Power Automate for SMBs: 3 Workflows That Save Time Immediately

Power Automate is part of Microsoft 365 - but most companies don't use it. Yet it can automate routine processes that cost time every day.

Here are three automations that are technically simple to implement and show immediate results.

1 Vacation request - automatic, no email ping-pong

Classic process: Employee sends email to manager. Manager approves (or forgets). Nobody has an overview.

With Power Automate:

• Employee fills out a Microsoft Forms form
• Power Automate automatically sends an approval request to the manager
• Approval/rejection is automatically communicated back to the employee
• Entry is automatically documented in SharePoint

2 New files in SharePoint - automatic notification

Who uploads a new file to the shared SharePoint folder? Who knows about it? Usually nobody - except the sender.

With Power Automate:

• New file is uploaded to SharePoint library
• Automatic Teams message to the responsible team
• Optional: automatic email to defined recipients

3 Contact form - automatically to SharePoint list

Contact form submissions usually land in an email inbox - and sometimes get overlooked or forgotten.

With Power Automate and Microsoft Forms:

• Form submission is automatically saved as an entry in a SharePoint list
• Automatic email notification to the responsible person
• All inquiries centrally viewable, with status, date, contact details

Conclusion

These three workflows can be set up technically in a few hours and require no programming skills. The key is clean technical configuration in the Power Automate Editor and correct linking with SharePoint and Microsoft Forms.