Essential IT automations in 2023: 6 BetterCloud workflows shown in GIFs

IT automation is now more than just hype, as most organizations already enjoy big gains from automating tedious or manual IT tasks in 2023. 

In fact, our SaaS automation research found that 75% of organizations currently automate some of IT, while 92% of IT pros say they still spend too much time on manual IT duties that could be automated. 

Clearly, there’s more work to be done and BetterCloud’s automation possibilities are vast. After all, BetterCloud allows you to build no-code automated workflows from an ever-expanding library of more than 1000+ essential actions across more than 70 SaaS apps. 

And, of course, we’re always adding new integrations and enhancing existing ones. In addition, we now allow custom workflow triggers for advanced users and Workflow Templates give both new and experienced users a great starting point for automating manual IT work.

In a big world of possibilities, what else could BetterCloud help you automate in 2023? 

Here we show you 6 essential IT automations every organization should use now. Three IT workflows are zero touch while 3 are essential IT workflows for employee onboarding and offboarding.

3 Essential ways to go zero-touch in 2023 for automating IT

Some of the biggest efficiencies you can get in automating IT tasks are found in automating good, old routine help desk tickets. Here are three IT workflows every company should build and take advantage of right now.

1. Reset SaaS app MFA and passwords from an ITSM ticket

For the 100^th time this week — and it’s only Tuesday– you’ve got a password reset request. 

You ask yourself over and over, “Did I really get that degree for this? Why do I drag myself out of bed every morning to do the same thing today that I did over and over yesterday?” 

All while, of course, the strategic IT projects pile up untouched.

Well, it’s high time to automate the mundane password reset task away. 

Regardless of whether your company uses Jira, ServiceNow, or Zendesk, all it takes is a quick and painless integration between BetterCloud and your IT service management (ITSM) tool.

And it’s easy for your employees, too. All they do is submit a ticket like they usually do, and this essential BetterCloud IT workflow immediately performs the reset and notifies the user – so you don’t have to. The result, of course, is a big productivity boost to both users and IT. 

2. Grant temporary access for efficient license management

Managing application licenses and budgets is increasingly important in today’s lean economic times. Every software dollar matters, but when there’s work to be done, a license needs to be granted. And you have to drop everything to get the appropriate approval and then give access.

To save you some time, here’s another essential BetterCloud IT workflow to the rescue.

Every time an employee submits an app access request ticket, it gets sent to BetterCloud to grant temporary access via Slack. Employees get the license when they need it and where they work. They can skip logins and different tabs and get down to business.

If the license level is free, no approval is necessary. But if it’s not, an approval request goes to the manager. While waiting for approval, you can grant temporary access that gets automatically revoked if approval is not granted.

3. Reclaim inactive licenses to efficiently manage software spending

Nothing is more annoying than another unused, paid SaaS license. 

The trouble is, though, you must manually go through each app to identify inactivity. 

And with many users and dozens of SaaS apps (each with their own contracts, renewal schedules, and license terms), the task of surfacing inactivity never, ever ends. In too many cases, inactivity monitoring ends up being too time-consuming, so you simply don’t do it. Then, the software spending and license waste continue. 

But now, you can banish the software budget bloat with another essential BetterCloud IT automation.

Setting it up is easy. All you do is simply define deactivation criteria for each SaaS app. You can add low or no usage rules by number of days since last login, customizing each according to how expensive an app might be. 

And once a license sits idle long enough and hits the threshold for idle license alerting, you get notified to reclaim it. 

With an easy and essential BetterCloud IT workflow, saving on SaaS has never been easier. 

3 Ways to simplify IT automations for employee onboarding and offboarding

You can’t talk about automating IT with essential IT workflows in 2023 without discussing ways to make user lifecycle management (ULM) more efficient. Let’s look at a few ideas across ULM.

1. Convert contractors to full-time employees in a few clicks

If your organization is like most, contractors generally get limited access to a set of applications and resources. Because of this, a contractor profile is usually sparsely completed with the minimum requirements.

However, when contractors become full-time employees, all that changes. Now you need to offboard them from contractor resources and onboard them as you would a new employee. 

This, of course, takes a lot of time to offboard them them and add them back with:

• Completed profiles 
• New SaaS apps 
• Expanded SaaS app access to higher license tiers
• HR apps
• Groups that were previously restricted 
• Broader calendar access
• More Slack channels

But an essential BetterCloud IT automation can eliminate that time-killing tedium. You can build a mid-lifecycle workflow to convert contractors and even do multiple conversions at the same time. The task is then done in a few, fast and happy clicks.

2. Onboard a new employee’s SaaS apps, groups, calendars at a specific time

Another day and another new employee. HR just informed you that 3 new employees are starting on Monday, and you need to drop everything and get their provisioning complete by the end of tomorrow. 

Of course, you were only planning to work a half-day because you need to catch a plane for your summer vacation.

Thanks to the ability to schedule on-demand workflows, IT can initiate workflows at a scheduled date and time according to their requirements. 

All IT needs to do is set up onboarding workflows according to HR’s instructions regarding business functions or departments, role, and resources. Which, of course, includes all SaaS apps, groups, calendars, and Slack groups.

Then, IT simply schedules the date and time to kick off the appropriate workflow and the onboarding process is quickly completed.

3. Offboard all resources for former employee from HRIS without an IT ticket

Instead of the long, arduous manual process that starts with HR notification and ends with all offboarding tasks, IT builds offboarding workflows that are triggered by HR’s simple status change in Workday (it works the same way if you use another HRIS like BambooHR). 

As soon as HR changes employee status from active to inactive, this essential IT automated workflow kicks off and the offboarding process is completed in minutes.

Files and emails are transferred, apps are deprovisioned, and the employee is removed from groups and calendars in an instant. All without so much as an IT ticket.

You might already know that we can automate onboarding, offboarding, and license management. Want a more detailed guide on tapping into the power of automation? Download this guide.