Onboarding timeline example

Onboarding surveys run at a specific point in an employee's journey with you. This page uses a 1-month check-in as the example, but you can run them at 1 week, 3 months, 6 months, or 12 months. The timeline shape is the same.

If you have automatic adding turned on

This is the easiest setup. You import people into your participant library with their start date, and AskYourTeam handles the rest.

• Before the employee starts → Enter their start date into the participant library.
• 1 month after their start date → They're automatically added to the survey and sent an invitation by email or SMS.

What if a start date is entered late?

Sometimes you'll only learn someone's start date after they've already started. Here's what happens:

• Within the sending period (e.g. 25 days into a 1-month check-in): they'll be picked up automatically when the 1-month mark arrives.
• Just past the sending period (within about a week beyond it): they'll be picked up on the next daily run, usually within 24 hours.
• Well past the sending period (more than about a week beyond it): you'll see a banner at the top of your participant library inviting you to Review them. Add them in two clicks. Their invitation goes out within 10 minutes.

Missed participants will be highlighted in the Participant library.

If you have automatic adding turned off

If you've turned auto-add off for your onboarding survey, you'll do all the adding manually.

• Before the employee starts → Manually add the employee to the survey and enter their start date.
• 1 month after their start date → They're automatically sent an invitation by email or SMS at the time the survey is configured to send.

If you add the employee to the survey after the 1-month mark, the invitation goes out within 10 minutes of the moment you add them.

Why a participant might be missed and what to do

Even with automation on, the system might not auto-invite a participant. The most common reasons:

• Their start date was set well after they started. Auto-add only looks at people whose start date falls inside a specific window (typically from about a week before to your sending-period mark). Anyone outside that window is too far away for the nightly run to reach.
• They have no email and no mobile number. Auto-add needs at least one contact method.

• They already exist on the survey under a duplicate email, mobile, or customer identifier. The system skips duplicates so people don't get two invitations.

  
  

Missed participants

The participant library shows a banner when there are participants in your library have a start date in the last 12 months and missed the invitation sending period set in your onboarding survey.

Click Review to open the Participants needing review modal.

1. Tick the participants you want to act on.
2. Choose one of the actions:
   • Add to survey: adds them to the active onboarding survey and sends their invitation within 10 minutes. If you have only one active onboarding survey, that's where they'll go automatically. If you have more than one, you'll be asked to pick.
   • Skip these participants: marks them as decided-against. They won't appear in the banner again. You can still add them manually from a library row later if you change your mind.
3. Click Confirm.

You'll see a toast in the bottom-right corner of the page confirming what happened, with a link to Participant Tracking page so you can check delivery status.

Why an "Add to survey" might fail

Most adds work first time. If the toast says some participants couldn't be added, here are the usual reasons:

• They were just auto-added by the nightly run. If the nightly job ran in the few minutes between you opening the modal and clicking Confirm, the participant is already on the survey. Your add tried to create a duplicate. No further action needed. Check Participant Tracking page to confirm they were invited.
• The survey was closed or deleted between opening the modal and confirming.
• Their start date was cleared from the library record after you opened the modal.
• Their library record was deleted after you opened the modal.
• Your account is at its participant limit. Adding more would push the survey past the cap on your subscription.
• A duplicate email or mobile number already exists on the survey under a different person.

If you see a participant in the failure list and none of the above explains it, contact support. Include the survey ID, the participant's customer identifier or email, and a copy of the toast message.

Will I be notified when the participant completes the survey?

Yes, if you've set the survey up to notify you. To enable notifications:

1. Go to Surveys and find your onboarding survey.
2. Click the three-dot menu and choose Edit.
3. Open the Communications tab.
4. Find the question "Who should we notify when someone completes this survey?" and select an option or enter your details.