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Customise the default onboarding workflow for your org

admin Last updated 26 April 2026

Onboarding runs through the platform’s workflow engine. Your organisation starts with a sensible default workflow, but you can customise the tasks, the emails, and the timing to fit how your business actually onboards new starters.

Where to find the workflow

The default onboarding workflow is a system template called sys_wf_onboarding. You can’t edit the system template directly, but you can:

  • Duplicate it and edit the copy as your custom organisation workflow
  • Once you have a custom workflow, the platform uses your version automatically (it falls back to the system default only if no custom one is set)

To find this:

  1. From the HR Hub, open Onboarding.
  2. Look for the workflow templates section (it shows what’s currently running).
  3. Click to duplicate the system template, or edit your existing custom one.

What’s in the default workflow

The default ships with 15 tasks spread across categories, plus 6 emails scheduled around the start date.

Tasks

  • Documents (3). Employment contract, NDA, policy acknowledgement.
  • Compliance (4). Tax forms (TFN), super choice, work rights documentation, background check.
  • Culture (2). Team introduction, company handbook.
  • IT setup (3). Equipment request, system access, email configuration.
  • Role-based (3). Manager intro, peer buddy assignment, KPI setting.

Each task has a category, a title, a description, and an owner type (who’s responsible: employee, manager, HR, or IT).

Emails

  • Welcome. Sent on day 0 (the start date).
  • Pre-start. 7 days before start.
  • Day before. 1 day before start.
  • Day one. On the start date.
  • Week one check-in. 7 days after start.
  • Month one check-in. 30 days after start.

Each email uses merge tags so the new starter sees their name, start date, and manager’s name personalised. You can adjust the wording and timing.

Editing tasks

Inside the workflow editor:

  • Add a task. Pick a category, give it a title and description, set the owner.
  • Edit a task. Change the title, description, or owner.
  • Reorder. Drag tasks into the order you want the new starter to see them.
  • Remove. Delete a task entirely.

Be careful removing tasks that touch compliance (TFN, super, contract). Those are important for your obligations as an employer.

Editing emails

The 6 emails in the sequence each have:

  • A subject line
  • A body (rich text or HTML)
  • A trigger offset relative to the start date (in days)

Edit any of them in the email template section. Available merge tags include {employee_name}, {start_date}, {manager_name} (the platform adds others as you go, the editor shows you what’s available).

You can also disable emails you don’t want sent. For example, some orgs don’t send a “month one check-in” because their managers handle that in person.

Custom vs system templates

  • System templates. These live across all organisations on the platform. You can read them but not edit them. The platform falls back to system templates only if no custom one is set up for your org.
  • Custom templates. Yours, editable. Once you create one, the platform uses your custom workflow for new employees instead of the system default.

Changes you make to your custom template apply to future onboardings only. Anyone already mid-onboarding stays on the workflow as it was at the time they started.

Multiple workflows

Currently the platform supports one custom onboarding workflow per organisation. Some orgs need different workflows for different populations (head office vs site staff, full-time vs casual). That’s not yet built. For now, the simplest workaround is to make the default workflow cover the longest version, then mark optional steps for non-applicable groups, and have managers tell new starters which to skip.