates
Here is how we usually piece it all together:
We start by pulling our existing form via a webhook call. The form is directly connected to Airtable and is used to update Airtable records automatically.
Next, we use a unique request ID to track down the right record in Airtable and update it with the new info.
Make webhook and Airtable record lookup for editing an existing record
Once the record is up-to-date, we grab any extra details we need from other tables to make sure the final report isn't missing anything.
All other tasks, like mapping and formatting the data, are completed in Make so everything is polished and ready to go.
Collecting and mapping related Airtable data
Generating a document and uploading the result to Dropbox
Pro Tip: You can start report generation directly from the Airtable UI using the Plumsail Documents extension.
Committed to both Plumsail Documents and Plumsail Forms, we have used these tools for quite some time now, and they are without doubt a permanent part of our technology stack. But we didn't just base this on our experience.
I actually hired two different consulting firms recently to audit our stack and make sure I hadn't missed anything. It was a huge relief when both of them validated our choices. Neither one suggested any changes to our platforms; they told us we were exactly on the right track with Plumsail, Make, and Airtable.
I have to mention one more thing that really matters to me: support.
I feel like if you go with a product and there's bad support, I would rather not even touch it, even if it had the greatest functionality in the world... Plumsail has been great as far as that goes.
Over the past couple of years, I’ve communicated with their team frequently, and that reliable help gives us total confidence in the platform. Here is why it works for us:
Having that safety net is what makes a technology stack sustainable for a small business like ours.
We are not standing still. As the weather turns and the field work slows down, I’m getting ready for my programming season. We are already looking at migrating our processes to the modern templating engine and seeing how much further we can push our automation.
It’s been a journey going from manual typing to full automation, but it’s the only way to grow. We focus on the septic work, and we let Plumsail handle the paperwork.
Inspired by Northern GeoSeptic's success story? Try Plumsail Documents with a 30-day free trial and start using Plumsail Forms with the free plan, available with no time limit.
If you have any questions, feel free to book a free call with our team.
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