Signing 4-5 new managed-services clients a month had outgrown ad-hoc onboarding. Now a signed agreement launches the entire sequence — discovery forms, agent deployment, documentation, kickoff — with owners, deadlines and client updates automatic. Onboarding fell from three weeks to six days.
Typical results
5
New clients absorbed monthly
0
Missed steps once live
100%
Clients updated at every milestone
Figures reflect typical results for this kind of automation.
The challenge
Every new client kicked off a scramble of emails, half-remembered checklists and tribal knowledge. Asset discovery stalled waiting on forms nobody chased, monitoring agents were deployed late or missed entire sites, and documentation lagged weeks behind. Onboarding averaged three weeks with about four steps missed per client — a shaky first impression at the exact moment churn risk peaks.
Before and after
Onboarding duration
−71%Team hours per client
−63%Steps missed per onboarding
−100%The automation
We turned the onboarding playbook into a Make workflow triggered by the signed agreement. Asset-discovery forms go to the client automatically, with reminders until they're complete; responses flow into documentation templates. Monitoring-agent deployment tasks are created per site with owners and deadlines, kickoff scheduling happens on its own, and the client receives a branded update at every milestone. Overdue steps nudge their owner, then escalate to the service manager.
How it works
- 01
Signature starts the machine
A signed agreement spins up the full onboarding plan with owners and deadlines on every step.
- 02
Discovery runs itself
Asset-discovery forms go to the client with reminders; responses fill the documentation templates.
- 03
Agents and access tracked
Monitoring-agent deployment tasks are created per site, with blockers escalating automatically.
- 04
Client sees every milestone
Branded updates go out at each completed stage, and the kickoff meeting books itself.
- 05
Nothing falls through
Overdue steps nudge their owner, then flag the service manager.
Starts from
- Signed service agreement
- Asset-discovery forms
Delivers
- Monitoring agents deployed
- Client documentation pack
- Kickoff + milestone updates
The impact
Onboarding now takes six days instead of three weeks, and missed steps typically drop from about four per client to almost none. Team hours per onboarding fell from thirty to eleven, clients get an update at every milestone without asking, and the MSP absorbs five new clients a month without strain.
Questions about this automation
What starts the onboarding workflow?
The signed service agreement is the trigger. Once it is signed, a workflow in Make creates the full onboarding plan for that client, with an owner and a deadline on every step: discovery, monitoring-agent deployment per site, documentation and the kickoff meeting. The plan follows the provider's own playbook, so every client gets the same steps.
How is asset discovery collected from the client?
Discovery forms go to the client contact automatically, with reminders until every form is complete. Answers flow straight into the documentation templates, so the client documentation pack builds itself as responses arrive. Missing details stay visible as open items, and deployment tasks for each site are created from the assets the client reports.
How does the team avoid missed steps?
Overdue steps send a nudge to their owner first and then flag the service manager if they stay open. The client receives a branded update each time a milestone is completed, so progress is visible on both sides. It is a multi-step build, usually rolled out in stages, starting from the existing checklist.