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Custom Onboarding Templates: More Than Just New Hires
Custom Onboarding Templates: More Than Just New Hires

Learn how to craft personalized templates for training, mentorship, events, and more.

Carrie Biggar avatar
Written by Carrie Biggar
Updated over a week ago

What are Custom Templates?

Custom Templates are a feature within our Donut Onboarding tool that allows organizations to create and implement tailored journeys for their team members. Unlike the traditional approach that was limited to 'New Hire Onboarding,' Custom Templates offer the flexibility to choose from a variety of predefined templates, such as 'Events,' 'Training' 'Mentorship,' and more. This means that you can create personalized journeys, no matter where someone is in their career.

How do I create a template?

  1. Navigate to app.donut.ai and select Onboarding on the left panel. Note: You must be using Donut's Premium subscription.

  2. Select "Templates", then "New Template"

  3. You'll name your template and select the type of template you would like to utilize. You can also customize the description and permissions at this step.

  4. Click the "Intro Integrations" tab to customize the options you would like to include for any Intros message types that are utilized.

  5. Once everything is set to your preferences, click the "Create" button located on the "General" tab.

What is the difference between Custom Templates and Onboarding Templates?

Utilizing the Onboarding template option will designate the person enrolled as a "New Hire". All of your messaging is centered around a New Hire's start date and building blocks are intended to help ensure a New Hire gets off to a great start. Using Custom Templates, allows you to designate 'Participants' instead, which can be team members who are at any point in their career. This opens the door for you to create journeys for anything from leadership training to company events.

How do I create content for my template?

  1. If you are already in your template, you'll select 'Add Message' This will bring up several options for you to choose from. You can see more detail about available message types, here.

  2. You can choose between Channel Messages, Slack Intros, Slack Direct Messages, or Emails.

Once you have selected the type of message you would like to send, you can customize who will receive the message, when it will be sent and any additional preferences based on the type of message.

How do I enroll someone into a Custom Template?

  1. Navigate to app.donut.ai and select Onboarding on the left panel.

  2. Select 'Participants' on the left sidebar

  3. Select 'Enroll Participant' and complete all required fields.

  4. Click 'Add Participant' to enroll them in the Custom Template

Pro Tip: Participant anchor date is the day that all of the participants messages will be anchored around. This is typically when you would like them to start the journey, however you can have messages send out prior to the anchor date. For Example: If you were enrolling someone in a Leadership Training Template, you might want to send a message to their Manager with various ways they can help support their development.

Who are Participants?

Participants are folks who you enroll into your template. While messages can go out to more than just the 'Participant', this will be the person who most of your content will be for. Anyone else that receives messages who have not been added as a 'Participant', will have some relationship to the 'Participants' journey.

Can you enroll more than one Participant at a time?

Absolutely. If you select the 'Enroll Multiple' option in your Participant section, you'll have the ability to add multiple people at once. You can add folks line by line or you can choose to copy/paste from an excel sheet.

Use Case: You might want to enroll your entire team in a Department Training program where everyone will be starting the program at the same time. This will give you the ability to leverage career development in a powerful and automated way to ensure you retain your top talent.

What are the different template options and how should I use them?

Right now we have options for Onboarding, Events, Mentorship, Training, Offboarding and Other. We will continue to update our offerings and provide building blocks that are tailored to each template type.


Have questions or feedback? Just click the purple intercom button in the bottom right of your screen to open up a chat with our support team!

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