How do I start an onboarding?
There are four ways an onboarding comes into existence. Three of them are yours; the fourth is your HR system doing it for you. All four land on the same Confirm new-hire trigger step, so whichever route you take, an admin sets the role, the entitlement that applies, the start date and the invite before anything is ordered.
In this guide
Before you begin
You need Admin access. Managers hold none of the invite or create permissions, so they cannot start one.
From the employee list
For someone already on the roster:
- Go to Employees → Employees.
- Open the row menu on their name.
- Select Start onboarding.
You can do this for several employees at once: select them with the checkboxes and choose Start onboarding from the bar that appears. Each one becomes its own project, and each still needs confirming individually.
While creating the employee
When you add someone by hand and set their Status to Onboarding, Velory creates the onboarding as part of the same action and takes you straight to its confirm step. An information note appears in the dialog as soon as you pick that status.
This is the shortest path for a single new hire: one form, and you land where you need to be.
From a file import
The employee import accepts columns that start an onboarding per row:
| Column | What it does |
|---|---|
| trigger_onboarding | yes creates an onboarding for this hire. By default it waits on the confirm step |
| auto_trigger | yes starts it immediately without waiting for you. Needs a start date on the same row |
| invite_mode | now, scheduled or manual. Defaults to now |
| invite_scheduled_at | The send date, YYYY-MM-DD. Required when invite_mode is scheduled |
The review step turns these into real controls — a toggle and an invite selector — and blocks any row whose onboarding is incomplete until you fix it. See How do I import employees from a file?.
From your HR system
A connected HR system reports new hires, and your onboarding policy decides what Velory does with a report:
| Setting | Behaviour |
|---|---|
| Create & start automatically | The onboarding is created and begins right away |
| Create, but wait for my approval | Created as pending. Nothing sends until an admin approves it |
| Don't create automatically | Nothing happens. You start onboardings by hand |
The setting is When a new hire arrives from your HRIS in Settings → Onboarding. See How do I configure the onboarding policy?.
A hire reported this way arrives with their name, email, phone, role, department and — usually — their start date already filled in, and the confirm step says which system reported them.
Good to know
Which route should I use?
Connect an HR system if you have one; it is the only route that also tells you about departures. Use the status-on-create path for a one-off hire, and the import columns when you are setting Velory up and have a spreadsheet of new hires starting.
What if the hire is already Active?
Starting an onboarding does not change their status, and the project runs the same way. It is a reasonable thing to do for a rehire or for someone who joined before you had Velory.
Can I start a second onboarding for the same person?
The profile treats a pending or active onboarding as one already in progress and links you to it rather than offering to start another. Cancel the first if it is wrong.
Nothing happened when I clicked Start onboarding
Check the toast. The action reports its own failure — a missing email is the usual cause, since the invite has nowhere to go.
Was this article helpful?
Related articles