Stop Wasting Engineer Time: 7 Tasks Every MSP Should Automate Immediately

Every hour your engineers spend on routine tasks is an hour not spent on solving complex problems, improving systems, or driving revenue.

Yet in many MSPs, highly skilled engineers still find themselves resetting passwords, collecting missing information, or manually triaging tickets. It’s a familiar scenario, and a costly one.

According to industry estimates, the total cost of employing a software engineer, including salary, benefits, overhead, and productivity impact, can exceed $120,000 to $200,000 per year. That breaks down to around $60 to $100 per hour. The question is, are those hours being used where they deliver the most value?

Fortunately, tools now exist to help lift these repetitive, low-value tasks off your engineers’ shoulders. RMMs, PSAs, scripting engines, and automation platforms are all designed to reduce workload and improve efficiency. But like any investment, automation only creates impact when it is applied with intention and clarity.

This is where the real opportunity lies.

In this blog, we will walk you through seven MSP automation use cases that many still manage manually. Each one is a chance to streamline operations, protect engineering time, and build a more scalable service model.

Let’s take a closer look at what is slowing your team down and how you can begin to fix it.

1. Password Resets and Account

Passwords are essential to security, but they’re also one of the most common sources of IT disruption. When someone forgets theirs or gets locked out, the impact is immediate: access stalls, work pauses, and a ticket lands in your queue.

These are straightforward issues to resolve, yet in many MSPs, engineers are still involved in almost every reset or unlock. This usually stems from the lack of a self-service solution, outdated workflows that require manual approval, or simply defaulting to legacy processes that haven’t been revisited.

Tasks like these create unnecessary friction. Engineers lose time and focus, handling requests that add little value. When bundled into queues with higher-priority issues, they inflate ticket volumes and drag down SLAs, putting service quality at risk for work that takes just seconds.

Smarter MSPs reduce this burden by:

• Deploying self-service portals or identity platforms that allow users to manage their own password resets or account unlocks.
• Integrating these actions into the PSA so everything is logged automatically without needing a technician
• Using rules-based automation, such as 2FA checks, to approve account unlocks without ticket creation

Many MSPs already have tools like Microsoft 365 or third-party IAM platforms that support this level of automation. It’s just a matter of configuring and aligning them with client policies. Done right, this single improvement can eliminate up to 30% of recurring service desk tickets.

It’s a quick win that frees up your engineers to focus on higher-value work while improving the user experience for your clients.

2. Ticket Sorting and Categorization

Manual triaging still takes up valuable time in many MSP environments. Engineers are expected to interpret vague tickets, assign categories, and route them to the right person, all before any technical work even begins. It’s an inefficient process that slows teams down and reduces overall responsiveness.

The underlying problem is often the lack of structured routing. Some MSPs rely on broad queues and minimal filtering, while others expect senior engineers to classify and redirect tickets on the fly. This leads to delays, misrouted issues, and increased mental loads for technicians.

Automation can simplify this dramatically. Most PSAs allow you to:

• Set up rule-based routing using ticket types, tags, or urgency levels
• Trigger classification using keywords or standardized submission templates
• Assign tickets directly to the right team without manual intervention

Where full automation isn’t yet possible, first-line triage support or virtual assistants can be introduced to manage intake and ensure tickets are properly routed from the start.

A well-structured triage system doesn’t just save time; it also improves the flow of work across the service desk and ensures priority issues are addressed faster. Our consultants often work with MSPs to design these flows, identify friction points, and implement practical solutions that reduce load on technical staff. With the right structure in place, engineers can focus more on solving issues and less on sorting them.

3. Manual Patch Approvals

Manual patching remains surprisingly common, even among MSPs with mature RMM tools. Engineers often spend hours logging into individual systems just to approve updates, hours that could be automated with the right policies in place.

This typically happens when MSPs hesitate to trust automated patching due to fears of failure or simply haven’t implemented structured approval logic in their RMM. The result? Slower responses to known vulnerabilities, inconsistent patching across environments, and wasted technical time.

What wise MSPs do instead:

• Set patch policies based on risk level. Critical updates are auto approved after a defined test window, typically 48 hours, allowing issues to surface without delaying urgent fixes.
• Segment systems and deploy patches in controlled waves. Group endpoints by environment type or client profile. This allows for progressive rollouts and reduces the blast radius of any failed update.
• Use automation dashboards for visibility and accountability. Instead of manually approving each update, engineers monitor patch statuses through real-time dashboards, maintaining control without manual effort.

These strategies keep your team focused on high-value tasks while maintaining a secure, standardized patching process across all clients.

