Whether your team uses a big-name Human Resource Information System (HRIS) or a proprietary manual process, employee onboarding is not a siloed task. In practice, it touches nearly every department of an organization, from HR to admin.
Access needs to be granted, equipment prepared, documentation completed, and teams aligned long before day one. As a result, onboarding success depends less on how employee data is stored and more on the ability of an organization to collaborate across teams.
This is where SharePoint and Power Automate can play a critical role.
At DMC, we have evolved our own onboarding approach over time, moving from SharePoint Designer workflows to a more modern solution built on Power Automate, SharePoint lists, and Modern Pages. This approach has allowed our organization, as well as clients we’ve assisted, to create a more flexible and maintainable onboarding system aligned with current Microsoft 365 best practices.
If you are considering a SharePoint and Power Automate solution because you’ve outgrown the capabilities of your HRIS or you want to add some rigor to current manual processes, there are some important considerations to make before making the switch.
1. Consider Where HRIS Platforms Add Value and Where They Fall Short
HRISs play an essential role in onboarding. They are designed to manage employee records, benefits, and compliance-related processes, and they do this very well.
However, HRIS platforms are not typically built to orchestrate dynamic, cross-department workflows.
Common limitations include:
- Rigid, one-size-fits-all workflows.
- Limited configurability without vendor involvement.
- Lack of visibility for non-HR teams.
- Weak integration with the tools employees use every day, such as Teams and SharePoint.
As a result, teams often fall back on email, spreadsheets, or ad hoc tracking methods to fill the gaps.
HRIS systems are designed to manage employee data, not to coordinate operational tasks. And when those tasks apply to different teams across departments, HRIS systems can really fall short. This is not a shortcoming of HRIS platforms; it’s simply a matter of scope.
That said, the most effective approach is not to fully replace an HRIS but to extend it. This is where SharePoint and Power Automate can act as a flexible coordination layer, connecting people, tasks, and systems across the onboarding lifecycle.
2. Assess Your Current Onboarding Process and Requirements
Before designing a solution, it is important to understand how onboarding actually works in your organization today.
As we’ve mentioned, onboarding is not a single workflow. It is a collection of tasks owned by different teams, each with its own processes, timing, and requirements.
So, it’s important to ask some of the following questions before designing a new onboarding system:
- Who is responsible for each task? Responsibility often varies depending on the task and the employee. For example, setting up IT credentials may be handled centrally by a single team member, while preparing a desk or workspace may depend on local office staff.
- What tasks are required for different types of hires? Full-time employees, contractors, and remote workers may all follow different onboarding paths.
- How do onboarding tasks vary by office location? On-site onboarding tasks often differ from office to office. For example, one location may need to coordinate building access and employee badging, while another may need to prepare a parking space or other workspace accommodations.
- What documents, approvals, or systems are involved? Consider offer letters, compliance forms, equipment requests, and system access.
- How is progress tracked today? Many teams rely on email threads, spreadsheets, or disconnected tools, which can make it difficult to maintain visibility.
An effective onboarding system must reflect this complexity and variation. It needs to support cross-functional ownership while providing a single, clear view of progress.
3. Evaluate the Tradeoffs of Hard-Coded Onboarding Workflows
When HRIS platforms fall short in coordinating tasks, organizations often turn to custom workflows.
In many cases, these workflows are hard-coded to define:
- Which tasks are created.
- Who each task is assigned to.
- When tasks are triggered.
- How dependencies and due dates are structured.
- Which onboarding stage initiates the work.
This approach can work initially, especially for straightforward onboarding processes. However, onboarding rarely stays static.
As organizations grow and evolve, certain changes are inevitable. HR might introduce new compliance steps; a team may suddenly need to reassign responsibilities; new office locations may require different onboarding activities; a start date or timeline changes, etc.
When these rules are embedded into a workflow, even small changes call for developers to update, test, and redeploy every solution. Over time, this approach slows system improvement, increases maintenance, and introduces risk. Over time, this slows down improvement, increases maintenance overhead, and introduces risk.
The more rigid the system, the harder it becomes to adapt.
4. Consider a Configurable, Template-Driven Approach with SharePoint and Power Automate
A more flexible approach is to separate workflow logic from task definition.
Instead of hard-coding tasks into Power Automate flows, onboarding tasks can be stored as configurable templates in SharePoint lists. Each template defines the task, its owner, timing, and any relevant dependencies.
Power Automate can then dynamically read these templates and generate tasks based on the specific onboarding scenario.
This approach offers several advantages:
- Business users can manage the process without modifying workflows.
- Changes do not require redeployment, reducing dependency on developers.
- Onboarding can scale more easily across roles, locations, and employee types.
- Variations can be handled dynamically, rather than through separate workflows.
This model also complements HRIS platforms well. HRIS systems remain the source of truth for employee data, while SharePoint and Power Automate handle task coordination and execution.
5. Plan for Visibility, Ownership, and Adaptation
The most effective onboarding systems make work visible and ownership clear.
Key design considerations include:
- Role-based views for HR, IT, managers, and employees.
- Clear task ownership, so nothing falls between teams.
- Real-time status tracking, reducing the need for follow-ups.
- Scalability, to support new roles, locations, and hiring volume.
- Reusability, allowing the same framework to support offboarding and other workflows.
When teams can see what needs to be done, who is responsible, and what is complete, onboarding becomes more predictable and less dependent on manual coordination.
A Flexible, Modern Approach to Onboarding
HRIS platforms are essential for managing employee data and meeting compliance standards, but can fall short when it comes to onboarding task management. SharePoint and Power Automate can help coordinate teams through essential onboarding tasks, from the moment a new hire signs their offer letter to long after their first day.
Whether you’re looking to extend an existing onboarding process or build something new, DMC can help! We’ve assisted organizations in moving from spreadsheets and email-driven processes to scalable, automated onboarding systems built on Microsoft 365. By combining these tools and adopting a configurable, template-driven approach using SharePoint and Power Automate, organizations can build onboarding workflows that adapt over time and grow with the team.
Looking to boost your existing onboarding system or build something new?
Partner with DMC’s Digital Workplace Solutions team to design an onboarding workflow that grows with your organization.