Remove the need to collect paper forms from your team members with new hire onboarding. Using this feature, team members can enter in some of their own details before they start their employment.

Note: This feature is only for businesses located in Australia and will incur additional costs per new hire onboarded. 

In this article, you will learn:

Onboarding new hire allows you to digitally collect and record vital employee information. Deputy automatically requests the following:

• Personal & emergency contact details
• Bank (payment deposit) information
• Tax File Number Declaration
• Superannuation choice form 

By ticking the boxes when filling in their details, employees are confirming that their details entered are correct. The boxes, when ticked, are considered the equivalent of a written signature and meet the requirements set by the ATO.

You can then set up:

• Documents you ask them to provide as part of their employment
• Documents you ask them to electronically sign such as employee contract of company information document as part of their employment process
• Custom questions that are specific to your business

Sending a request to your employee to complete their onboarding process will send out an SMS and an email to the specified destinations. You will not be charged for the outbound SMS containing the invitation link.

Once the employee has successfully completed the onboarding process the manager will be sent an email to notify them to review the documents and also the employee will be invited to set up their password to access your organisation on Deputy.

Before you can onboard a new hire you will need to go through a series of steps to set up your organisation for onboarding. You will only need to do this the first time and then it will be set up for all subsequent new hires.

The steps involve:

• Setting up your Superannuation Details for your organisation's default fund.
• Specifying which documents you will be asking new hires to upload eg. Driver's Licence, RSA etc.
• Setting up templates that will be sent to new hires asking them to sign electronically.

Once you have set up onboarding then you are ready to onboard a new hire.

Note: the manager who initiates the onboarding of the new hire is the one who will receive the email notifying them that the onboarding form has been submitted.

1. Click on the Add People button on the People page and select Onboard new hire.

2. Enter the following details about your new employee:

• First Name
• Last name
• Email Address
• Mobile phone number*
• The name of the main location they will be working at (you can add to or change this later but if you wish to sync the onboarding details to Xero ensure that you chose a location that is already connected to Xero )
• The Deputy access permission level you would like to assign.

* Note: check the phone number you enter very carefully! If you enter the wrong phone number when onboarding, you can't just update the phone number in Deputy and resend. You need to delete the onboarding request and start again.

3. Select from the search field any document(s) that are required to be completed and signed.

4. If the document template has customised fields set up then you will be asked to complete these fields to send the documents to the new hire. Your answers will be populated in the custom fields of the document template when the document is sent.

5. Tick the checkboxes to select any documents for the list that you require them to upload.

Click Onboard Team member and the new hire will be sent both an email and SMS with a link for them to complete onboarding.

You will be notified by email when they have completed onboarding and the employee will then automatically be sent an invite to download the Deputy mobile app and join your organisation on Deputy.

Note: if you accidentally entered the wrong email address for your employee when you first sent the onboarding invite, you can update it later and resend the onboarding invitation to the new one. Read more in FAQs.

If your employee is already in Deputy but you’d like them to complete the onboarding process and upload documents you can still do this.

1. Click on their name from the list of employees on the People page then select Onboarding Forms from the Profile menu on the left-hand side. Click on Onboard Team member.

2. Enter the email and mobile phone number of your employee, and follow the steps as described in How to Onboard a new hire and click on Onboard employee.

The employee will be sent both an email and SMS with a link for them to complete onboarding and you will be notified when they complete it.

Once you have sent the onboarding invitation to your new hire, you will be able to see the status within the People tab, underneath their name.

You will be able to filter for each of the onboarding statuses to quickly see who’s been sent an onboarding invitation, which onboarding needs to be reviewed and who has been approved.

You will receive an email letting you know when the new hire has completed their onboarding forms.

1. To review the information your employee has completed or document uploaded, either click on the Review and approve link in the notification email or else click on their name in the People tab as shown below:

2. Click Onboarding form from the list on the left-hand side to review the information that has been submitted as part of onboarding.

