Chapter 32 — Onboarding
A new employee's first weeks are a list of things that must happen in order: a computer before the first day, a login on the day, a salary and a contract before payroll, a seat on the attendance device, a badge, an orientation, a review date. Operentra opens that list the moment the employee record exists and keeps it honest: several items tick themselves when the real work is done elsewhere, and the pipeline closes when the required ones are. This chapter is the list, who owns it, and the little automation around it.
What this chapter covers
- 32.1 What good onboarding looks like
- 32.2 Pipelines start automatically; pipeline statuses
- 32.3 Task kinds: manual, run, link, auto-check
- 32.4 Mark done, waive, reopen, cancel
- 32.5 Run tasks: push to biometric, schedule probation review
- 32.6 Welcome and pre-joining emails; onboarding emails
The concept
32.1 What good onboarding looks like
Onboarding is the gap between "hired" and "working", and most of what goes wrong in it is forgotten, not difficult. The person arrives and there is no laptop; payroll runs and they are not in it; three weeks later nobody has told them where the policies are. The fixes are dull: a checklist that exists before the person does, with owners and dates; a few items that happen before day one; a definition of "done" that includes the systems, not just the handshake; and a review date set on the first day rather than remembered on the last.
Three rules make a checklist work.
Start it from the joining date, not from today. Items due before the first day (the welcome email, the computer) only make sense counted backwards from when the person starts.
Let the system tick what the system knows. Whether a login exists, a salary is assigned, a contract is signed, an asset is issued: those are facts in the data, and a checklist that asks a human to confirm them will be wrong whenever the human is busy.
Close the loop with the person. The last step of onboarding is telling the employee it is finished, so that anything still missing is raised now and not in month three.
How Operentra handles it
- A pipeline per employee, created with the record. Adding an
employee (Chapter 16), importing one (Chapter 17) or converting a
candidate (Chapter 30) opens a pipeline with the standard twelve
tasks, due dates counted from the joining date, and emails everyone
with
onboarding.managethat it exists. - Five pipeline statuses: Preparing (joining date ahead), Day 1 (joining date reached), Ramping (joined and at least one task done), Completed (every required task done or waived), Cancelled.
- Three task kinds: manual (you tick it), run (a button performs the step), link (opens the screen where the work is done). Seven of the twelve are also auto-checks: they close themselves when the underlying fact exists.
- Five task statuses: Pending, In Progress, Done, Waived, Blocked.
- Required versus optional: the pipeline completes when the required tasks are Done or Waived; the probation review is the one optional default.
- Auto-checks run every time a pipeline is opened, and only move tasks forward; a Done or Waived task is never reopened by them. Opening a pipeline also backfills default tasks added to the product since it was created.
- Who:
onboarding.view(Super Admin, HR Manager, HR Officer, Accountant, Department Head) to see pipelines;onboarding.manage(Super Admin, HR Manager, HR Officer) to tick, waive, run and cancel. - Four emails: to HR when a pipeline starts; to an assignee when a task is assigned (through the API); to the employee when the pipeline completes; and the two the Run tasks send, pre-joining and welcome.
Walkthrough
Northwind has 50 pipelines. 48 are Completed: everyone who joined months or years ago, including the three who have since left, whose onboarding was over long before they went. Two are open: Clementine Hargrove (NWL-0050), an accountant who joined on 15 October 2026, is at Day 1 with 6 of 12 tasks done; Lucia Ferrero (NWL-0049), who joins on 2 November 2026, is Preparing with 3 of 12.
32.2 Pipelines start automatically; pipeline statuses
Onboarding in the menu lists every pipeline: employee, designation, joining date, status pill, and a progress bar of tasks done over tasks total. A status filter narrows the list. There is no "new pipeline" button; pipelines come from employee creation, and "Pipelines auto-spawn when a new employee is created" is the empty state.
| Status | When |
|---|---|
| Preparing | Created while the joining date is still ahead |
| Day 1 | The joining date has arrived; set on creation for a past date, or when a pipeline is opened after it |
| Ramping | The employee has joined and at least one task is Done or Waived |
| Completed | Every required task is Done or Waived; stamped with the date |
| Cancelled | Closed by HR with Cancel pipeline, or by Complete Settlement when the employee leaves with it still open (Chapter 82) |
Statuses move forward on their own as tasks close; Completed is final, and a cancelled pipeline is history. A completed pipeline cannot be reopened.
Opening a pipeline shows the employee's name, code, designation, department and joining date, the status, Cancel pipeline, and the Onboarding Checklist with a legend: Run tasks do the step for you, Link tasks open the relevant page in a new tab, Auto-check tasks close by themselves once the records show the work is done.
