Baseline templates for common MSP automations¶
A value number is only as defensible as its baseline: the minutes a person would need to do the task by hand. This page gives you a starting point for the ten automations MSPs run most, each with a published source, so entering your first baselines is picking, not researching.
Three rules before you copy anything:
- These are starting points, not your numbers. Every baseline in LumaTrack is attested by you and labeled as your assumption on every report. Adjust each figure to your shop before a client sees it.
- Conservative beats impressive. When a range is given, the lower bound survives a skeptical reader; the upper bound invites the one question you do not want at QBR time.
- Use the loaded rate, not the wage: salary plus benefits plus overhead for the role that would actually do the task (a common rule of thumb is wage times 1.25 to 1.4).
The templates¶
| Automation | Suggested baseline | Source for the estimate |
|---|---|---|
| Password reset | 15 to 20 min per reset | Industry analyses put a full reset event at 20 to 30 minutes of combined effort and cite Forrester at $25 to $30 per help desk ticket (Avatier); HDI's widely cited figure is about $70 per reset all-in (HYPR). 15 to 20 min is the conservative technician-time slice. |
| User onboarding (M365) | 60 to 90 min per user | MSP practitioners report onboarding tickets of 1 to 2 hours before automation (G2 reviews of Rewst); one MSP reduced onboarding time 80% after automating it (Tech Rage IT case study). |
| User offboarding / termination | 45 to 90 min per user | Same practitioner reports cover offboarding in the 1 to 2 hour range done manually (G2); Rewst documents its automated equivalent completing in under two minutes (crate docs). Offboarding done fast is also a security control; the minutes understate the value. |
| New device provisioning | 60 to 240 min per device | A standard cloud-managed laptop takes 1 to 4 hours of hands-on setup; manual imaging or user-specific installs push the top of the range (Workwize). |
| OS / server patching | 15 min per server per cycle | A straightforward manual patch runs about 15 minutes per server, which compounds fast across a fleet (SysWard). Value this one per unit (see below). |
| Routine ticket remediation | 20 to 30 min per ticket | Forrester's per-ticket cost of $25 to $30 implies roughly this much L1 time at typical rates (Avatier, citing Forrester); HDI's public primer on cost per ticket explains the drivers (HDI). Scope this baseline to the specific ticket type you automated. |
| Security alert triage / notify | 5 to 10 min per alert | Rewst estimates up to 10 minutes saved per execution for its conditional access change notification workflow (Rewst blog). |
| QBR / report assembly | 4 to 6 hours per client per quarter | One MSP documented 6 hours saved per review cycle after revamping QBR reporting (ScalePad partner story). If LumaTrack replaces hand-built value slides, this is its own baseline. |
| Backup failure remediation | No public benchmark: time it once | Take the next three backup-failure tickets, note minutes from alert to verified fix, and use the median. Attach the three ticket numbers to your notes; that is a stronger citation than any vendor figure. |
| License reclamation (M365) | No public benchmark: time it once | Same method: time one manual license audit and reclamation pass, divide by seats touched, and enter the per-seat figure with your notes attached. |
Batch tasks: use per-unit valuation¶
Patching, onboarding waves, and mailbox migrations do not scale linearly: a person doing 30 of the same task batches, so the 30th unit costs less than the 1st. For these, set the automation's valuation to per unit: a fixed setup baseline plus a smaller marginal figure per server, user, or mailbox. A 30-server patch run then books setup once plus 30 marginal increments, which is the version of the number that survives review.
Recording the evidence¶
Each report figure traces to the runs behind it, so the baseline is the only estimated input. Enter baselines under the automation's settings, or over the API. When a baseline changes, the change is logged and prior closed months never restate.