This year, let’s change the tune. Instead of twelve noisy gifts, let’s give ourselves twelve automation gifts — powered by Okta Workflows. These are the gifts that give you time back, reduce manual toil, and help keep your organization secure (and maybe even a little more festive).

How to Build Your First Automation "Gift"

Building your own workflow is practical. You can start in just a few steps:

1. From the Okta Admin Console, navigate to Workflow > Workflows.
2. In the Workflows Console, click on Templates to find a pre-built automation, such as "Welcome New Hires" or "Notify on User Lockout."
3. Click Add Template and follow the on-screen instructions to configure the connection Slack or Google Workspace
4. Turn the flow on, and your automation "gift" is active!

The 12 Automation “Gifts”

Here are twelve practical — and cheerful — workflow ideas to help you wrap up the year with less stress and more efficiency:

🎁 Gift 1: How to Get a Slack Alert for Locked-Out Execs On the first day of automation, my workflow gave to me… an alert for my VIP! When a user in the Executive group gets locked out, automatically send a high-priority alert to your #it-support Slack. Quick resolution = happy execs.  Lockout Template.

🎁 Gift 2: How to Automate Temporary Access for Contractors On the second day… temp access granting. When someone joins the Holiday Contractors group, automatically provision the right app access — and set a deactivation date for January 15. No manual cleanup required.

🎁 Gift 3: How to Set Up Suspicious Activity Alerts On the third day… security I could see. If Okta’s risk engine flags a high-risk sign-in, post the details (user, location, IP) to your security channel and suspend the session until reviewed.

🎁 Gift 4: How to Automatically Welcome New Hires On the fourth day… a warm welcome brings. When a new user is created, wait one hour, then send a personalized welcome email with links to the help desk, benefits portal, and their Okta dashboard tour.  New Hires Template.

🎁 Gift 5: How to Automatically Clean Up Stale Accounts On the fifth day… FIVE-MONTH-OLD ACCOUNTS! Run a weekly flow to find users who haven’t logged in for 150 days, then add them to a Pending Suspension group for review.

🎁 Gift 6: How to Make Offboarding More User-Friendly When a user is deactivated, automatically transfer their Google Drive files to their manager and send a “Your files are safe” confirmation email. Smooth, secure, and simple.

🎁 Gift 7: How to Nudge Users for MFA Enrollment Find users who haven’t enrolled a strong factor (like Okta Verify or YubiKey) and send them a friendly (or firm) reminder. You can even log completions for tracking MFA adoption.

🎁 Gift 8: How to Simplify App Request Approvals in Slack When a user requests an app through Okta, send an approval card to their manager in Slack or Teams. The manager can approve or deny with a single click — no email chains required.  App Approval Template.

🎁 Gift 9: How to Sync a Google Sheet to an Okta Group Pull a list of users from a Google Sheet (like Holiday Party Attendees) and automatically add them to an Okta group with access to your party-planning app.

🎁 Gift 10: How to Enforce a "No-Fly List" for IPs For high-security environments, ingest a CSV or API feed of high-risk IP addresses and automatically add them to a Blocked IP Zone in Okta. Real-time protection, no manual updates.

🎁 Gift 11: How to Automatically Reclaim Unused Licenses Find users assigned an expensive license (like O365 E5) who haven’t used that app in 60 days. Automatically downgrade or reclaim the license — saving time and budget.  License Reclamation Template.

🎁 Gift 12: How to Send an Automated "Thank You" to Your Team On the twelfth day… my workflow gave to me… a kudos for my team! On the last workday before the break, trigger a flow that sends a cheerful “Happy Holidays and Thank You!” message to your IT or Security team channel. They’ve earned it.

This holiday season, give yourself the ultimate gift — the gift of automation. Let Okta Workflows take care of the drumming, piping, and ticket-chasing so you can enjoy some well-deserved peace and quiet (and maybe a cookie or two).

What about you? What’s your favorite automation “gift”?

Share your go-to workflows in the comments here and spread a little automation cheer! And if you're looking for more ideas, check out this practical guide on identifying Workflows use cases from the Okta Community.