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Onboarding Flows
Onboarding Flows

Create groups of onboarding tasks to assign directly to workers.

Meghan Dinkle avatar
Written by Meghan Dinkle
Updated this week

Overview

In the Onboard app, a flow is a collection of tasks assigned to a group of workers for them to complete. Flows can include tasks such as reviewing an employee handbook, verifying important information, and watching educational videos.


Set up a Flow

To start setting up a new onboarding flow, follow these steps:

  1. Click the Onboard home page button in the sidebar

  2. Click Add Flow

At any point in the flow creation process, you can click Save as Draft in the top right corner to save your work without publishing it.


Flow Details

After clicking on Add Flow, you'll be taken to the Flow Details page, which has two required fields for you to fill out;

  • Flow Name: enter a concise but clear name that represents the purpose and worker audience of the flow (ex. 'Driver Onboarding Tasks')

  • Task flow type: defaulted to 'Preboarding', this field currently only affects back-end data reporting on flow types.

    • Additional options for this field are 'Onboarding' and 'Test' - change the value to whichever one best describes the use case for this particular flow

  • Flow Description: this provides a more detailed overview of what the flow entails.

    • This will be seen by your employees in their portal

Once all fields are filled out, click Next to go to the next step (Add Tasks).


Add tasks

This page is where you'll add all of the tasks that workers assigned to this flow will need to complete in their worker portal. Add as many tasks as are relevant to your specific onboarding workflows.

Task Options

Click Add a task to create a new task, selecting from these task type options:

Several of these types have the following fields to fill out:

  • Title: A concise but descriptive name that gives workers a clear idea of what the task entails

  • Estimated Task Completion Time (minutes): An optional field to give workers a realistic estimation of how long it will take them to complete the task.

  • Requires Review: This provided option gives you the ability to review the information provided by the worker and elect to either accept or reject. If rejected, you can send a notifications via email or sms to alert the worker of a request for new submission.

Task Types

Information task:

Use this for tasks that require your workers to review & acknowledge some sort of content.

  • The Task content field supports formatted text, hyperlinks, images & videos for your workers to view in their portal - the sky is the limit!

  • The Task confirmation button field dictates the name of the button that workers will click to indicate that they have completed the task.

    • By default, this will say "I agree"

Example of an information task:

Form task:

This is similar to a Data Collection form. You can add in any number of questions, selecting from the following list of question types:

  • Text: a free-text response. Select 'Allow multi-line response' to allow longer answers.

  • Multiple choice: Configure questions for your workers to answer.

    • Selection options are: dropdown (single or multi-answer select), checkbox, or radio buttons

  • Date: A question that requires the answer in the form of a date (for example, date of birth)

  • Address: A question that requires the answer in the form of an address (for example, home address)

  • Media: Allows for file uploads from workers (for example, uploading a photo of themselves, or their resume)

Each question is defaulted to be required to be answered by your employees. Unselect the Required checkbox to have a question be optional.

Each question that is added requires an associated worker attribute value. The attribute value set for each question is what will be displayed in the profile of each worker assigned to this flow. Once an employee answers a question, their response will be filed in their profile under that associated attribute.

This attribute can be selected from a list of existing attributes for that question type, or you can create a new attribute on the fly while setting up each question.

Example of a form task - each of these questions will be answered by the worker in the order listed, and each required question must be answered for the task to be marked as complete:

Signature task:

This task type embeds a document template directly in the worker portal for your employees to easily review and sign.

This task type requires a document template - please see this article for more information on document template and signature task setup steps.

I-9 task (U.S.-only):

Assigns the I-9 form to the worker to complete, starting with Section 1, following the workflow here.

See here for more information on I-9 task setup options.

W-4 task (U.S.-only):

Assigns a task to your employees to review, fill out, and submit their W-4 tax withholding forms.

The federal W-4 form will be shown to all workers for this task, and if their working location is in a state with a state W-4 form, then they will see that one as well.

Only one I-9 or W-4 task will ever be shown to a worker in their portal, even if they are in multiple onboarding flows that each have an I-9 task.

Video task:

A video type task embeds a video directly within a worker portal task.

  • If the embedded URL is a Youtube video, then the video will close automatically after being viewed, the task will be automatically marked as completed, and the worker will be redirected back to their task list

  • If the URL is not a Youtube link, then workers will be shown a button to click after viewing the video to mark the task as completed

Universal task:

This is a flexible task type, with three integration options:

1). iFrame: This allows you to show embedded content from a URL directly within the task to the worker. There are two fields to fill out for this integration:

  • iFrame URL: The URL that you would like to embed in the task

  • End Event (optional): If your iframe emits an event, then use this field to specify the event. This will be used to exit the task and mark it as complete.

Additional configuration: use the { } icons to insert worker or company attributes into the URL to customize it. For example:

Use worker home address 1 and company address 1 to set the origin and destination of a Google Maps URL:

https://www.google.com/maps/embed/v1/directions ?key=AIzaSyARmmdqzY2LCfcDcUlxs0Z1D2GTKFpXG0E &origin={{ worker.homeAddress.address1 | default: "" }} &destination= {{ company.address.address1 | default: "" }}&avoid=tolls|highways

2). Webhook: This allows you to provide the URL of a webhook that you would like the WX platform to connect with, which allows for customizable integrations. A task of this type will not be displayed to the worker.

