Once you've created an Onboarding Journey, you can add your New Hires, along with their start dates, so that they receive the Messages you added to your template(s).
When you onboard New Hires in Donut you need to provide a few key pieces of information for each new hire:
The date the new hire is starting.
The new hire's Slack name or company email address. Let us know who the New Hire is on Slack. Or if their Slack account doesn't exist yet, just enter their company email address and Donut will find them when they sign up for Slack.
Name, Slack name, or company email for any other Roles. E.g. the New Hire's Manager or Buddy. Just start typing their name or email address under the appropriate Role and autocomplete options will appear.
The Journeys you'd like to use for each new hire. This controls which Messages the New Hire and associated Roles will receive. As an example, you may have an "All New Hires" or "General Onboarding" Journey that you apply to everyone, and more specific Journeys like "Mobile Engineer" or "NYC Office" that include additional information and Messages. You can select one or multiple Journeys for each new hire.
There are Four Ways to Enroll New Hires in a Journey
You can enroll new hires in a journey in four ways: through ongoing automatic enrollment, or via manual enrollment. Here are the details for each method:
Ongoing Automatic Enrollment
This option automatically enrolls new hires as they join your Slack, HRIS, or a specific Slack channel.Auto-enroll New Hires imported from your HRIS: New hires will be automatically enrolled based on data imported from your HRIS system. This method is recommended for onboarding new hires.
Auto-enroll all new Slack users: All new users in your Slack workspace will be automatically enrolled in the selected journeys. This is ideal for onboarding new hires that join via Slack.
Auto-enroll New Hires by joining a Slack channel: New hires who join a specific Slack channel will be automatically enrolled in selected journeys. This method is recommended for individual training or Employee Resource Group onboarding.
Manual Enrollment
This option lets you manually enroll new hires by entering their journey start date, roles, and other relevant details. This method is ideal for when you need to enroll new hires individually or in a smaller cohort.
Manual Enrollment
Manual enrollment allows you to add new hires individually or in bulk by specifying their journey start date and other role details. This method is useful for enrolling new hires one by one or when new cohorts start.
Individual Enrollment
To enroll a single new hire, follow these steps:
Go to All New Hires
In the left sidebar menu, click on All New Hires.
Click Onboard New Hires
Click the Onboard New Hires button in the upper-right corner.
Select One-Time Enrollment
In the pop-up window, select One-time enrollment on the left-hand side.
Click Manually
Choose the Manually option to add a new hire individually.
Select the Journey
From the drop-down menu, select the journey you want the new hire to be enrolled in.💡 You can change this later.
Fill Out New Hire Details
Complete the following fields:Start Date
Journeys
Slack Account
First Name
Last Name
Work Email
Personal Email
Buddy
Time Zone
Complete the Enrollment
After filling in the new hire’s details, click Add New Hires to complete the process.
Bulk Enrollment
For enrolling multiple new hires at once, you can either enter each new hire’s details manually or use a CSV file for bulk entry.
Copy & Paste into Donut
Many teams already have a list of the new hires, their managers, and other associated people collected in a spreadsheet, so you can copy & paste a list directly from your spreadsheet, as long as your columns are in the same order. And don't worry if it looks like there aren't enough rows — we will automatically add enough rows if you paste a list that's longer than the number of rows shown.
Bulk Import via CSV
For a more streamlined approach, you can import new hire details using a CSV file:
Download Template: Click the 'Download Template' button to get a CSV template.
Fill in the Data: Complete the CSV file with the necessary new hire details.
Upload the File: After completing the file, upload the CSV to auto-populate the table with new hire information.
⚠️ Uploading a CSV will clear any unsaved changes.
Complete the Enrollment
After entering or uploading the new hire details, click Add New Hires to finish the process.
Auto-Enrollment (Ongoing Automatic Enrollment)
Add New Hires via Channel Enrollment
You can also automatically enroll New Hires in a Journey when they join a specific Slack channel. To set up channel-based enrollment:
Locate the left-side menu in your dashboard. Under Donut Journeys, click in to your New Hires page.
Select Onboard New Hires near the top right.
You'll see a popup, where you should select Ongoing automatic enrollment on the left-hand side. Then, click Auto-enroll new hires by joining a Slack channel.
Select which Journey(s) you'd like to assign to New Hires as well as which channel(s) from your workspace you'd like Donut to pull New Hires from.
Click Next and then OK to confirm your selection.
💡 Good to know:
Only new channel members will be enrolled; people who are already in the channel when the setting is turned on will not be automatically enrolled.
If someone joins a channel multiple times, they will only be enrolled in the Journey once.
Auto Enroll All Slack Users or via HRIS
For more details on setting up automatic enrollment via Slack or HRIS, please refer to the full guide: Read More about Auto-Enroll.
Have questions? Contact us
If you have any questions or feedback, click the purple Donut button on the bottom right of your screen to open up a chat with our support team!