--- title: "Employee Onboarding Checklist and Workflow | Orangescrum" description: "Run new starter onboarding as a repeatable project. The pre start checklist, day one, the first ninety days, who owns what." canonical: https://www.orangescrum.com/use-cases/employee-onboarding --- # Employee Onboarding Checklist and Workflow | Orangescrum > For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://www.orangescrum.com/llms.txt). [Home](/) / [Use cases](/use-cases) / Employee onboarding Use case # Employee Onboarding That Is _Ready Before They Arrive_ A new starter with no laptop, no accounts, and no first task is a bad first week you cannot take back. The fix is a checklist that runs before day one. Available in[Cloud](/pricing "Cloud - included")[Self-Hosted](/self-hosted "Self-Hosted - included")Open Source [Start Free Trial →](/sign-up?utm_source=website&utm_medium=feature&utm_content=usecase_employee-onboarding)[Book a Demo](https://calendly.com/orangescrum) Attendance and leave management is available in the Self-Hosted edition · Unlimited users on every plan ## The scenario Someone accepts an offer. HR knows the start date, IT does not, and the hiring manager has been meaning to write an onboarding plan for two weeks. The new starter arrives on Monday, spends the morning waiting for a laptop, and the afternoon reading a wiki page last updated in 2023. Onboarding is not a hard process. It is a repeatable one that nobody owns. Make it a project with a template, and the whole thing becomes routine. Runs Per new starter Starts Two weeks before day one Start from Task Tracking or Simple template Owner HR, with named owners per task Who is involved ## Who is _involved_ Four owners. The commonest failure is that IT finds out too late. | Role | What they own | What they see in Orangescrum | | HR | The overall process, paperwork, and the start date | Every open onboarding project and where each one has stalled | | IT | Hardware, accounts, and access, all before day one | Their assigned provisioning tasks with the start date as the due date | | Hiring manager | The role, the first project, and the ninety day expectations | The new starter's plan and their first assigned work | | Buddy | The social side and the questions people will not ask a manager | A short list of check in tasks in week one, two, and four | | New starter | Their own reading, setup, and first deliverable | Their own task list, and the team wiki | The workflow ## Eight steps across _ninety days_ Steps one to three happen before the new starter exists in your systems. 1. 1 ### Create the onboarding project when the offer is accepted Not on the start date. The moment the offer is signed, so IT has two weeks rather than two hours. - One project per starter keeps the record clean and lets you see how many are in flight - Set every task's due date relative to the start date Carried by[Task management](/task-management) 2. 2 ### Load the standard checklist Contract signed, right to work checked, laptop ordered, accounts requested, desk allocated, buddy assigned, first project chosen. The same list every time, because the whole point is that it does not depend on memory. - Build it once as a reusable checklist group - A completion rule can hold a task open until the required boxes are ticked, so nothing gets waved through Carried by[Checklists](/checklists) 3. 3 ### Give IT their tasks with real deadlines Provisioning tasks assigned to IT, due three days before the start date rather than on it. Late hardware is the single most common onboarding failure and it is entirely preventable. Carried by[Task management](/task-management)[Mentions](/mention) 4. 4 ### Plan day one before day one An hour by hour first day, in the calendar. Welcome, laptop setup, team introductions, lunch with the buddy, and one small real task finished before they go home. - Finishing something real on day one does more for confidence than a week of reading Carried by[Project calendar](/project-calendar) 5. 5 ### Point them at documentation that is actually current Onboarding is the best audit of your internal documentation you will ever get. Give the new starter a task to log anything they found wrong or missing, and fix it while it is visible. Carried by[Wiki](/wiki-management) 6. 6 ### Set the access they should have, and only that Roles decide which projects a new person can see. Getting this right at the start is easier than auditing it in six months, particularly in regulated teams. Carried by[User roles and permissions](/user-role-management) 7. 7 ### Set up leave and working pattern Part time hours, existing holiday commitments, and the leave balance should be recorded before the first planning meeting, or the first sprint will assume they are available when they are not. Attendance and leave management is available in the Self-Hosted edition. Carried by[Attendance and leave](/attendance-leave-management)[Workload management](/workload-management-software) 8. 8 ### Run the thirty, sixty, and ninety day check ins Three scheduled conversations with written expectations for each. Put them in the project as tasks with due dates, because the ninety day check in is the one that always slips and it is the one that matters. Carried by[Task management](/task-management)[Project calendar](/project-calendar) Set it up ## Build it _on Monday morning_ One afternoon to build, then every hire takes ten minutes. 1. 1Create one onboarding project properlyUse the Task Tracking or Simple template and build the full task list into it, with owners for HR, IT, the manager, and the buddy. 2. 2Turn the repeatable part into a checklist groupThe pre start and day one items are identical for every hire, so make them reusable rather than retyping them. 3. 