32.3 Task kinds: manual, run, link, auto-check
The twelve default tasks, in order, with their due offset from the joining date:
| Task | Due | Kind | Closes itself when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Send pre-joining email | 7 days before | Run | — (Run sends it) |
| Prepare computer | 2 days before | Manual | — |
| Create portal account | Day 1 | Auto-check | A login (membership) exists for the employee |
| Assign salary structure | Day 1 | Link to Payroll › Employee Salaries | An active salary assignment exists |
| Create employment contract | Day 1 | Link to Contracts › New | Any contract exists for the employee |
| Contract accepted or signed | Day 1 | Link to Contracts | A contract is accepted electronically or has a signed copy; the note says which and when |
| Enroll on biometric device | Day 1 | Run | The employee is on a device |
| Issue assets (computer, SIM, badge) | Day 1 | Link to Assets | Any asset has been issued to them |
| Day-1 orientation | Day 1 | Manual | — |
| Send welcome email | 1 day after | Run | — (Run sends it) |
| Confirm leave group assignment | 3 days after | Link to Leave › Groups | The employee record carries a leave group |
| Schedule probation review | 30 days after, optional | Run | A Probation Review cycle exists for them |
Each card shows the label, the description (the default text, in the reader's language until HR edits it), the due date, the assignee when one is set, badges for its kind (run, link, auto-check, auto-verified once the engine ticked it, optional) and its status.
Auto-checks are why Lucia Ferrero's pipeline shows three tasks Done before the first day: the portal account, the contract and the leave group are already on the record. "Assign salary structure" waits, because the salary is in force only from the joining date, and "Contract accepted or signed" waits for Lucia's acceptance. Clementine Hargrove's six are four auto-checks and the two HR marked done, "Prepare computer" and "Day-1 orientation". Each auto-check leaves a note saying what it found, such as "Active salary assigned (gross $ 5,600, effective 15 Oct 2026)." The engine only runs on open; nothing sweeps pipelines overnight. It also never reopens: a task HR marked Done stays Done if the asset is later returned, and a Waived task stays Waived if the contract later appears.
The due dates are labels. Nothing is emailed when a task falls due, and the list does not sort by it; the pipeline page is the queue.
32.4 Mark done, waive, reopen, cancel
Every task that is not Done offers Mark done; a manual task has nothing else. Waive asks for an optional note ("Waive 'Prepare computer'? Optional note:") and sets Waived, which counts as done for completion; use it for an item that does not apply to this hire, with the reason in the note. Reopen returns a Done or Waived task to Pending, clearing the completion stamp. Open on a link task opens its page in a new tab and leaves the task alone; the auto-check closes it when you next open the pipeline.
Both Mark done and Waive record who and when; the auto-check engine records "system" and the summary it found. Tasks cannot be added, reordered, renamed or assigned from the page; those exist in the API only, which is where a workspace that wants a custom checklist works today.
Cancel pipeline ("Tasks will be discarded.") sets Cancelled with a date. The tasks stay in the record but the pipeline leaves the open list and the auto-checks stop. Cancel it for a hire that fell through before day one; a pipeline for a person who then leaves needs nothing from you, since Complete Settlement cancels it (Chapter 82).
When the last required task closes, by hand or by auto-check, the pipeline becomes Completed and the employee is emailed "Welcome aboard — onboarding complete!"; the optional probation review does not hold it up.
32.5 Run tasks: push to biometric, schedule probation review
Four tasks carry a Run button, and each performs one step on the server and writes the outcome into the task's note: Done when it worked, Blocked with the reason when it did not. A Blocked task can be Run again or waived.
Enroll on biometric device pushes the employee to the attendance terminal (Chapter 40). It needs a plan that includes biometric devices; otherwise the button shows a lock and a link to the plans, while the auto-check still closes the task for an employee already on a device and Waive still works. With one active device, Run uses it; with several, the task blocks with "choose a device", because the page has no device picker; push from the Biometric page instead and let the auto-check tick the task. A failed push blocks with the device's error.
Schedule probation review creates the "Probation Review — Name" appraisal cycle from the joining date to the probation end date, with the reporting manager as reviewer, exactly as the overnight job in Chapter 24 would thirty days before the date. It blocks when the employee has no probation end date or the workspace has no active Probation Review template, and it is idempotent: Run on a hire whose cycle already exists reports the existing one and closes the task.
Send pre-joining email and Send welcome email are in 32.6.