There are two fields to fill out for this integration type:

  • Webook URL: The URL of the third-party webhook that this task should hit

    • Include sensitive data: Disabled by default. If enabled, this hides worker personally identifiable information ("PII") from the webhook call

  • Initiate the webhook on completion of: Determines when to fire the webhook - either after the completion of this specific task, or the completion of the entire flow.

3). Workato: This is similar to the webhook integration, but this provides a secure connection to a Workato webhook. A task of this type will not be displayed to the worker.

Note: this does require a Workato API token to be set in Settings > Onboard > Integration Providers. See this article for more information.

There are two fields to fill out for this integration type:

  • Webook URL: The Workato webhook URL that this task should hit

    • Include sensitive data: Disabled by default. If enabled, this hides worker personally identifiable information ("PII") from the Workato webhook call

  • Initiate the webhook on completion of: Determines when to fire the webhook - either after the completion of this specific task, or the completion of the entire flow.

After all tasks have been configured, click Next to go on to the next step.


Assign Flow

This step allows you to specify which workers will be assigned to this specific onboarding flow. You can select from your list of previously-built worker segments or directly from your entire list of workers.

To assign segments to this flow, click the dropdown in the Assign Segments section and select from the list that appears. You can select multiple segments from the list, if needed. This will assign the flow to every worker in the selected segment(s):

To choose from the list of all workers in your company, click the Add workers button in the Assign Individual Workers section. This will show an inline view of your Workers table, along with a search bar to help find the workers you need. Select the checkbox next to a workers name to assign them to this flow.

You can assign a combination of segments and workers to a specific flow, but Fountain recommends choosing one method to keep setup and maintenance simple.

After assigning segments and workers, click Next to finalize your flow.


Publish & Notify

This is the final step in setting up an onboarding flow!

Here, you can configure whether a worker receives an email and/or SMS notifying them that they've been assigned to this onboarding flow. This message will contain a direct link to their individual worker portal.

Fountain Onboard recommends a standard message template, and defaults to sending both an e-mail and an SMS to all workers. The content of this message and the message platform can all be configured (such as if there are special steps or instructions that your workers should know about).

You can also set deadlines and reminders for workers assigned to this flow:

Under Additional options, you can optionally set a Redirect URL. This fields is used to redirect your workers to a specific site after they complete all of the tasks in this flow.

  • This could be useful to redirect workers into other systems that aren't currently supported as tasks, such as to a website where users can securely enter their bank account information

    • Ensure that the URL is in this format: https:://example.com

  • If this is left blank (the default), then users will be directed back to their worker portal task list after completing this flow (standard behavior)

Once you're happy with the content of the flow and the notification messages, click Publish and send notifications. This will notify workers immediately, and the configured tasks will appear in their worker portal.

Be sure that the tasks you've set up in this flow meet your needs, as tasks cannot be edited or added once a flow has been published.


Review and Act On Flows

Once a flow has been published, you'll be taken to a table showing all workers in that onboarding flow, as well as their status in completing all assigned tasks.

Click Flows in the sidebar to go back to the main Flow setup page. Here, you'll see a list of all flows for your company.

This includes flows that are published, archived, and saved as a draft. Quick tabs at the top of the page allow you to view flows for a specific status, such as all Published flows:

The search bar and Filters button make it easy to find a specific flow.

From within the table, you have the following options under the More Options button gives the following options, depending on the flow status:

  • Archive: if a flow is no longer in use at your company, use the Archive option to make it inactive. All workers who have previously been assigned to this flow will no longer see the tasks on their worker portal.

    • This is available for both Published and Draft flows

  • Duplicate: Have an existing flow that you'd like to make a few additions to, for a new group of workers? The Duplicate options creates a copy of any flow in the editor, making it easy to create an updated or differentiated version of it!

    • This is available for both Published and Draft flows

  • Edit: re-enter the flow editor to finish setting up your flow, or to edit a published flow.

    • Note: when editing a published flow, tasks cannot be edited or added.

Workers in a Flow

To view all workers within a certain flow, and their onboarding status, simply click on the name of the flow in the table.

Clicking on the name of any worker in this table will open up a detailed view of their progress on the current flow tasks, along with the overall status of any other flows that they are assigned to.


Worker Profile

After a worker has been assigned to an onboarding flow, details about the flow and the worker's progress on it can be found in their worker profile (on the Onboard tab).

To view this, access the worker's profile (either by clicking on their name from the onboard flow table, and then clicking on their name again in the Sidebar that appears; or, from the Workers table) and go to the Onboard tab.

Here, you'll see a list of all onboarding flows that the worker is assigned to, as well as which tasks have been completed in each flow:

Tasks requiring review will show an option to either Approve or Reject the task:

If a worker has completed a specific task, but you would like them to redo it or start over, then click the Reset button for that task. This will reset the task status to Not Started.


Additional Resources

See this video for a step by step instruction on how to set up an onboarding flow with a variety of tasks:


Related Articles

⬅️ Previous article: Getting Started with Onboard

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