Colton Graves - Memphis, Tennessee

I automate the boring parts of your job.

By title, I'm a Business Intelligence Analyst. In practice, I find the thing you do fifteen times a week by hand and make it stop.

Tell me about your problem

The same task, fifteen times a week. Once, and then never again.

The short version

You probably don't have to do that.

Most people severely underestimate how much of their work is optional. Not the job - but the mechanics of the work. Entering the same customer information into four systems. Reformatting a report so someone else can read it. Chasing an approval that could have been an automatic email. Everyone assumes it's just the cost of doing business.

Usually it isn't. And the fix is often smaller than people expect.

My favorite moment in this work is when someone is venting about a thing they "always have to do," and I get to tell them: you don't have to do that at all.

Doing it once also means doing it right. Nobody forgets a step, nobody fat-fingers a field, and the four systems finally agree with each other.

Work

Three things that used to take people all day

A service desk that stopped answering the easy tickets

Before
A six-person help desk spent its day on password resets, distribution list changes, and account setups - hundreds a month, every one of them a human reading a ticket and clicking through the same screens.
Built
An AI-driven automation layer on top of the existing ticketing system, plus custom packages in JSON, PowerShell, and REST APIs that resolve those request types end to end. Triage and dispatch run on their own.
After
Average time to resolution dropped by more than 40%. The routine requests resolve with a technician barely touching them, and the team spends its time on the problems that actually need a person.

Eighteen applications, one login

Before
Identity scattered across systems. Multiple sets of credentials, no single view of who could get into what.
Built
Consolidation onto Microsoft Entra ID as a single identity provider - 25+ users, 18 applications - and a Conditional Access policy set governing who can authenticate, from which devices, under what conditions.
After
One login, centralized visibility on access and sign-ins, and a real move away from perimeter-based trust. Rolled out over six deliberate weeks rather than a hard cutover, because a security control people work around is not a security control.

The workstation build that builds itself

Before
Every new or replacement computer meant hours of manual technician setup, and no two machines came out quite the same.
Built
An automated deployment pipeline in PowerShell and endpoint management tooling, with builds standardized across a client base of roughly 85 organizations and 2,500 endpoints.
After
A repeatable process instead of an afternoon. Less configuration drift, and less of the support load that inconsistent machines quietly generate later.
Approach

How working with me actually goes

  • Bring me a problem. "We have this thing, I know there's a better way, I don't know what it is" is the ideal first email. I enjoy figuring out what to build just as much as I enjoy building it.
  • Work with a finish line. Most engagements run a few days to a few weeks, scoped before we start. I stick to project work rather than ongoing retainers - you should know when it's done, and what done means.
  • If you need a managed service provider, I'll tell you. Some problems aren't a project, they're an ongoing IT relationship. When that's the honest answer, I'll say so and point you toward someone good rather than sell you a patch.
  • I'll show you how it works. You shouldn't end up dependent on me to keep your own process running.
Toolkit

What I build with

Automation
PowerShell, Python, JSON-defined automation packages, REST and Microsoft Graph APIs
Platforms
Microsoft 365 and Entra ID, Power Automate, Power BI, ConnectWise PSA & Automate, ImmyBot, Pia
Data
SQL, Excel well past where most people stop, reporting people actually read
Process
Requirements gathering, current- and future-state mapping, documentation you can hand to someone else
AI
LLM tool integration, Model Context Protocol servers, internal AI usage and governance policy
About

The person on the other end of the email

I'm in Memphis, a city that I love. I'm marrying Morgan, a woman I love more, in November. We have two dogs, Dante and Gemma. Morgan and I frequently argue over who loves them more (it's me and they know it).

This site is served from a machine in my house. A Proxmox hypervisor running multiple Ubuntu VMs, Docker containers, and for this website specifically, Caddy. The homelab started as a place to break things safely and turned into the thing I learn fastest on. It's also a place I host home photos and videos, which my Mom appreciates.

I play D&D, which is mostly improvising inside a rule system; it's not that different from what I'm pitching here. Away from screens entirely: canoeing, and whitewater when I can get to it.

Currently a Business Intelligence Analyst at Gant Systems.

Morgan, Colton, Gemma, and Dante in cool matching pajamas
Contact

Tell me what you're stuck with

It's okay if you don't know where to start. Describe the annoying thing.

LinkedIn