Click on Documents from the list on the left-hand side to review any documents that have been submitted by the new hire.

If you are happy with the onboarding forms and document submitted, go ahead and approve it by clicking Sync and approve.

Once approved, your team member will receive a copy of any documents they signed.

You can also print the onboarding form to PDF by clicking on the print icon.

TFN declaration form: you can export and submit it electronically - learn more here.

Click on the Export to ATO form link.

3. When you click on the Documents tab you can also download any signed documents you requested or documents that have been uploaded. You can download each document individually or if you have multiple documents you can select them all using the checkbox selection and click Download to download them to your computer as a zip file.

Note: Documents stored on Deputy will be available whilst you maintain an active subscription to a Deputy plan. If you are required to store certain records for a specified amount of time to comply with any legislation then it is recommended that you download and store documents in your own document management system.

4. If you notice that there is something not correct with what the employee has supplied you can click Request changes on the top right of the Onboarding forms screen. You will be asked to type a short message to explain to the new hire what you would like them to correct or resubmit and the employee will receive a new link to update the document.

How to export submitted onboarding information as a CSV

Managers can export submitted onboarding information (in either 'awaiting approval' or 'completed' state) from their team members including:

• Personal details & emergency contact
• Bank details
• Tax details
• Super fund choice (AU)

Tip: you can export onboarding data to Xero using our integration. Read more about it here.

Here's how to export as CSV:

1. On the People tab, click on Add People then select Onboard new hire.

2. Click on Settings.

3. Click on Go to onboarding export.

4. Use the search field, location and date selector to refine the list of onboarding forms submitted by your team members. Tick the check boxes of employee onboarding information you'd like to export and click Export.

5. A CSV file will be downloaded to your computer. See the example file.

How to delete requested documents

If a manager has sent a new hire an onboarding form and then later realise they have requested the wrong form to be signed or documents to be uploaded, the new hire may find they are unable to complete the onboarding form. To correct this, managers can resend the onboarding link and select the correct template or remove the incorrectly requested documents so that the new hire is able to complete the onboarding form and submit it.

Note: The Resend link button only appears once the invitation has been sent and the new hire has not yet submitted it. If your new hire has already submitted the onboarding form and you realise you need to make amendments you can click Reset onboarding.

To resend a link for onboarding to a new hire with amended templates or document requirements:
1. On the People tab, go to the Onboarding forms in an employee’s profile
2. Click Resend link

3. A popup will appear where you can make changes to templates and requested documents. Click Remove for any documents no longer needed, add a comment if required and then click Update and resend.

How to reset or delete an Onboarding request that has been sent

• wrong documents were requested/sent
• incorrect email or mobile number was entered (Note: if you enter the wrong phone number when onboarding, you can't just update the phone number in Deputy and resend. You need to delete the onboarding request and start again)
• accidentally sent an onboarding invite
• no longer want to store the data/documents in Deputy
• issues with the onboarding form which requires the updated version to be sent

Reset onboarding

Resetting onboarding will delete any existing onboarding data and documents that have been collected during onboarding and managers will be able to resend a new onboarding invite (with documents) without being charged again.

1. On the People tab, select the employee you wish to reset onboarding for.

2. Select Onboarding form from the menu on the left-hand side and then click on the ... button on the top right side of the screen and select Reset onboarding.

A pop up will appear where you can select the documents you need to be signed or uploaded and a new link will be sent to the new hire to start onboarding again.

Delete onboarding

Deleting an onboarding request will delete any existing data and documents.

Note: if you send a new onboarding invitation to this employee additional charges will apply.

1. On the People tab, select the employee you wish to reset onboarding for.

2. Select Onboarding form from the menu on the left-hand side and then click on the ... button on the top right side of the screen and select Delete.

Watch a video on checking, finalising onboarding and requesting changes

You may also be interested in:

• How to set up new hire onboarding
• For employees: How to complete your onboarding
• Pricing for new hire onboarding
• Adding employees

Example of an onboarding CSV export