Tasks in Onboarding

Introduction

In Onboarding, Tasks serve as containers for forms assigned to employees. They track the completion of form fields and any related subtasks. For example, when you assign a W-4 form to an employee, it creates a task for them to complete. Any data they enter or progress they make is tied to that specific task.

You will often hear tasks and forms used interchangeably. While they differ in many ways, because all tasks are associated with exactly one form, it’s reasonable to say you’re assigning forms to an employee to complete when you’re assigning a task. However, a form will not contain data filled in by the employee or employer representative. Only the tasks object will contain this information.

Forms can be divided into sub-tasks, which represent individual pages within the form. When a new hire or user completes a task and clicks Save & Next, they are moved to the next sub-task, if one exists. If there are no more subtasks, they will either proceed to the next form or task. If there are no remaining tasks, their onboarding is complete.

Audience

Onboarding Admin 

View Tasks

Within Onboarding, select Tasks.

The Tasks page will be displayed.

On the Tasks page, you can do the following:

• Filter by:
  • Progress
  • Assignee
  • Task ID
  • Employee ID
  • Employer ID
  • More filters
    • Client ID
    • Job ID
    • Form ID

• View – This allows you to determine which columns are displayed.
  • Progress
  • Status
  • Next Action
  • Template Name
  • Due At
  • Expired At
  • Created At
  • Updated At

NOTE: Tasks can also be viewed from the Employee profile. Please see Employees in Onboarding for more information.

Task Lifecycle

A Task represents the need for an employee to fill out a form to meet the compliance requirements of one or more placements.

From the Tasks page, select the desired task.

When a task is first created, its status displays Requires Action. Most forms only need to be filled out by employees, and for tasks that represent these forms, you will see Employee next to the task's Next Action. This indicates that the employee needs to take action to complete the task.

Once tasks for an employee are created, the employer typically sends an onboarding link to the employee, allowing them to begin filling out the necessary forms. Click Create Link.

Under Delivery Method, select your desired method:

• Create Link – Creates a clickable URL that can be sent to the employee. This will allow you to send an email using an outside email application, such as Outlook or Gmail.
• Send via Email – Generates an email that will be sent to the employee. This requires you to enter the employee's email address.
• Send via SMS - Generates an SMS message that will be sent to the employee. This requires you to enter the employee's phone number.

Click Create Link. NOTE: If you select Send via Email, the action will be displayed as Send Email. If you choose Send via SMS, the action will be displayed as Send SMS.

Navigate to your email application > create a new email > paste the link that was created > and send the email.

Once all the preceding employee sections are completed, if a form has sections that need to be completed by the employer, the task representing that form will have its Next Action transition to Employer. Once the employer completes their sections, the task's Next Action will transition back to Employee if there are remaining employee sections.

Once all pages of the form are completed, the task status will transition to Completed, and the Next Action will be empty.

Once a task is completed, employees can no longer make edits from the onboarding link. They can still view their submission in a read-only format.

If an employee notices an error in their submission, they should contact you directly. To allow an employee to make edits to a completed task, click Request Change from the task view. NOTE: Changes can only be requested against tasks in a Completed status.

Once a change is requested, the task status transitions back to Requires Action, and the Next Action is set to the party responsible for completing the first section of the form. The employee can then use their previous onboarding link to make edits to their last submission.

Task Reusability

An existing employee may move from one position to another within the same company. While different jobs may require different onboarding tasks, existing employees often shouldn't have to fill out the same forms repeatedly. In Onboarding, you can specify when a completed form is allowed to be reused across different roles, speeding up the onboarding process and reducing potential points of error.

For example, you can set up a form to allow completed tasks to be reused across placements under the same employer; you can also reuse tasks across placements with the same job or client. Additionally, you can compose reusability criteria to reuse tasks across placements with the same employer and job, or with the same job and client, and so on.

NOTE: When multiple placements reuse a task, deleting the task may affect the completion progress of all the associated placements.

For more information on setting up reusability criteria, please refer to Forms in Onboarding - Start from Scratch.

Task Expiration

When the expiration time of a task passes, its status changes to Expired. Expired tasks are no longer considered in the calculation of a related placement's completion progress. Setting expiration times on tasks enables employers to establish deadlines by which specific tasks must be completed.

NOTE: Do not use Expiration Date during I-9 Reverification, as it will terminate the task.

Task Expiration by Candidate Input

Task expiration rules enable tasks to dynamically expire based on the date and time information provided by employees when they submit a form. You can use the task expiration rule if you have a form with input that collects ID/license expiration date, and you want the task to expire based on the date provided.

Navigate to Forms, then click Active Forms.

Select the desired form.

Click Expiration Rules.

Under the New Rule drop-down, select a date field. The field you choose will determine when a task created from this form expires.

Click Create Expiration Rule. The completed task will now automatically expire based on the date provided in the selected field.

Task Expiration by Time

If you know exactly when a task should expire, you can set the expiration time of a task via the task.

Navigate to Tasks.

Select the desired task.

Click Edit.

Under Expire at, add or update the date and time.

To save your changes, click Update Task.

Task Expiration by Form

In addition to setting the expiration time directly on a task, you can also set it on a form. Doing so allows you to expire all tasks of the form at a specific time. This can be helpful if the form itself has a natural expiration time.

Navigate to Forms, then click Active Forms.

Select a form with the status Draft.

Under Versions, click Draft.

Next to the form name, click the edit icon.

Under Task Expiration Time, add or update the date and time. NOTE: Alternatively, you can set task expiration based on when it's completed. For example, if you have a form that requires a candidate to be re-certified every x days after completion, you can set the Days Before Task Expires field on any draft version. Setting the value to 365, for example, will cause every completed task under this form to expire 365 days after its completion time.

To save your changes, click Update Version.

NOTE: For the updated expiration time to take effect, the draft must be published. Any existing tasks will continue to use the form version with which they were created. Existing tasks must be recreated to receive the latest version of the form.

Best Practices

• Once a task has expired, it can no longer be edited. Employers should create a new task and send an onboarding link to the employee so that they can complete the task by resubmitting the form.
• A task may have multiple competing sources that simultaneously affect its expiration time. For example, you can set an explicit expiration time on both a task and its form. At the same time, the form may also have an expiration rule, as well as an expiration date by completion. When this happens, Onboarding calculates the expiration time from all applicable sources and uses the earliest timestamp as the task's actual expiration time.
• Only tasks with the Completed status can expire. If you set an expiration time on a task under the Requires Action status, the task will not transition to Expired status until it's completed.
• Task expiration time is only calculated upon task completion. Meaning, unless you set an expiration time directly on a task, you will not see any task expiration time until your task is completed (even if there are relevant form-level expiration settings).
• Task expiration is evaluated through a batch process, and tasks may not transition to the Expired status immediately after the expiration time. Onboarding aims to transition all tasks within six hours past the expiration time.
• When a task expiration rule is created, it will only apply to tasks completed after that moment. Tasks that are completed before an expiration rule is made will not be affected by the expiration rule.
• When a task expiration rule is deleted, any task that was completed while the rule was present will continue to expire based on the employee’s field input. In other words, deleting a task expiration rule will not alter the expiration behavior for tasks that have already been completed.