3Add the fields you need on every hireStart date, role, manager, location, and working pattern as custom fields rather than in a description. 4. 4Agree the access modelDecide which role a new starter in each function gets, once, and apply it every time. 5. 5Write the day one scheduleHour by hour. It takes twenty minutes to write and it is the difference between a good first day and a wasted one. 6. 6Copy it for the next hireCreate the next onboarding project the same way. The measure of success is that hire number twelve gets what hire number one got. Teams that must keep employee records inside their own network can run the whole thing on the self-hosted edition, which also includes attendance and leave management. The result ## What good _looks like_ The laptop is on the desk IT had two weeks of notice with a real deadline, not a message on the Friday before. Day one has a shape The new starter knows where to be and finishes something real before they go home. Nothing depends on one person's memory The checklist runs whether or not the usual HR person is on holiday that week. Documentation improves with every hire New starters log what was wrong or missing, and it gets fixed while the confusion is fresh. Access is right from the start People get the projects they need and nothing they should not see, which makes any later audit straightforward. The ninety day check in actually happens It is a task with a due date rather than an intention. Watch out ## Where this _usually goes wrong_ IT is told on the Friday Hardware and accounts cannot be arranged in one working day. ✓ Create the project when the offer is accepted, with provisioning due three days before the start. No plan for day one The new starter reads documentation for eight hours and goes home flat. ✓ An hour by hour schedule, ending with one small task they finish themselves. The checklist lives in a document It is copied, edited, and drifts until every hire gets a different version. ✓ A reusable checklist group applied to the task, not a document somebody duplicates. Onboarding stops on day five Everything is front loaded, then nobody checks in and month three is a surprise. ✓ Thirty, sixty, and ninety day check ins as tasks with due dates. Access granted broadly to save time The new starter gets more than they need and nobody revisits it. ✓ Agree the role per function up front and apply it consistently. Working pattern not recorded The team plans as though a four day week person is available five days. ✓ Record the pattern and, in self-hosted, the leave balance before the first planning meeting. Features used ## Everything this _runs on_ Attendance and leave management is available in the Self-Hosted edition. The rest is in both Cloud and Self-Hosted. [ChecklistsThe same steps for every new starter](/checklists)[Task managementOwners and deadlines across HR, IT, and the manager](/task-management)[Custom fieldsStart date, role, and working pattern as real data](/custom-fields)[User roles and permissionsThe right access from day one](/user-role-management)[Project calendarDay one, hour by hour](/project-calendar)[WikiDocumentation the new starter helps you fix](/wiki-management)[Attendance and leaveWorking pattern and leave, in Self-Hosted](/attendance-leave-management)[Human resourcesHow HR teams use Orangescrum](/solutions/human-resource) Frequently asked questions ## Employee onboarding _FAQ_ When should employee onboarding start? When the offer is accepted, not on the start date. IT provisioning is the step that most often fails, and it needs about two weeks of notice to be reliable. Should each new starter get their own project? Yes. One project per starter keeps the record clean, lets HR see every onboarding in flight, and means the ninety day check ins have somewhere to live. Which template should I use? Task Tracking or Simple. Onboarding is a list of tasks with owners and dates, so you do not need sprint tooling. Is Orangescrum an HR system? No. It does not do payroll, applicant tracking, or e-signature, and it is not an HRIS. It runs the onboarding process itself, which is the part that usually has no owner. The self-hosted edition adds attendance and leave management. Can I track leave and working patterns? Attendance and leave management is available in the Self-Hosted edition. It matters for onboarding because the first sprint plan should not assume a part time starter is available five days a week. Does adding new employees cost more? No. Every plan includes unlimited users and pricing is flat at 29 dollars for Basic, 69 for Pro, and 349 for Premium, so headcount does not change what you pay. Can new starters only see what they should? Yes. Roles and permissions control project level access, so a new starter sees the projects they are a member of and nothing else. How do I stop onboarding stopping after week one? Put the thirty, sixty, and ninety day check ins in the project as tasks with due dates and an owner. If they are only intentions, the ninety day one never happens. ## Make every first week the same good one One repeatable project per hire, with unlimited users on every plan. [Start Free Trial →](/sign-up?utm_source=website&utm_medium=feature&utm_content=usecase_employee-onboarding_cta)[Book a Demo](https://calendly.com/orangescrum) ## Related use cases [Client onboardingThe same idea, pointed outward](/use-cases/client-onboarding)[Quarterly planningWhere the new headcount gets planned](/use-cases/quarterly-planning)[Vendor procurementHow the laptop actually gets bought](/use-cases/vendor-procurement)[Recruitment templateThe hiring pipeline that comes before this](/project-templates/recruitment) [See all use cases →](/use-cases)