15 Workflow Automation Examples That Save Hours [2025]

Automation sounds abstract - until you see concrete examples. In this article, we show 15 workflow automations from practice that save businesses hours every day.

Each example includes a description of the problem, the solution, and the tools used. Get inspired!

Sales & Marketing

1. Lead Routing by Region

Problem: New leads from the contact form land in the general inbox. Someone has to manually assign them to the right sales rep.

Automation:

1. Lead fills out form (including zip code)
2. Automatic region detection based on zip code
3. Assignment to responsible sales rep
4. Automatic first response to lead
5. Reminder to sales rep after 24h without reaction

Tools: HubSpot, Pipedrive, or Make + CRM

Time Savings: 10-15 minutes per lead

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2. Social Media Content Recycling

Problem: Good content is posted once and then forgotten. Nobody has time to reuse old posts.

Automation:

1. New blog article is published
2. Automatic creation of 5 social posts (different formats)
3. Posts are scheduled over 4 weeks
4. After 3 months: Evergreen content is rescheduled

Tools: Buffer, Zapier, or Make + Social Scheduler

Time Savings: 2-3 hours per week

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3. Webinar Follow-Up

Problem: Days pass after the webinar before attendees get a summary. Many are never followed up.

Automation:

1. Webinar ends
2. Automatically: Thank you email with recording link (after 1 hour)
3. Automatically: Summary + resources (after 24 hours)
4. Automatically: Follow-up for no-shows with new date
5. Hot leads are automatically handed to sales

Tools: Zoom + HubSpot/ActiveCampaign + Make

Time Savings: 3-4 hours per webinar

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Human Resources

4. New Employee Onboarding Workflow

Problem: During onboarding, access gets forgotten, training isn't scheduled, the first day is chaotic.

Automation:

1. HR enters new employee (start date)
2. 2 weeks before: IT receives ticket for hardware + access
3. 1 week before: Calendar entries for training are created
4. Start date: Automatic welcome email with all info
5. After 1 week: Feedback survey to new employee
6. After 30 days: Reminder to manager for probation review

Tools: BambooHR, Workday, or n8n + HR system

Time Savings: 4-6 hours per new hire

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5. Leave Request Process

Problem: Paper forms, signature folders, Excel vacation calendar that's never current.

Automation:

1. Employee submits request via portal
2. Automatic check: Remaining leave sufficient?
3. Automatic notification to supervisor
4. After approval: Automatic calendar entry
5. Automatic update of vacation calendar
6. Reminder 1 week before vacation starts

Tools: BambooHR, Gusto, or Microsoft Power Automate

Time Savings: 20-30 minutes per request

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6. Sick Leave Workflow

Problem: Employee calls in sick via text. HR hears about it randomly. Documentation is missing.

Automation:

1. Employee reports sick via app/portal
2. Automatic notification to supervisor and team
3. Automatic notification to HR
4. Reminder on day 3: Upload doctor's note
5. For extended illness: Automatic return-to-work reminder

Tools: BambooHR, Gusto, or custom workflow with Forms + Make

Time Savings: 15-20 minutes per sick leave

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Finance & Accounting

7. Invoice Approval

Problem: Invoices sit on desks for days. Nobody knows who should approve. Early payment discounts are missed.

Automation:

1. Invoice is scanned/received
2. OCR recognizes vendor, amount, invoice number
3. Automatic matching with purchase order
4. Under $500: Automatic approval
5. Over $500: Routing to budget owner
6. Escalation after 48h without reaction
7. After approval: Automatic booking and payment

Tools: SAP Concur, Bill.com, or Tipalti

Time Savings: 5-10 minutes per invoice

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8. Month-End Close Checklist

Problem: Same tasks every month - and something still gets forgotten.

Automation:

1. On the 1st of the month: Automatic creation of all tasks
2. Assignment to responsible people
3. Automatic reminders on due dates
4. Status overview for finance leadership
5. After completion: Automatic archiving

Tools: Asana, Monday.com, or ClickUp with templates

Time Savings: 1-2 hours per month

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9. Expense Reports

Problem: Employees collect receipts, fill out Excel, send by email. Accounting types it in.

