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Project 05 / Demonstration build

Automation inside Microsoft 365

Outlook intake updates SharePoint, assigns a reviewer, and posts to Teams. Excel and Power BI use the same list for reporting.

Category: Microsoft 365 · Designed outcomes, not measured client results.

OutlookSharePointWeekly reportUnknown sender held

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Who this is for

Tax firms, accounting firms, engineering consultancies, and offices of 5 to 15 people that already work in Microsoft 365.

The problem

Example client brief

“We are a small tax firm. Client documents come in by email. Someone saves them to the right SharePoint folder, updates a tracker in Excel, and at the end of the week builds a status report by hand. We already pay for Microsoft. We do not want another subscription.”
Three steps
  1. Client email or form arrives in Outlook
  2. Record created in a SharePoint list, file filed in the right folder
  3. Weekly report built in Excel, summary in Power BI

Designed outcome

Intake, filing, and the weekly report run on the Microsoft tools the firm already pays for.

What the workflow does

  1. A Power Automate flow watches a shared Outlook mailbox. It matches the sender or subject to a client record, saves attachments in that client's SharePoint folder, and adds a SharePoint list item.
  2. A second flow responds to list changes. It acknowledges receipt, assigns a reviewer, and posts to Teams. Completion markers prevent its own updates from producing repeated acknowledgements.
  3. An Excel workbook uses Power Query to read the list. A refresh replaces the hand-maintained tracker.
  4. Power BI Desktop reads the same list for intake by week, turnaround time, and items waiting on the client.
  5. Intake and filing stay on standard Microsoft connectors. The demonstration belongs in the operator's own tenant, with sample client documents.

License boundary

Business Basic does not include desktop Excel. The workbook requires an appropriate Excel license for the chosen connector and refresh method. Power BI Desktop can be used locally; publishing and sharing reports have separate licensing requirements. Premium connectors or external HTTP calls also change the Power Automate licensing requirement.

The intake flow and the reporting layer are scoped separately so the client knows which parts its existing subscription covers.

Failure test setup

The list-access test revokes access or uses an invalid list reference. Renaming a display title may not cause a failure when the connector uses the list ID. An error-handling scope captures the failed action and links to the run history.

Failure handling

When it breaks

01

An email arrives from an unknown sender.

The message goes to a holding folder. A Teams notice asks someone to assign the client, so the file does not land in a guessed folder.

02

An attachment is a password-protected PDF.

The file is kept and the item is marked “needs attention.” A reviewer flags protected files when automatic detection is unavailable. The other attachments continue.

03

The flow loses access to the target SharePoint list.

The flow reports the failed step and links to its run history. The team can see which items still need processing.