Direct Answer
The IT support tasks to automate first are password and MFA resets, role-based access provisioning, app deployment to devices, and enforced software updates. To rank your own list, score each recurring request on how often it happens, how many minutes it takes, and how much damage a mistake would cause, then multiply the three and start with the highest number. Requests that resist automation are usually cheaper to document than to automate, high-stakes cases like a suspected phishing email or a lost laptop should stay with a human, and the biggest win of all is a standardized IT setup that prevents the ticket from being created in the first place.
Key Takeaways
Score your recurring IT requests by frequency, time per ticket, and mistake risk this week; the highest-scoring item is the one to automate (or document) first.
Write a one-page guide for your top three recurring requests that resist automation: it costs nothing, needs no tooling, and you can do it today.
Trace each recurring ticket back to the setup decision that created it, because fixing the root cause removes the ticket permanently.
Reserve human effort for high-stakes, judgment-dependent requests like security incidents and hardware failures, and stop apologizing for keeping those manual.
If your team has grown past 30 people and you're still provisioning access by hand, an IT management platform like deeploi will reclaim hours every week without requiring you to build anything yourself.
The five IT requests that quietly eat your week
You just reset the same person's password for the second time this month. It took four minutes, a Slack message, a confirmation email, and the nagging feeling that you'll do it again next Tuesday. If you're the office manager, HR lead, or founder who accidentally became the IT department, this kind of interruption defines your week more than any project on your actual to-do list.
The requests that consume the most time aren't dramatic outages. They're a short, predictable list: login and password resets, MFA lockouts, access provisioning for new tools, software installs, and the low-grade noise of printers, WiFi hiccups, and slow laptops. Individually, each one feels minor. Together, they're a second job. According to a survey of 250 senior IT professionals, 59% of IT leaders say support is where the majority of their time goes, and over a third plan to prioritize reducing time on repetitive tasks (Exclaimer).
MFA lockouts deserve their own mention, because they're the half most people forget. Someone gets a new phone and loses their authenticator app. That single event shows up as an MFA deactivation request, a mobile token reset, an emergency access code, or a locked device account. It looks like four different tickets, but it's one person who dropped their phone in a coffee.
To figure out which requests hurt you most, score each one on three axes: how often it happens per week, how many minutes each instance takes, and how much damage a mistake causes (think: accidentally revoking the wrong person's access). Multiply the three together. The highest number is where you start. And keep in mind that contractors and freelancers are a separate case entirely. They typically work on their own devices, so device-level automation won't reach them, even if account-level automation will.
What does automating these actually look like at a 30-to-100-person company?
Automation at this size doesn't mean building workflows from scratch or hiring a developer. It means choosing tools that handle the configuration for you, so the work disappears without creating a new project. Here's what each category looks like in practice.
Self-service password and MFA resets
Self-service reset means the employee verifies their identity through a secondary method (a backup email, a phone number, a security question) and resets their own password without contacting anyone. This removes the single highest-volume request from your queue. Forrester Research found that companies spend $87 per password reset when factoring in labor and lost productivity, adding up to $795 per employee annually (Forrester Research). Self-service cuts that number close to zero for routine cases.
The new-phone scenario is where most panic tickets originate. A proper setup lets employees re-enroll their authenticator through a managed recovery flow instead of messaging you at 8 AM asking for an emergency bypass code.
Role-based access packages instead of one-off permissions
Instead of granting access tool by tool through Slack messages, you define a standard bundle tied to each job role. When a new marketing hire starts, they automatically get CRM access, the analytics dashboard, the shared mailbox, the right distribution lists, and the team channel. Each of those requests takes about two minutes on its own, which is exactly why nobody notices that onboarding one person involves 15 of them. A role-based access approach collapses that into a single step triggered by the HR system.
Research from Vlerick Business School found that 43% of new hires wait more than a week for their workstation and tools to be ready, creating a direct productivity loss for a fully salaried employee (Vlerick Business School). Standard access packages are the simplest fix for that gap.
Pushing apps to the device instead of walking someone through an install
App deployment via device management means software lands on the laptop before the employee opens it. This isn't limited to big applications. The small, specific ones add up: an Office template pack, a custom font for the design team, a browser plugin for finance, a VPN client. Each install guide you write is a ticket waiting to happen. Pushing them automatically removes the guide and the ticket.
Updates that install themselves
Scheduled and enforced device updates replace the ritual of chasing people to restart their laptop. When OS patches and third-party app updates deploy on a policy, you stop sending reminder emails and start knowing that every machine in your company is current. This also has a direct security benefit: unpatched devices are the entry point attackers look for first.