With this kind of setup, creating a smarter way to manage it. If you're unsure how to start, this kind of process is exactly what our consultants help build, often as part of broader automation improvements. We talked more about this in our post on the top 5 automation mistakes MSPs make.

4. Onboarding and Offboarding Workflows 

Manual onboarding often means setting up user accounts, assigning permissions, and configuring drives one by one, with engineers following scattered instructions from emails, spreadsheets, or tribal knowledge.

Without automation, new hires are left waiting for access, and offboarding steps are easily missed, leaving former users with access they shouldn’t have.

What smart MSPs do instead:

• Standardize and automate provisioning. Build templates that handle account creation, license assignment, and access configuration triggered by helpdesk tickets or HR forms.
• Link automation to ticket or form triggers. Let workflows run automatically based on predefined input, ensuring consistency and reducing human error.
• Automate offboarding steps. Remove access, deactivate accounts, and update documentation without needing manual follow-up.

These workflows not only improve accuracy, but they also give clients a smoother onboarding experience. And we can help you set this up, so your teams spend less time repeating checklists and more time delivering real value.

5. Updating Documentation and Asset Records

Manual onboarding often means setting up user accounts, assigning permissions, and configuring drives one by one, with engineers following scattered instructions from emails, spreadsheets, or tribal knowledge.

Without automation, new hires are left waiting for access, and offboarding steps are easily missed, leaving former users with access they shouldn’t have.

What smart MSPs do instead:

• Standardize and automate provisioning. Build templates that handle account creation, license assignment, and access configuration triggered by helpdesk tickets or HR forms.
• Link automation to ticket or form triggers. Let workflows run automatically based on predefined input, ensuring consistency and reducing human error.
• Automate offboarding steps. Remove access, deactivate accounts, and update documentation without needing manual follow-up.

These workflows not only improve accuracy, but they also give clients a smoother onboarding experience. And we can help you set this up, so your teams spend less time repeating checklists and more time delivering real value.

6. Following Up with End Users

It starts with a simple request: “Can you send a screenshot?”. Then ends with engineers stuck in limbo, waiting days for a reply that may never come. When follow-ups rely on manual check-ins, the result is open-ended tickets, escalations, and frustrated teams on both sides.

What smart MSPs do instead:

• Use PSA workflows to send timed reminders automatically. These workflows can follow up after a set number of hours or days without input, keeping tickets active without manual effort.
• Escalate or reassign tickets if users don’t respond within a defined SLA. Instead of letting tickets stall, automated triggers can escalate or reroute them based on response time thresholds.
• Integrate follow-up messages into platforms clients already use. Whether it’s Teams, Slack, or email, embedding reminders in everyday tools improves response rates without extra work from your techs.

Automating follow-ups keeps tickets moving—without turning engineers into admin assistants. If you're rethinking how your SLAs are structured and enforced, check out our blog on raising the standard to see how a tighter SLA strategy can elevate your entire service experience. We can also help tailor these workflows to your tools and ticketing process.

7.Generating Reports and Pulling Logs 

Client reviews, audit requests, backup summaries—engineers still spend hours compiling these manually in many MSPs. Even when tools already offer reporting capabilities, they’re underutilized, leaving engineers toggling between exports, spreadsheets, and email chains.

What smart MSPs do instead:

• Automate log collection via RMM or cloud-native platforms. Most systems already have automation built-in. It’s just a matter of setting up scheduled log pulls or alerts based on events, rather than chasing them reactively.
• Leverage built-in scheduled reports from your PSA, backup, or EDR tools . These aren’t just for compliance. They’re for building trust with clients and delivering value without lifting a finger each week.
• Offer clients access to reporting dashboards. This shifts reporting from reactive to on-demand, letting clients self-serve insights while your team focuses on higher-value tasks.

Visibility doesn’t have to be manual. MSPs can build the reporting once and let it run quietly in the background. Our experts are well-versed in setting up automated reporting and dashboards that not only reduce engineering workload but also elevate your client’s experience.

Smarter Workflows, Stronger Teams 

If your senior engineers suddenly had 10 extra hours a week, what could they focus on?

That’s not far from happening. It is the real impact of eliminating manual, low-value tasks from their plates. From chasing approvals to updating configs, the hidden time sinks in your day-to-day operations are costing more than just productivity. They’re holding your team back from delivering strategic value to your clients.

Take a moment to review where your engineering hours are going. Are they solving meaningful problems or just stuck maintaining the machine?

Chances are, the tools to fix this are already in your stack. What most MSPs need isn’t more software, but a smarter way to use what they’ve already got.

That’s where we come in. Our MSP Automation services help you unlock those tools and build automated workflows that actually support your team. From automated escalations to seamless documentation syncs, we’ll help you give your engineers back their time, so they can do work that matters.