An Onboarding Template is a set of Messages (basic Messages, Tasks, Polls, and Intros) that are delivered via Slack Direct Message to your new hires and other stakeholders, with predefined content and timing. Templates allow you to build a standard onboarding process that gets applied to your new hires in a consistent way.

Messages are what Donut sends your new hires or other stakeholders on Slack. In addition to basic Messages, there are 3 other types of advanced Messages: Task, Poll, and Intro. Read more about them here.

Onboarding Templates are built around a Start Date, allowing Messages to be triggered on any day and time, relative to the new hire's start date. For example, you may want to send a new hire a welcome message on Day 1, and a poll on Day 5 asking how their first week went. On Day 30, you may want to send their manager a task reminder check in and see how the new hire's first month went.

The Template builder interface is laid out for a Monday start date, but you can enter new hires to start on any day of the week and all of the Messages will shift accordingly. For example, if a Message is scheduled for Day 5 and a new hire starts on a Tuesday then they'll receive the Message the following Monday.

In addition to sending Messages to new hires, Templates can contain Messages that will be delivered to other roles (or key stakeholders) like managers or new-hire buddies. 

As a Premium Customer, you're able to build as many Templates as you want to suit your needs. You might want to build a "General Onboarding" Template with content for all your new hires, but you may also want to build separate Templates with content for certain new hires only.

For example, you might like to have location-specific Templates for your different offices, like "NYC" and "SF," or department-specific Templates, like "Engineering" and "Sales." (Check out some more tips on naming templates!) 

When you add new hires to Donut you get to pick Templates for each specific new hire in order to give them a tailor-made onboarding experience.

Assigning Messages to Roles

When you create a Message in a Template with Premium Onboarding, you'll be able select which Role will be the recipient of the Message.

Questions, comments, concerns? Feel free to contact support@donut.ai. You can also click the purple Intercom button at the bottom right to chat with us and we'll get back to you within 24 hours.