Workflow templates are the way to define and organise your business processes. By setting up templates and using them when starting a workflow, you standardise and automate your processes. In this article, we explain what a workflow template is and how to configure it.

A workflow template consists of a set of tasks that together define a process, for example, onboarding a new employee. You can group tasks into sections to structure the different phases of your process. For each task, you define who, what, and when something needs to happen. This is done using roles, actions, and automatic deadlines.
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When handling more complex processes with different phases, you can group tasks into sections. For example, you can create sections for preboarding, onboarding, and evaluation. You can also set whether the sections must be completed in sequence.

​Read more about sections.
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A template role is used to define who is responsible for specific tasks within your process, such as the ‘employee’ or ‘HR manager’. You can define which roles to include and how to name them for each template.
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Once roles are created, you can assign a role to each task in the template. The roles overview shows which roles are defined and how many tasks are linked to each role. The ‘employee’ role is included by default to indicate who the workflow is about, such as for onboarding or a personal development cycle. The employee does not always need to have tasks assigned.
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When creating a new workflow based on the template, you select a colleague for each role. Tasks are then automatically assigned to the appropriate colleague.
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You can also add an action to a task. Actions could include uploading a document, starting an employment contract, or linking to an external website. Many options are available. For certain actions, you can specify additional details. For example, for the action ‘Upload document’, you can choose the category it belongs to. For ‘Request feedback’, you can select the template for the questionnaire. Super convenient!
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Tasks can have deadlines, which are used to determine if a workflow is delayed and to send reminders to the responsible parties. In the template, deadlines can be automatically calculated based on the ‘deadline date’. You can add a name to give meaning to the deadline date, for example ‘first day of work’.
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You can choose to have the deadline fall on the workflow date itself or a specific number of days, weeks, or months before or after it. This is especially useful for onboarding: the deadline date is named ‘first day of work’, with some tasks needing completion before the first day of work and others with deadlines during the first week of employment.
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When starting the workflow, you set the deadline date, and deadlines for all tasks are automatically calculated.
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A workflow becomes visible to employees as soon as they have an active task. A task becomes active when the workflow is activated and the task is in an unlocked section. Simply put: the employee is expected to complete a task.
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Depending on the workflow settings, the employee may see only their own tasks (default) or all tasks within the workflow. If you want an employee to be aware of others’ tasks, you can enable this setting.
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Employees can always only mark their own tasks as completed.
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When using sections in your template, you can set them to be completed sequentially. Upon activating a workflow based on the template, only the first section is unlocked; other sections remain locked.
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Subsequent sections can be unlocked automatically or manually. The workflow manager is always notified when a section is completed.
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Once your template is set up, the configured roles and automatic deadlines make it quick and easy to add workflows based on the template.
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Get started now and read more about adding a workflow.