A new-hire list HR actually owns
One SharePoint list item per hire: name, role, department, location, manager, start date and status. Adding the item is the trigger; editing it is how HR changes or withdraws a hire.
New-hire onboarding workflows
Employee onboarding automation that sends every new hire’s tasks to IT, managers and HR from one SharePoint list, run by Power Automate
When someone accepts an offer, three or four teams each have work to do before that person’s first morning, and in many small companies it is all coordinated from HR’s inbox. We build employee onboarding automation on the Microsoft 365 you already pay for: HR adds the hire to one SharePoint list, and Power Automate routes the IT, equipment, manager and HR tasks to their owners, dates them from the start date and chases anything still open. This is the cross-department task flow a hire sets off, not an HR records system. One fixed price, typical delivery in 2–4 weeks, 30 days of hypercare.
One fixed price, approved before work begins · 30 days of hypercare included
Sample dashboard. Illustrative data, not a client’s numbers
One price for the onboarding build, agreed first
Every project starts with a written scope listing the tasks, owners, due-date rules and systems the flow will touch, with one fixed price and a delivery date. You approve it before any work begins, scope changes are priced in writing first, and 30 days of hypercare after handover are included.
What we build
One list in, every team’s tasks out
The goal is that HR records a hire once, and nobody has to forward that email to anyone again.
IT tasks raised with lead time
Account, mailbox, licenses, security groups and Teams membership, raised as tasks for IT early enough to finish them, with the groups picked from the hire’s department and role.
Equipment and workspace by role
The laptop, phone and peripherals a role needs, plus desk, badge and building access for office-based hires. Remote hires skip the building tasks and get a shipping task instead.
A manager checklist with dates
The welcome message, the buddy, the first-week plan and the introductions, sent to the hiring manager as dated tasks rather than a reminder they read once and forget.
HR paperwork tracked to done
Forms, policy acknowledgments and document collection tracked against the hire, with sign-offs routed through Power Automate approvals where your process needs one.
Overdue work visible before day one
Reminders before each due date, a view per team of what is open, and a summary to HR of anything still outstanding as the start date approaches, while there is still time to fix it.
How it works
From HR’s checklist to a running flow in three steps
- 1
Write down the real checklist
In a free consultation we go through how a hire is handled today: who gets told, what each team does, and what has gone wrong. You get a written scope listing every task, its owner and its due-date rule, one fixed price and a delivery date.
- 2
Build and run a pilot hire
The list, the flows and each team’s view are built in your tenant, then tested with a pilot hire end to end, including a moved start date, a withdrawn offer and a hire with no manager recorded.
- 3
Hand over to HR
Flow connections move to a service account so the process does not depend on one person. HR gets documentation and a walkthrough, each team sees its own tasks, and 30 days of hypercare follow.
Send us the checklist you use today, even if it lives in an email thread. We’ll tell you what a flow can take off HR’s plate.
Book a free consultation →What does onboarding automation with Power Automate and SharePoint actually do?
Onboarding automation turns a hire into a checklist that runs itself. HR adds one item to a SharePoint list; Power Automate reads the start date, role and manager, then creates each task for IT, facilities, the manager and HR, sends reminders before due dates, and flags anything still open as day one approaches.
Mechanically it is a small number of well-known pieces. A flow triggered when a list item is created reads the hire’s details, looks up the manager from Microsoft 365 where the field is blank, works out each due date backwards from the start date, and writes the tasks to wherever each team already works: a SharePoint task list, Planner, or a Teams channel. A second flow watches for edits, so a changed start date or a withdrawn offer updates every open task instead of leaving them stranded. Where a step needs a sign-off, such as approving equipment above a role’s standard kit, Power Automate’s approval actions (opens in new tab) handle the routing, reminders and history.
None of that is exotic, and the tutorials ranking for this search show the basic trigger well. What a tutorial cannot do is decide your rules: which tasks every hire gets and which depend on role or location, how much lead time IT really needs, what happens when a manager has not been recorded, and who owns the flow once the person who built it moves on. That is the part this engagement is for.
Which onboarding tasks go to which team?
Each task belongs to the team that already does it. IT gets the account, licenses and security groups; facilities or office management gets the desk, laptop and badge; the manager gets introductions and first-week goals; HR keeps paperwork and policy sign-off. The flow assigns, dates and chases each one; nobody re-routes anything by hand.
