Workflow automation
The steps that should happen on their own
Every business has jobs that exist only because two systems do not talk to each other, or because someone has to remember to chase. Those are the ones worth automating first.
The path a job takes
- Digital form
- Power Automate
- SharePoint
- Email notification
The problem
Manual steps are invisible until you add them up
Individually none of these take long. Together they are often most of someone's week.
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Approvals that live in email
A request goes out, then sits. Nobody can say whether it was seen, who has it now, or what was decided last time something similar came up.
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Re-keying between systems
Information is entered in one place, then typed again into another because there is no connection between the two.
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Filing by hand
Finished documents get saved manually, which means naming conventions drift and things end up in the wrong folder — or somebody's downloads.
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Chasing as a job description
Someone spends part of every day checking whether a stage has been completed and reminding people that it has not.
What Forge provides
Automation that fits the process you already have
The first job is deciding what should be automated and what should not. Automating a broken process only makes it break faster, so the process gets mapped first and simplified where it obviously needs it. What is left is built with the most direct tool available — often something already included in a Microsoft 365 subscription.
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Trigger
Something happens
A form is submitted, a job is marked complete, or a date is reached.
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Rules
The system decides
Conditions you set determine who it goes to and what happens next.
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Action
The work is done
A document is produced, a record updated, an approval requested.
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Record
It is filed and flagged
Stored where it belongs, numbered consistently, and the right people told.
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Digital forms and approvals
Paper forms and email chains replaced with structured digital forms and sign-offs, routed to the right people and recorded automatically.
- Structured, validated data instead of free text
- Requests routed on rules you set
- A clear record of every decision
- Built with Microsoft Power Apps and Power Automate where they fit
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Documents and filing
Documents generated from captured data and filed where they belong, without anyone choosing a folder or inventing a filename.
- PDFs built to consistent, branded templates
- Automatic filing into Microsoft SharePoint
- Consistent reference numbering
- Images resized and processed on upload
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Notifications and reliability
Automation is only useful if you can trust it, which means knowing when something has not worked.
- Email notifications at the stages that matter
- Retries when a step fails first time
- Failure alerts, so problems surface rather than going unnoticed
The platform
Workflow automation with Microsoft 365, SharePoint and Power Automate
Most small businesses already pay for the tools that would automate the step they do by hand. Where that is true, the cheapest good answer is to use them.
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Power Automate for the flow itself
The trigger, the conditions and the actions — a form submitted, an approval routed to the right person, a document produced, a record updated — run as a Power Automate flow, with retries and failure alerts so a step that does not work surfaces instead of going unnoticed.
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Power Apps for the screens people fill in
Where the job is a structured form or a sign-off rather than a full application, Power Apps gives the people doing the work somewhere to enter validated data on a phone or a laptop, instead of a paper form or a free-text email.
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SharePoint as the place documents land
Finished documents are filed into SharePoint automatically, to a structure and a reference number agreed in advance, so nobody chooses a folder or invents a filename. That is usually the step that stops filing drifting.
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When Microsoft 365 alone is not the right answer
Some processes need more than a flow and a form. Those are built as a custom business application that still reaches your Microsoft 365 tenant through Microsoft Graph, so documents stay in your own SharePoint and staff sign in with the work accounts they already have.
In practice
Automation inside a working system
In the portals Forge built for GB Solutions UK, the automation is not a separate product bolted on — it is part of how the applications work. Client and site details are selected from shared records rather than re-typed, finished documents are generated as branded PDFs and filed into SharePoint automatically, photographs uploaded from a phone are processed on arrival, and email notifications with retries and failure alerts sit behind it all.
Related services
Questions
Automating with the tools you already pay for
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Can you automate business workflows using SharePoint and Microsoft 365?
Yes. Approvals, notifications, document generation and automatic filing are built with Power Automate, Power Apps and SharePoint inside your existing Microsoft 365 tenant where those tools fit the process. Where they do not, the same workflow is built as a custom application that still files documents into your SharePoint through Microsoft Graph.
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Do we need to buy anything beyond our Microsoft 365 subscription?
Often not. The first step is mapping the process and deciding what should be automated at all, then building what is left with the most direct tool available — frequently something already included in the subscription. Where a licence or a custom build genuinely is needed, that is said before any work starts.
Next step
Which job would you stop doing by hand?
Describe the step that keeps coming back. A free consultation will tell you whether it is worth automating, and what it would take. For businesses nearby, the business automation in Essex page covers how on-site work is arranged.