Automate it, document it, or keep a human on it
Not every recurring request needs software thrown at it. You actually have three choices:
Automate it when it's high-frequency and low-risk. Password resets, access provisioning, and app installs all qualify.
Document it when a request recurs but resists automation. Write the guide once, send the guide instead of doing the task. This is the cheapest option and needs no budget approval at all. A two-paragraph article in a shared doc explaining how to reconnect to the office printer saves you five minutes every time someone asks.
Keep a human on it when the request is high-stakes, low-frequency, or context-dependent.
Most companies jump straight from "do it manually" to "automate everything" and skip the documentation step. That middle layer is free and often more effective than you'd expect.
Better than automating a ticket: never getting it
Most of these requests are symptoms of how the IT setup was built, not facts of life. Devices handed out without a standard configuration generate "my laptop is slow" tickets. Access granted ad hoc generates "can I get access to X?" tickets. Updates left to the user generate "something broke after the update" tickets. There's nothing inevitable about any of them.
The diagnostic question is simple: for each recurring request, ask what would have had to be set up differently for it to never arrive. Enforced encryption from day one means nobody scrambles for a recovery key six months later. A standard device configuration means fewer performance complaints. Access tied to a role means nobody asks for a tool they should already have.
This is the real payoff of the scoring exercise. Once you see which tickets cost you the most time, you can trace each one back to a setup decision and fix the root cause, not just the symptom.
What should stay manual (and why that's fine)
Some things stay manual permanently, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest. A suspected phishing email needs a human to assess the context. A lost or stolen laptop needs someone to decide whether to remote-wipe it now or wait. Recovering a deleted file, handling a security incident, or troubleshooting a non-standard hardware problem: these all require judgment that no automation can replicate.
Printer and scanner driver issues, hardware repairs, and teaching someone how to use their Mac also stay manual. A piece that admits this is more useful than one claiming everything can be automated away. The goal isn't to eliminate humans from IT support. It's to make sure humans spend their time on work that actually needs them.
Where deeploi fits
deeploi is an all-in-one IT management platform for SMBs without a dedicated IT department, combining the automation described above with expert support in a single per-user subscription.
The biggest difference is prevention. The setup follows one best-practice standard from day one, so devices, access, and updates are configured together rather than one at a time. Most of the requests listed earlier in this article never reach anyone, because the conditions that create them are gone.
When something does come up, Sam answers instantly, 24 hours a day. Sam is deeploi's AI IT support agent and the first point of contact for every request. He goes further than answering questions: he suspends users, manages group memberships, adjusts mailbox access, reads live device data, and applies small fixes directly instead of sending you a link to a help article. Every action needs sign-off from your IT owner, so control stays with you.
Sam also knows his limits. Anything complex hands over seamlessly to deeploi's IT experts, who respond within 30 minutes guaranteed and 12 minutes on average. He is an extra set of hands for the support team, not a replacement for it.
Your team reaches support in whichever way suits the problem: submitting a ticket, sending an email, or picking up the phone when something is urgent. Every request is logged, prioritized, and tracked through to resolution, so nothing gets half-answered in a Slack thread and quietly forgotten. Support runs in German and English, and requests are unlimited with no ticket caps and no per-incident fees, so nobody on your team hesitates to ask for help because of what it might cost.
FAQ
How do I decide which IT support tasks to automate first?
Apply the frequency × time × risk score described above. List every recurring request, estimate how many times it happens per week, how many minutes each instance takes, and rate the damage potential of a mistake on a 1-to-5 scale. Multiply the three numbers. The highest score is your first automation candidate. In most companies, password and MFA resets win by a wide margin.
Can a small company automate IT support without hiring a developer?
Yes. Managed IT platforms handle the automation layer for you. You configure roles, access packages, and update policies through a dashboard rather than writing code. The platform connects to your HR system and workspace, so onboarding, offboarding, and device setup run automatically once you've defined the standard.
How much time can IT automation actually save a growing team?
Enough to notice within the first month. Password and MFA resets alone disappear from your inbox once self-service is switched on, and role-based access provisioning removes the drip-drip of onboarding requests that quietly consume half a day per new hire. The compounding win is the tickets you never receive at all once devices and access are standardized from the start.
What happens when automation can't solve the problem?
Automation handles the routine. A real IT expert handles the rest. Good managed IT support triages automatically: straightforward requests resolve without human involvement, and anything complex goes to a specialist for a fast handoff.
