Case Study · Document Management
Shared Mailbox Automation Case Study: How Sanderson Turned an Unmanaged Inbox into a Tracked, Reportable Workflow
Sanderson PLC's Service Delivery Team replaced a shared mailbox used as a task list with an automated tracking and reporting system built on SharePoint Online, Power Automate and Power BI.
Every email tracked to completion
Urgent work escalated automatically
Live workload reporting in Power BI
Executive summary
Sanderson PLC's Service Delivery Team managed contractor administration entirely through shared mailboxes, using the inbox itself as a task list. With 40 to 100 emails arriving per mailbox each day, there was no way to see what was outstanding, what had been actioned or what had been missed. Inteknix built an automated tracking layer on SharePoint Online and Power Automate that logs every email, escalates urgent work to team leaders, and feeds Power BI reporting on workload and response times. The solution was delivered in three to four weeks, and works alongside the existing mailbox with no change to how Sanderson's clients submit work.
At a glance
About the Client
Sanderson PLC is a recruitment group providing permanent and contract staffing services to client organisations across the UK. Its Service Delivery Team manages the administration behind contractor engagements, working with dedicated client mailboxes across the client base.
Services used:
The challenge
Sanderson's Service Delivery Team sits at the centre of the contractor lifecycle. Role requests, CV submissions, offer details, contract approvals, extension chasers and urgent terminations all arrive by email into shared mailboxes. Using a mailbox as a workflow system had reached its limit. This caused:
No oversight of how many items were open, how long they had been waiting or how many had been missed
Between 40 and 100 emails per mailbox per day, with no structure behind the queue
A significant part of every morning lost to triaging new mail before real work began
Compliance exposure, as contract terminations must be processed immediately for legal reasons
No path to reporting, leaving workload and performance judged on impression rather than evidence
The approach
Inteknix started with the process. Before anything was built, the team mapped how the Service Delivery Team actually worked — from initial role request through to contract extension or termination — identifying which emails carried genuine urgency and where work handed off to other teams.
That mapping shaped two decisions that defined the solution. First, the mailbox stays. Sanderson's clients send mail to established addresses, and changing how they submit work was never an option, so the solution observes the mailbox rather than replacing it. Second, existing behaviour drives the data. The team already filed handled emails into folders, so those actions became the signals that update the tracking record — no new habits to learn and no duplicate data entry.
The solution
SharePoint Online holds a tracked record of every email; Power Automate captures activity and drives escalation; Power BI turns that record into live reporting. Together they cover the full lifecycle of an email from arrival to completion, through four core capabilities.
End-to-end email tracking
Every incoming email is logged automatically as a structured record, linked back to the original message. Status reflects where the item has reached — open, replied to, forwarded or completed — and updates as the team works, with no separate system to maintain.
Automatic escalation of urgent work
Time-critical emails are identified as they arrive, including terminations and notices, alongside messages the sender has marked as high importance. Escalation is based on inaction rather than arrival, so team leaders are alerted through Microsoft Teams only when an item has genuinely gone unattended.
Live workload reporting
Power BI reports on volumes by mailbox and period, how long items sit open, and response and completion rates. Questions that previously meant scrolling through an inbox and estimating are now answered from a dashboard.
Complete audit trail
Every record links the original email to the response and the point of completion, giving the team a defensible record across the contractor lifecycle — which matters most where terminations carry legal timeframes.
The outcome
The Service Delivery Team now works from a structured, reportable record of every email handled, while continuing to work in the mailbox they always used.
The shift is from an inbox that had to be remembered to a queue that can be managed. Team leaders see what is open and how long it has been waiting. Urgent items surface on their own rather than depending on someone noticing them. Completion is captured as a byproduct of the work rather than as an extra administrative step. And because workload is now measurable, resourcing and prioritisation decisions rest on evidence rather than impression. The solution was also built as a repeatable pattern, so it can be applied to further mailboxes and teams without being rebuilt.
Key results
“Sanderson and Inteknix have been developing solutions all of 2025. Inteknix team takes the time to truly understand how our core teams operate, then automated the right processes in a way that fits our day-to-day reality. For our Finance team, one of the busiest in the business, we've seen around a 20% reduction in admin time. The solutions are always supported by clear user documentation and robust technical solution documentation. Our Compliance and Contract teams have seen equally as impressive efficiency improvements.”
“We now have reliable analytics that give us the visibility to make faster, better decisions. Inteknix are responsive, pragmatic, and consistently deliver. They are our go-to problem solvers across Microsoft 365, SharePoint, Power Platform and AI.”
Mark Alford, Director of Technology, Sanderson PLC
Conclusion
A shared mailbox works as a communication channel and fails as a workflow system. The failure is quiet: work is not lost visibly, it is simply never surfaced, and nobody can prove what was missed until it matters. By adding a tracking and reporting layer to the mailbox rather than replacing it, Sanderson kept the channel its clients rely on while gaining the oversight, escalation and evidence a critical process demands.
Selected Work
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FAQs
Frequently asked questions
Shared mailbox automation is the use of workflow tools to log, track and report on email handled through a shared inbox, rather than relying on people to remember what is outstanding. Teams need it when the mailbox has become a workflow system in practice: once volume passes a certain point, an inbox provides no way to see open items, measure response times or prove that nothing was missed.
Yes. A tracking layer built on Power Automate and SharePoint Online works alongside the mailbox rather than replacing it. Senders continue using the same address and the team continues working in Outlook, while activity is logged and tracked in the background. For Sanderson this was essential, as changing how clients submitted work was not an option.
By escalating on inaction rather than on arrival. Urgent messages are identified as they arrive, then checked again to establish whether anyone has picked them up. Only genuinely unattended items are escalated to team leaders, which keeps alerts meaningful — a system that notifies on every urgent email is quickly ignored.
By turning mailbox activity into structured data first. Once every email carries a status, a timestamp and an owner, Power BI can report on volumes, how long items sit open, and response and completion rates. Reporting is impossible while the data remains locked in individual inboxes.
Sanderson’s solution went from discovery to live in three to four weeks, including iterations. Timelines depend on how many mailboxes are in scope and how much the process varies between them. Delivering for one team first allows the logic to be validated in live conditions before wider rollout.
Yes, provided the underlying process is mapped properly at the outset and the solution is built as a repeatable pattern rather than a one-off. The core logic stays constant while the details — which emails count as urgent, who receives escalations, how work is filed — are configured per team. Sanderson’s solution was designed this way from the start, so extending it to further mailboxes does not mean rebuilding it.
Email management organises messages, typically through rules, folders and categories. Workflow tracking records what happened to each message as a piece of work: who actioned it, when, what the response was and whether it reached completion. Teams running operational processes through a mailbox need the second, because only that produces reporting and an audit trail.
Map how the team currently works before configuring anything, including how handling differs by client or request type, because automating an unclear process embeds the confusion. Establish which messages genuinely carry urgency, as over-flagging undermines escalation. Where SharePoint Online and Power Automate are sufficient, the solution can often be built within existing Microsoft 365 licensing rather than buying a dedicated ticketing platform.
Looking to achieve similar results?
Critical work run through a shared inbox carries risk that stays invisible until something is missed. If your team is managing operational processes by email with no way to track what's outstanding, explore how a tracking and reporting layer built on SharePoint and Power Automate could work around the way your team already operates.
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