Power Automate comes bundled with most Microsoft 365 plans, but most people never open it because "automation" sounds like a developer's job. It isn't, for the workflows below. Each one uses the same basic pattern: a trigger ("when this happens"), and one or more actions ("do this"). You build them by picking options from dropdowns, not writing code.

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1. Auto-sort email attachments into OneDrive folders

If people regularly email you invoices, reports, or signed contracts, you can have Power Automate save attachments automatically instead of doing it by hand.

  1. Go to make.powerautomate.com and select Create > Automated cloud flow.
  2. Choose the trigger "When a new email arrives (V3)" and set a filter, like a specific subject keyword or sender domain.
  3. Add the action "Save attachments to OneDrive", or chain together "Get attachment" and "Create file" if you want more control over the destination folder.
  4. Save and test by sending yourself a matching email.

2. Approval emails for routine requests

For anything that needs a yes/no from a manager — time off, purchase requests, document sign-off — the built-in Approvals connector replaces a chain of back-and-forth emails with one click.

  1. Trigger: "When a new item is created" (for a SharePoint list or Microsoft Form) or "When a new email arrives" for email-based requests.
  2. Action: "Start and wait for an approval." Set the approver and the details to display.
  3. Add a branch after the approval action: one path for "Approved," one for "Rejected," each sending a notification email or updating a tracking list.

This alone removes the "did you see my email about the time-off request" follow-up that eats into everyone's day.

3. Weekly status report compiler

If your team fills out a Microsoft Form or updates a SharePoint list each week, you can have Power Automate compile the responses into a single summary email every Friday, instead of someone manually copying rows into a doc.

  1. Trigger: "Recurrence," set to weekly, Friday, at whatever time works.
  2. Action: "Get items" (SharePoint) or "List rows" (Excel in OneDrive), filtered to the current week.
  3. Action: "Create HTML table" to format the results.
  4. Action: "Send an email (V2)" with the HTML table in the body, sent to your team or manager.

Tip: the "Create HTML table" action outputs plain, unstyled HTML. If you want it to look less like a raw export, add a "Compose" step beforehand and wrap the table in basic inline CSS for borders and padding.

4. Reminder pings for overdue tasks

For task lists in Planner or SharePoint, you can flag anything overdue without anyone having to check the list manually.

  1. Trigger: "Recurrence," daily, in the morning.
  2. Action: "Get items" with a filter query for due dates earlier than today and status not equal to "Completed."
  3. Add an "Apply to each" loop around a "Send an email" action, so each overdue item generates its own reminder to the assigned person.

5. New employee onboarding checklist trigger

When HR adds a new hire to a SharePoint list or Excel sheet, this flow can automatically create their onboarding tasks and notify IT, instead of someone remembering to do it manually on day one.

  1. Trigger: "When an item is created" on the HR tracking list.
  2. Action: "Create item" (repeated for each onboarding task — laptop setup, account creation, badge request) in a Planner or SharePoint tasks list, assigned to IT.
  3. Action: "Send an email" to the relevant manager confirming the checklist was created.

A few things to know before you build