A typical split looks like this. Your own version is agreed in scoping, and the lead times are yours to set, not ours.
| Task | Owner | What raises it | When it is due |
|---|---|---|---|
| Account, mailbox and licenses | IT | A new hire added to the list | A set number of working days before the start date, configured per task |
| Security groups, Teams and site access | IT | The hire’s department and role columns | Before day one |
| Laptop, phone and peripherals | IT or office management | The role’s equipment profile; extras routed for approval | Early enough to order and set up, by your own lead time |
| Desk, badge and building access | Facilities or office management | The location column; skipped for remote hires | Before day one |
| Welcome, buddy and first-week plan | Hiring manager | The manager column, looked up from Microsoft 365 if blank | The week before and the first week |
| Forms, policies and document collection | HR | A new hire added to the list | On the dates your HR process sets |
| Changed start date or withdrawn offer | The flow itself | An edit to the start date or status column | Open tasks re-dated or cancelled at once, owners notified |
Your split will not match this table exactly. Tell us how hires are handled today and we’ll map it to owners and dates.
Ask about my process →How is this different from a SharePoint HR management system?
An HR management system keeps the employee record: personal details, leave, documents and self-service requests, for as long as someone works there. Onboarding automation is narrower and time-boxed: a cross-department task flow that starts when a hire is confirmed and finishes when every IT, equipment, manager and HR task is closed.
The two fit together but are bought for different reasons. If the problem is that employee files live in personal folders and leave requests arrive by email, our SharePoint HR management system is the build that fixes it, and it treats onboarding only as routing off the employee record. If the problem is that new starters arrive to no laptop and a manager who forgot they were coming, this is the build, and it does not need an HR records system behind it. When a company wants both, the onboarding list can read from the employee record instead of keeping its own copy.
What if you already run an HRIS or payroll platform?
An HRIS or payroll platform stays the source of truth, and the onboarding list is fed from it rather than retyped. Depending on what the platform exposes, a hire reaches the list through a prebuilt connector, a custom connector over its API, or an export HR drops into SharePoint; the task flow downstream is the same either way.
Account creation deserves its own decision. Microsoft’s overview of HR-driven provisioning with Microsoft Entra ID (opens in new tab) describes the pattern where the HR application drives identity directly; where your platform supports that, accounts are better created there and the flow simply waits for them. Where the HRIS has an API but no connector in Microsoft’s catalog, our Power Platform custom connector development services wrap it so the flow can read new hires without anyone re-keying them. We check which route your platform supports during the free consultation.
What does the engagement deliver, and how long does it take?
A working onboarding process in your tenant: the SharePoint list and task tracking, the Power Automate flows with reminders and error handling, owner views for each team, documentation and a walkthrough for HR. A single process like this typically takes two to four weeks, with 30 days of hypercare after handover.
The table shows scope and typical timeline rather than prices, because an honest number depends on how many task types, teams and systems are involved, which we only know after seeing your checklist.
| Phase | Scope | Typical timeline | Fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Phase 1 — map and model | Your checklist written down task by task, each with an owner and a due-date rule; the new-hire list and its columns built; the systems the flow must reach confirmed | About the first week | Fixed fee — scoped after your free consultation |
| Phase 2 — build the flows | The creation flow, the change-and-withdrawal flow, reminders, approvals where needed, a view per team, and error handling that tells someone when a step fails instead of stopping silently | Weeks 2–3 | Fixed fee — scoped after your free consultation |
| Phase 3 — pilot and hand over | A pilot hire run end to end, connections moved to a service account, documentation, and a walkthrough for HR and each task owner | Week 4 and close-out | Fixed fee — scoped after your free consultation |
Everything produced is yours from the first day: the list, the flows and the documentation sit in your own Microsoft 365 tenant, never in ours. Any Microsoft licensing is billed by Microsoft directly to you, separately from our fixed fee.
Have a hire starting soon and a checklist in someone’s head? That is enough for us to scope a fixed price.
Scope my onboarding flow →Who is this for, and what does it pair with?
Organizations on Microsoft 365 that hire often enough for the checklist to matter and still coordinate it by email: HR sends the start date, then chases IT, facilities and the manager separately. If new starters regularly arrive without a laptop, an account or a manager who knew they were coming, this is the fix.
Onboarding is often the first process worth automating rather than the only one. Our guide to the business processes to automate first ranks it alongside approvals and invoice handling, and if you want to see how an approval step is built before commissioning anything, the walkthrough on replacing email approvals with Power Automate covers the mechanics. When onboarding is one of several processes you want automated, our Power Automate consulting services scope them in sequence. We are based in Orange County, CA, a Lightray Solutions brand, and serve all US states remotely.
