The most valuable automations are rarely impressive to look at. They are small, boring, and they remove a job nobody enjoyed. Here are five patterns we build again and again, because the payback is fast and obvious.
1. Approval routing
Any process where a request needs a yes from someone: leave, expenses, purchase orders, document sign-off. A flow captures the request, routes it to the right approver, chases if it stalls, and records the outcome. It replaces a chain of emails nobody can find later with a clean, auditable trail.
2. Document routing and filing
Files arrive in an inbox or a shared mailbox and someone manually saves them to the right SharePoint library, renamed and tagged. A flow can do the filing, the naming and the metadata automatically, which both saves time and makes the documents findable.
3. New-starter and leaver tasks
Onboarding and offboarding are checklists that get done inconsistently under pressure. A flow can kick off the standard tasks, notify the right people, and make sure nothing is missed, which matters most for the security-sensitive leaver steps.
4. Notifications that matter
Not “you have a new email”, but targeted alerts: a high-value deal moves stage, a critical list item changes, an SLA is about to breach. A well-scoped notification flow puts the right signal in front of the right person without them watching a dashboard.
5. Recurring reports and reminders
The weekly status pull, the monthly figures, the “did everyone submit their timesheet” chase. Anything done on a schedule by a human copying data around is a candidate for a flow that just does it.
The one rule
Here is the rule that separates automation that helps from automation that becomes a liability: build it to be owned by the business, not by a person. Flows built on someone’s personal account break the moment they leave, and nobody else can see why. Use a service account, document what runs and why, and add error handling so a failure is visible rather than silent.
That discipline is the difference between a quiet productivity gain and a graveyard of broken personal flows. It is how we approach Power Automate work, and a free health-check will also flag where automation and sharing have sprawled in your tenant.