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Microsoft Lists: Building an Automated Onboarding Checklist

Employee onboarding is often a mess of spreadsheets, emails, and forgotten tasks. IT forgets to ship the laptop. HR forgets to send the benefits package. The manager forgets to schedule the welcome lunch.

Microsoft Lists is the perfect tool to fix this process because it isn’t just a list—it’s a database that can trigger automation.

Step 1: Create the Master List

Don’t start from blank. Microsoft Lists has a template called “Onboarding Checklist,” but we’re going to build a better one.

Columns you need:
1. Task Name (Text)
2. Assigned To (Person)
3. Variable Stage (Choice: “Pre-Start”, “Day 1”, “Week 1”)
4. Department (Choice: “IT”, “HR”, “Sales”)
5. Status (Choice: “Pending”, “Done”)
6. Due Date (Date)

This is already better than Excel because the “Assigned To” column links to actual Active Directory users, meaning they get notifications.

Step 2: Creates Views for Stakeholders

The magic of Lists is Views. You don’t want IT seeing HR’s tasks.

  1. Create a view called “IT Tasks”.
  2. Filter: Department is equal to IT.
  3. Filter: Status is not equal to Done.

Now, your IT team has a focused dashboard of just what they need to do (Laptop setup, Account creation).

Step 3: Automate with Rules (No Code)

You don’t even need Power Automate for basic notifications.

  1. Click Automate -> Rules -> Create a Rule.
  2. High value rule: “When a new item is created, email [Manager Name]”.
  3. Another one: “When Status changes to Done, email [HR Manager]”.

Step 4: The Power Automate Level Up

If you want to get fancy, use Power Automate to generate the checklist automatically.

The Trigger: When a new employee is added to your “All Employees” list.
The Action: Power Automate loops through a “Master Template” list and copies every standard onboarding task into a new personalized list for that specific employee.

This ensures that every single new hire gets the exact same consistent experience, with zero manual data entry from HR.

Why Switch?

Excel is static. Microsoft Lists is dynamic. By moving your onboarding checklist to Lists, you turn a passive document into an active workflow engine that nags people for you.