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By Jason A Bell in Demo —

Automating the Employee Lifecycle with Power Platform

Automating the Employee Lifecycle with Power Platform

This five‑post series will guide you—step by step—through building a fully automated onboarding and offboarding solution using the Microsoft technology stack, including: Dataverse, Power Automate, Microsoft Planner, and more. Each post includes a hands‑on demo so you can follow along in your own environment.

  1. Understanding the Employee Lifecycle & Automation Tools
  2. Designing Your Onboarding Data Model
  3. Automating Account Provisioning
  4. Streamlining Tasks & Approval Workflows
  5. Notifications, Offboarding, Benefits & Advanced Options

Introduction & Series Roadmap

Every new hire (and departing employee) triggers a complex series of tasks—identity provisioning, license assignments, hardware orders, approvals, notifications, and more. Manually juggling these steps leads to delays, errors, and poor experiences.

In this series, you’ll learn how to:

  • Map the full employee lifecycle.
  • Model onboarding data in Dataverse.
  • Automate Azure AD account creation and license provisioning.
  • Create Planner plans and tasks automatically.
  • Build approval workflows and notifications.
  • Handle offboarding seamlessly.
  • Measure your time savings and explore advanced automation options.

Each post includes a Demo Video so you can see the exact screens, flows, and configurations in action.

2. Understanding the Employee Lifecycle & Automation Tools

Before you automate, you need a clear map of the steps involved:

  1. Request to Onboard → Provision identity → Grant licenses → Notify user → Order hardware → Notify manager → Track shipment
  2. Request to Offboard → Disable identity → Remove licenses → Archive assets → Recall hardware → Notify parties → Track shipment

Key Automation Tools

  • Dataverse – Store employee records and drive data‑backed triggers
  • Power Automate – Orchestrate flows that talk to Azure AD, Planner, and more
  • Microsoft Planner – Manage task lists for HR, IT, and hiring managers
  • Power Platform Approvals – Collect manager sign‑offs before proceeding
  • Adaptive Cards & Email – Send rich notifications to stakeholders

3. Designing Your Onboarding Data Model

A solid data model in Dataverse is the foundation for reliable automation. You’ll create an “Employee” table (or use a Dataverse solution table) with fields like:

  • Name, Email, Role, Start Date
  • Lookups to Manager or Office Location
  • Option sets for Employee Type (Full‑Time, Contractor, Intern)

Best Practices:

  • Choose Dataverse over SharePoint when you need relational lookups and security roles.
  • Keep each table focused on one concept—don’t overload with unrelated fields.
  • Plan for row‑level security so only HR sees salary info, while IT sees provisioning data.

4. Automating Account Provisioning

Once a new record lands in your Employee table, trigger a flow to:

  1. Create an Azure AD user with the employee’s email and display name.
  2. Assign Microsoft 365 licenses based on their Role field (e.g., E3 for full‑time, Business Basic for contractors).
  3. Write back the user’s Object ID to Dataverse for downstream tasks.

Flow Highlights:

  • Use the When a row is added Dataverse trigger.
  • Call the Azure AD connector to create users and assign licenses.
  • Implement error handling so failed provisioning sends an alert to IT.

5. Streamlining Tasks & Approval Workflows

Planner Task Automation

  • Trigger: After account provisioning succeeds.
  • Actions:
    • Create a new Planner plan named “Onboarding – [Employee Name]”
    • Add tasks like “Setup laptop,” “Complete HR forms,” and “Team introduction.”
    • Assign tasks to IT, HR, and the hiring manager.

Approval Workflow

  • Trigger: When the Employee record is created or modified.
  • Use: Power Platform’s Approval action.
  • Steps:
    1. Send a manager approval request.
    2. On Approve, continue onboarding flows.
    3. On Reject, notify HR and halt downstream tasks.

6. Notifications, Offboarding, Benefits & Advanced Options

User Notifications

  • Use Adaptive Cards in Teams or HTML emails to inform new hires of their login details and first‑day tasks.
  • Notify hiring managers when provisioning is complete and share next steps.

Automating Offboarding

Mirror the onboarding flow in reverse:

  1. Trigger: When Offboard flag is set.
  2. Actions:
    • Disable Azure AD account.
    • Remove licenses.
    • Archive employee record.
    • Create a Planner plan for asset collection and exit interviews.

Measuring Benefits

  • Time savings: Compare manual vs. automated task completion times.
  • Accuracy: Track provisioning errors or missed steps.
  • Experience: Survey new hires on process clarity and timeliness.

Advanced Options

  • Service Principals / Runbooks / Azure Functions for complex integrations.
  • Dynamic conditional branches in flows based on department or location.
  • Extended notifications using custom bots or third‑party connectors.

Ready to get started? Follow each post in this series, watch the demos, and you’ll have a turnkey, automated employee lifecycle solution by the end.

Next

Understanding the Employee Lifecycle & Automation Tools

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