Automation:

1. Employee photographs receipt with app
2. OCR recognizes data automatically
3. Categorization and project assignment
4. Automatic approval request
5. After approval: Automatic booking
6. Automatic payout with next payroll

Tools: Expensify, SAP Concur, Ramp

Time Savings: 80% of previous processing time

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Customer Service

10. Ticket Categorization and Routing

Problem: All inquiries land in the same inbox. Support staff sorts manually.

Automation:

1. Customer sends inquiry (email, form, chat)
2. AI analyzes content and categorizes
3. Automatic priority based on customer and urgency
4. Routing to responsible team/person
5. Automatic first response with estimated processing time
6. SLA tracking and automatic escalation

Tools: Zendesk, Freshdesk, Intercom

Time Savings: 2-3 minutes per ticket

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11. Automatic FAQ Responses

Problem: 60% of inquiries are standard questions that are always answered the same way.

Automation:

1. Customer asks question
2. AI recognizes standard question
3. Automatic response with link to help article
4. "Did this answer your question?"
5. If "No": Routing to human
6. If "Yes": Ticket automatically closed

Tools: Intercom, Zendesk Answer Bot, Freshdesk Freddy

Time Savings: 60% fewer tickets for humans

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12. Customer Feedback Collection

Problem: No systematic feedback. NPS is maybe measured once a year.

Automation:

1. Ticket is closed
2. After 24h: Automatic satisfaction survey
3. On poor rating: Automatic escalation
4. Monthly automatic reporting
5. Trigger for follow-up with promoters

Tools: Delighted, Typeform + Make, HubSpot

Time Savings: Continuous feedback without effort

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Operations & IT

13. System Monitoring and Alerting

Problem: IT learns about problems only when users complain.

Automation:

1. Continuous monitoring of all systems
2. On anomaly: Automatic ticket creation
3. Automatic notification to responsible admin
4. For critical issues: Escalation to on-call
5. Automatic status page update
6. Post-incident report template creation

Tools: Datadog, PagerDuty, or Uptime Robot + Slack

Time Savings: Faster response, less downtime

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14. Backup Verification

Problem: Backups run - but nobody checks if they work.

Automation:

1. Nightly backup runs
2. Automatic restore test on test system
3. Automatic check: Data complete?
4. On success: Log entry
5. On failure: Immediate notification to IT
6. Weekly automatic report

Tools: Custom scripts + monitoring, or cloud backup solutions

Time Savings: Security without manual effort

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15. Software License Tracking

Problem: Licenses expire without warning. Or: More licenses are paid for than used.

Automation:

1. Central capture of all licenses
2. 90 days before expiry: Automatic reminder
3. 30 days before expiry: Escalation
4. Monthly comparison: Licenses vs. active users
5. Automatic report on savings potential

Tools: Zylo, Productiv, or Airtable + Make

Time Savings: Avoidance of costs and outages

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How to Start with Workflow Automation

Step 1: Identify Pain Points

Ask yourself and your team:

• Which tasks are most annoying?
• What do you do the same every day/week?
• Where do the most errors happen?

Step 2: Start Simple

Choose an automation with:

• Clear, frequent trigger
• Simple logic
• Measurable result

Step 3: Choose a Tool

For getting started, we recommend:

• Make: Flexible, good value for money
• Zapier: Simple, large app library
• Power Automate: Ideal for Microsoft environments

Step 4: Improve Iteratively

After the first automation:

• Measure the savings
• Collect feedback
• Expand step by step

Conclusion

Workflow automation isn't rocket science. With the right tools and clear focus, you can save time today - and take annoying tasks off your team's plate.

Start with one of the 15 examples above. Choose what annoys you most and automate it. The rest follows naturally.

Need help with implementation? We help you identify and implement the right automations - pragmatic and fast.