32.6 Welcome and pre-joining emails; onboarding emails
| To | When | |
|---|---|---|
| "Welcome to Northwind Labs, Inc. — your first day, 2 Nov 2026" (pre-joining) | The employee's work email, else personal | When HR clicks Run on the first task. The body welcomes them as designation and department on the date and lists what to bring on day one: the original identity document under its local name plus copies, educational certificates, experience letters, two passport photographs, bank details, and, where the country taxes income through payroll, the previous employer's tax certificate |
| "Welcome to Northwind Labs, Inc.!" (welcome) | The same | When HR clicks Run on the welcome task: employee code, department, designation, joining date, and a prompt to sign in to the portal |
| "New onboarding: Imani Castellanos (NWL-0007) — joining …" | Everyone with onboarding.manage | When the pipeline is created, with a link to it |
| "Onboarding task assigned: …" | The user a task is assigned to | When an assignee is set, through the API |
| "Welcome aboard — onboarding complete!" | The employee | When the pipeline completes |
All five are templates on Settings › Email Templates with their own switches (Chapter 79); a switched-off pre-joining or welcome template makes Run report "template missing" and block the task, so waive it. Each is also a bell notification in the Joining & leaving category for the recipient. The Run emails go to the employee's work email when one is set, else the personal address; a hire with neither blocks the task.
What happens next
- Activation is the contract task. "Contract accepted or signed" is the step that turns a New employee Active (Chapter 18); the pipeline records it, it does not cause it.
- Payroll and attendance read the record, not the pipeline. A pipeline with "Assign salary structure" Pending means no assignment exists, and payroll will skip the person; the task is the reminder, the Payroll page is the fix.
- Probation continues on the Probations page and in the daily digest (Chapter 24) whether or not the review task was run.
- The pipeline stays as the record of how the person was brought in, with who did what and when.
What the employee sees
Nothing of the checklist. They receive the pre-joining email before they start if HR sends it, the welcome email after, the portal invitation from the employee record (Chapter 16), and "Welcome aboard — onboarding complete!" at the end. Their own first steps are the contract (Chapter 18) and their profile (Chapter 21).
Common mistakes
- Waiting for the pipeline to tick itself overnight. Auto-checks run when the pipeline is opened. Open it.
- Marking "Assign salary structure" done by hand. It closes itself when the assignment exists; ticking it without one hides a payroll gap behind a green badge.
- Running the biometric push with two devices. It blocks. Push from the Biometric page, then reopen the pipeline.
- Reading a Blocked task as finished. Blocked is a failed Run with the reason in the note. Fix the cause and Run again, or Waive with a note.
- Waiving the contract task. It counts as done for completion, but the employee stays New until a contract is accepted or signed. Waive it only for someone who genuinely has no Operentra contract.
- Cancelling a pipeline to tidy the list. Cancelled is final and the auto-checks stop. Let a finished person's pipeline complete instead by opening it once.
- Expecting due-date reminders. None exist; the due dates are on the cards and nowhere else.
- Expecting to assign tasks from the page. Assignment is API-only today; the page shows an assignee but cannot set one.
Practice
Use your own trial workspace, not a customer's.
- Open Onboarding and find the pipeline of the last employee you created. Read the status, the progress bar and the twelve cards; note which carry an auto-check badge.
- Click Run on "Send pre-joining email" and read the note it leaves. Then Waive "Prepare computer" with a note and read the badge.
- Assign the employee a salary, create their contract (Chapter 31), and reopen the pipeline. Count the tasks that ticked themselves and read their notes.
- Reopen one auto-verified task, reload, and watch the engine close it again. Mark "Day-1 orientation" done.
- Give the employee a probation end date, run "Schedule probation review", and find the cycle under Performance › Appraisals. Then open Settings › Email Templates and read the pre-joining template's document list.
Quiz
1. How is a pipeline created, and what status does it start in?
By creating the employee record, in any of the three ways. It starts as Preparing when the joining date is ahead and Day 1 when it has passed, with the twelve default tasks dated from the joining date.
2. When do auto-check tasks close, and what do they never do?
When the pipeline is opened and the underlying fact exists: a login, a salary assignment, a contract, an acceptance or signed copy, a device enrolment, an issued asset, a leave group, a probation cycle. They never reopen a Done or Waived task.
3. What is the difference between Waive and Mark done for completion?
None: both count towards the pipeline completing. Waive records that the item did not apply, with an optional note; Mark done records that it was done.
4. Why might "Enroll on biometric device" show a lock, and what can you still do?
The plan does not include biometric devices. The auto-check still closes the task for an employee already on a device, and the task can be waived.
5. Who is emailed when a pipeline starts, and who when it completes?
Everyone with the manage-onboarding permission when it starts; the employee when it completes.