Daily Guardian — Case Study

01 / The Client's Problem

What Was Broken

The client operated a safety check-in service for elderly users living alone. Every day, a caregiver had to manually call each user to confirm they were safe. Here's what that actually looked like:

30+ minutes per person per day spent on phone calls. With 50 users, that's 25+ hours/week — nearly a full-time employee just making calls. And it still failed: calls got missed, there was no record-keeping, no follow-up process when someone didn't answer, and zero data to track wellbeing trends. If a user didn't pick up, the caregiver had to remember to try again later — and often forgot.

The client needed this process to disappear entirely — replaced by a system that runs 24/7, scales to hundreds of users, and never forgets to follow up.

02 / Manual vs. Automated

The Transformation

Before — Manual Process

30+ min/person/day on phone calls
25+ hours/week for 50 users
No record of who was contacted or when
Missed calls = no follow-up, no escalation
No mood data, no wellbeing trends
Caregiver must be available 365 days/year
Zero operational visibility for the operator
Estimated cost: $2,500+/month (staff time)

After — Fully Automated

0 minutes — SMS sent automatically at each user's time
0 hours/week of manual work
Full audit trail — every check-in logged with timestamp
3-tier emergency escalation when check-in missed
Mood tracking with charts (Great / Okay / Not Great)
Runs 24/7/365 — no human supervision
Real-time admin dashboard with live analytics
One-time build — runs at near-zero operating cost

03 / Return on Investment

The Numbers

This wasn't an expense — it was an investment that pays for itself within weeks and keeps compounding.

~600

Hours/Year Saved

25+ hours/week × 52 weeks of manual calling — eliminated completely

~$30K

Annual Cost Avoided

Equivalent of a part-time employee dedicated to making daily calls

∞

Scalability

50 users or 500 — same system, same zero manual effort, no extra hires

The system was built once. It runs forever. Every month it operates is another month of savings — and the client adds more users without adding more staff. This is what automation ROI looks like: not a cost, but a multiplier.

04 / What I Built

The Complete System

Not just a workflow — a full production system. React web app, Supabase backend, 11 n8n automation workflows, Twilio SMS integration, and a dedicated admin portal. Everything the client needed to replace their manual process with a system that runs itself.

User-facing app — Registration with SMS double opt-in (TCPA compliant), daily check-in via SMS or web (3 mood buttons: Great, Okay, Not Great), emergency contact management with priority ordering, mood history with trend charts, and account settings.

Separate admin portal — Real-time operational dashboard: check-in rates, missed check-ins, mood distribution, SMS consent status, active vs inactive accounts, recent alerts. Complete visibility into the entire operation at a glance — with spreadsheet logging as backup for auditing and error tracking.

Automation engine — 11 workflows with 104 nodes running 24/7: pre-check-in reminders, daily SMS sender, inbound SMS handler with mood detection, missed check-in escalation (3-tier, priority-ordered), mid-grace-period follow-ups, weekly summaries to users and emergency contacts, opt-in/opt-out compliance, inactivity monitoring with auto-cleanup, hourly Slack reporting, and automated error handling.

05 / Screens