The finance director of a growing distribution company thought their team was “at capacity.” Month-end statements were always late, salespeople spent evenings manually updating orders, and the CRM backlog never seemed to shrink. Yet when we analyzed their processes, we found something uncomfortable: most of that “busy” work was repetitive, rule-based, and perfectly automatable.
Once we introduced 3 Odoo tools that will save you 20 hours per week, the picture changed.
Tasks that used to eat entire afternoons ran in the background. Statements went out on time.
Sales teams stopped babysitting spreadsheets and started talking to customers again.
The central question for this article: how can you use Odoo’s built‑in automation tools to turn your ERP into a tireless team member that quietly saves you 20+ hours every week?
Key Concepts Behind Odoo’s “Magic” Automation
Before we dive into the practical examples, it helps to clarify a few core terms you’ll work with in Odoo automation.
- Server Actions (“The Wand”)
Server actions are Odoo scripts you trigger manually, usually from a button in list or form view.
Example: Select 200 sales orders and run a server action that updates all their payment terms in one click, instead of editing them one by one. - Scheduled Actions (“The Enchanted Hourglass”)
Scheduled actions are jobs that run at fixed time intervals (hourly, daily, monthly, etc.).
Example: Every month-end, a scheduled action compiles customers with outstanding balances and sends them account statements overnight. - Automated Actions (“The Genie”)
Automated actions are rules that react to events in Odoo—record creation, updates, status changes, and more.
Example: When a quotation is confirmed and becomes a sales order, an automated action automatically sends a confirmation email and notifies logistics in a channel. - Models
A model in Odoo is like a structured table or spreadsheet describing one business object (e.g.,sale.order,res.partner).
Example: Theres.partnermodel holds all your customers, vendors, and contacts with fields like email, total receivable, and credit limit. - Debug / Developer Mode
Debug mode reveals advanced configuration, including server actions, scheduled actions, and technical model names.
Example: Enabling debug mode lets you open “Server Actions” from the search bar, so you can create automation on top of Sales Orders.
Why This Matters: The Cost of Manual, Repetitive Work
Automation in Odoo is not just a “nice to have.” For many companies, it’s the difference between
scaling efficiently and drowning in admin.
Example 1: B2B Manufacturing
A mid-sized manufacturer processes hundreds of sales orders weekly. Each time an order is confirmed,
a coordinator manually:
- Checks credit exposure
- Emails order confirmation to the customer
- Notifies production about priority orders
These actions are rule-based and repetitive. Without 3 Odoo tools that will save you 20 hours per week, those steps steal several hours daily. Errors creep in when someone forgets to send an email or misreads a customer’s balance. Lead times lengthen, and customers feel the friction.
Example 2: Professional Services & Accounting
An accounting firm sends monthly statements, payment reminders, and project status updates. Staff
regularly run manual filters, export lists, and send individual emails. When workloads spike at
quarter-end, these “routine” tasks slip. Cash collection slows, and partners spend late nights
catching up on things software could have done automatically.
Ignoring Odoo’s automation capabilities keeps your best people stuck in low-value work, increases the risk of mistakes, and makes growth feel heavier than it needs to be.
The Three “Magic” Odoo Tools That Free 20+ Hours per Week
Let’s unpack the three tools from the transcript—the wand, the enchanted hourglass, and the genie—and
translate them into an implementation approach you can actually use in your own database.
1. Server Actions: Your On‑Demand Wand
Server actions are the easiest place to start. They run only when you deliberately trigger them, usually via an “Action” menu item on list or form views.
In the transcript’s example, a simple server action loops through selected records, counts them, and displays the total. That’s trivial, but it illustrates the pattern:
- You choose a model (e.g., Sales Orders).
- You define some Python logic (e.g., update a field, send an email, create related records).
- You expose the action as a contextual option (“Create Contextual Action”).
- Users select records and run it whenever needed.
Used properly, this “wand” can:
- Mass-update payment terms or prices after a policy change
- Batch-generate invoices from confirmed orders
- Apply complex filters that are hard to express in the standard UI
- Trigger targeted notification emails for a specific group of records
Many ERPixel clients recover 10+ hours per week simply by moving bulky spreadsheet-type updates into server actions that run in seconds.
2. Scheduled Actions: The Enchanted Hourglass
Once a server action works reliably, the natural next step is to let Odoo run it for you on a schedule.
That’s where scheduled actions come in.
The transcript walks through a classic use case: monthly customer statements. The pattern looks like this:
- Enable debug mode and open “Scheduled Actions”.
- Create a new action and link it to the relevant model.
- In Python code, build a recordset—e.g., customers whose total receivable is non-zero.
- Copy the domain (filter) directly from a UI search, so your code matches what users see.
- Loop through that recordset and send statements or perform other logic.
- Set the interval (monthly, weekly, etc.) and ensure it’s active with a correct next execution date.
The big benefit: recurring jobs simply happen. You don’t rely on a specific person’s memory or availability. Used broadly—statements, clean-up tasks, internal reports—scheduled actions easily contribute another 5 hours saved per week.
3. Automated Actions: The Unpredictable but Powerful Genie
Automated actions are the most flexible—and the easiest to misuse. They listen for specific events, such as:
- Record creation
- Field updates
- Status changes (e.g., quotation → sales order)
The transcript wisely emphasizes the trigger as the tricky part. “On create and edit” is powerful, but dangerous if left broad. You must narrow it down:
- Which model? (e.g., Sales Order)
- Which field(s) changing should fire the rule? (e.g., status)
- What new value do you care about? (e.g., state becomes “sale”)
- Optionally, what was the previous state or related conditions?
A good practice—also shown in the transcript—is to first test your trigger with a harmless line like a user error (“Genie is working”) so you can see exactly when it fires. Once you’re confident, you replace that line with real business logic, often reusing the same code you built for a server action, just adapted to run on the “current” record.
Typical “genie” scenarios:
- When a sales order is confirmed, auto-create a delivery and notify the warehouse.
- When an opportunity moves to “Won,” auto-generate a project and assign a manager.
- When a customer becomes overdue, flag them for credit control or send an internal alert.
Even allowing for misfires while you refine triggers, automated actions can net another 5+ hours per week by completely removing manual hand-offs.
Bringing It Together with a Trusted Odoo Partner
In isolation, each of these tools is powerful. Together, they form a layered automation strategy:
- Server actions for safe, on-demand power moves.
- Scheduled actions for recurring time-based jobs.
- Automated actions for real-time reactions to business events.
The challenge for most companies is not the features, but designing robust rules that reflect real processes, won’t conflict, and are maintainable as you grow. That’s where working with an official Odoo Partner like ERPixel pays off: we help you translate business rules into clean Python logic, safe triggers, and thoroughly tested automations.
Conclusion: Turning Odoo into Your Most Reliable Team Member
To answer the opening question: yes, Odoo can handle tasks faster than your best employee and never forget them—if you leverage the 3 Odoo tools that will save you 20 hours per week. Server actions give you an on-demand wand, scheduled actions provide an enchanted hourglass for recurring tasks, and automated actions unleash a carefully controlled genie that reacts instantly to what happens in your system.
Used together, they shift your team’s time from routine clicks to strategic work, while improving consistency and reducing errors.
If you’re ready to turn these ideas into a concrete automation roadmap—designed around your real processes—reach out to ERPixel. As an official Odoo Partner, we help companies design, develop, and implement Odoo automations that actually deliver those 20+ hours back every week.
Contact us today to explore how far you can take Odoo automation in your business.
