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Donut Journeys: Explained

Learn how to customize automated Journeys for training, mentorship, events, and more.

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

What are Journeys?

Donut Journeys enable organizations to customize, execute at scale, and iterate on targeted programs that facilitate employee growth and development.

Unlike the original approach that was limited to 'New Hire Onboarding,' Journeys offer the flexibility to choose from a variety of predefined programs, such as 'Events,' 'Training,' 'Mentorship,' and more. This means that you can create customized journeys, no matter where someone is in the employee lifecycle.

Each Journey can include a personalized Hub, providing participants with a central location to track their progress, access resources, and view important information related to their program. Click here to learn more.

How do I create a Journey?

  1. Go to your Donut dashboard and select "Donut Journeys" in the left sidebar menu. Note: You must be using Donut's Premium subscription.


  2. Select "Prebuilt Journeys", then choose from the existing library of ready-made Journeys or click "Blank Journey" to start from scratch.


  3. If you're creating a Blank Journey:

    1. You'll have the option to create a title and select a category for the program. For example: A Journey used to facilitate Offsites would have the title "Offsite" and category "Events."

    2. Click "Create" and then you'll have the option to add Building Blocks or individual Messages.

  4. If you're selecting a Prebuilt Journey:

    1. Hover over the Journey of your choice and click "Next."
      The options include:
      - Full-Time Employee Onboarding/Offboarding
      - Happy Hour
      - New Manager Training
      - Contractor Offboarding
      - Internship Full Lifecycle
      - Peer Mentorship Program
      - Public Speaking and Presentation Skills
      - Intern Offboarding
      - And more!

    2. On the next page, you can customize what Building Blocks are included, preview the messages, view the duration of the program, and view how many messages and roles are included.

What is the difference between Onboarding Journeys and other Journeys like Mentorship, Training, or Events?

Utilizing an Onboarding Journey 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 other Journeys, 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 Journey?

  1. If you are already in your Journey, 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.

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.

Free plans include up to 3 messages per Journey

Standard plans include up to 6 messages per Journey

Premium plans include unlimited messages

Note: People can be enrolled in one Journey at a time on the Free and Standard plans. If you need to enroll people into multiple Journeys, the Premium Plan will fit your needs the best!

How do I enroll someone into a Journey?

  1. Navigate to your dashboard and select Donut Journeys on the left panel.

  2. Select 'All Participants' or 'All New Hires' on the left sidebar

  3. Select 'Enroll Participants' or 'Enroll New Hires' on the upper right-hand corner and select whether you'd like to enroll folks one at a time or in bulk.

  4. Fill in all required details, and click 'Add Participant' or 'Add New Hire' to enroll them in the Journey

You can learn more about enrolling New Hires here. To learn more about enrolling Participants, click here.

Pro Tip: The 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 program, however you can have messages send out prior to the anchor date. For Example: If you were enrolling someone in a Leadership Training Journey, you might want to send a message to their Manager with various ways they can help support their development.

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.


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!

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