Manual work cost check
What repetitive manual work costs you today
Put a number on the hours your team spends doing by hand what a report, an app or a flow could do: re-keying data, chasing approvals by email, rebuilding the same spreadsheet every week.
The math is simple: hours each person spends per week × number of people × 52 weeks gives the hours a year. Multiply by your loaded hourly cost for the dollars a year.
Salary plus benefits and overhead, divided by hours worked. Use your own figure.
Your estimate
Enter your three numbers to see the hours and cost a year.
One fixed price, approved before work begins · 30 days of hypercare included
Your numbers, your estimate. It is not a quote and not a savings promise; your fixed price comes in a written proposal after the free consultation.
Fair and square
Our promises, in plain English
One fixed price, approved before work begins
Every project gets a written proposal with one fixed price for a defined scope, and you approve it before any work starts. No hourly meter and no retainer. If the scope changes, the price changes in writing first.
You own everything, in your tenant
Reports, apps, flows, sites and documentation are built in your Microsoft tenant, under your accounts. There is no proprietary layer and no ongoing license owed to us, so nothing breaks if you never hire us again.
30 days of hypercare, included
For 30 days after handover we fix defects in what we delivered, answer your team’s questions and make small adjustments that keep it working as scoped, at no extra cost.
The engineer who scopes it builds it
A senior, US-based engineer works with you from the first call to the handover. There is no junior bench and no offshore handoff.
Straight answers. The free consultation ends with either a fixed-fee proposal or an honest recommendation that we are not the right fit.
Talk to an engineer, not a sales rep. Microsoft Made Easy is a Lightray Solutions brand, founded by Edward Pinela and headquartered in Orange County, California. Senior engineers across the Microsoft stack deliver fixed-fee projects for companies in every US state, remotely. About us
FAQ
Questions about onboarding workflows
Often not. Flows built on SharePoint, Outlook, Teams, Planner and Approvals run under the Power Automate rights in most Microsoft 365 business plans. Premium licensing comes in when the design uses a premium connector, which includes any custom connector into an HRIS. We confirm which applies before you approve the scope.
A flow can create it, but whether it should depends on your setup. Where an HRIS can drive provisioning through Microsoft Entra ID, accounts are best created there. Otherwise the flow either creates the account or raises a task for IT to do it, and we agree which during scoping, since account creation carries security decisions.
HR edits the start date or status on the hire's list item, and the flow does the rest. A new date moves every open task's due date and tells each owner; a withdrawn offer cancels open tasks and notifies the people already working on them, so nobody orders a laptop for someone who is not coming.
Yes, if your teams already work in Planner: each hire becomes a plan or bucket, with tasks assigned to their owners. The SharePoint list still holds the hire record that triggers everything, because it gives HR one place to add, change or withdraw a hire and a history that Planner alone does not keep well.
Offboarding can be added as a second flow scoped alongside the first. It reverses the same list: a leaving date triggers tasks to disable the account, collect equipment, transfer files and remove access. It is listed as its own deliverable inside the same fixed-fee proposal, because the security steps differ and need their own testing.
Get your onboarding flow scoped in writing
Tell us how a new hire is handled today and who keeps getting missed. You’ll get a written proposal listing every task, owner and due-date rule, one fixed price and a delivery date — then you decide.
One fixed price, approved before work begins · 30 days of hypercare included
Tell us what you’re trying to fix — a report, an approval process, an intranet, a Copilot rollout. We scope it as a fixed-fee project, you approve, and a senior engineer delivers in 2–4 weeks.
- Fixed-fee scope agreed before any work starts
- Senior, US-based Microsoft engineers — no handoffs
- Typical 2–4 week delivery
- 30 days of post-delivery hypercare included
Related services
Builds that sit next to an onboarding flow
Power Automate Consulting
Approvals, notifications and integrations across the business, scoped one process at a time.
SharePoint HR Management System
Employee records, leave and self-service requests: the HR record that outlasts the onboarding checklist.
Custom Connector Development
When your HRIS has an API but no connector, so new hires can reach the flow without re-keying.
Business processes to automate first
Where onboarding ranks against approvals, invoices and intake, and why one process at a time wins.
Replace email approvals with Power Automate
How an approval step is built, tested and escalated — the mechanics behind equipment sign-off.
Power Automate licensing for small business
What your Microsoft 365 plan already covers, and when a premium connector changes the answer.