# Building onboarding templates

> Build a reusable onboarding template: add tasks with parties, phases, dependencies, compliance tags, linked courses, and review documents — then reuse it.

Canonical: https://enmantle.com/help/onboarding-templates · Section: Onboarding & HR · Updated: 2026-09-20

A template is the reusable blueprint behind every onboarding. Build it once, and you can assign it to every new hire — each one gets their own checklist from it. This guide covers creating a template and shaping its tasks.

Templates live under **Onboarding → Templates** (`/dashboard/onboarding/templates`). From there you can build new templates, duplicate existing ones, and activate or deactivate them.

## Create a template and add tasks

Start a new template and give it a name, then add the tasks a new hire's onboarding should include. Each task is where the detail lives — you'll set several properties on it below.

Add as many tasks as the role needs. Think of the template as the full first-weeks plan for a position, not just day one.

## Set each task's party and phase

Two settings decide *who* does a task and *when* it shows up.

- **Party** — the role that owns the task: `New Hire`, `Admin/HR`, `Director of Ops`, `Asst. Director`, `Manager`, `Scheduling`, or `System`. Onboarding is a shared effort, so assign each task to whoever's actually responsible.
- **Phase** — where it falls in the timeline: `Pre-Hire`, `Day One`, `First Week`, `First Month`, or `Ongoing`. Phases are how the checklist groups and paces itself.

## Add dependencies so tasks unlock in order

You can make a task wait on others by setting its dependencies (`dependsOnTaskIds`). A task with unmet dependencies starts out `BLOCKED` and opens automatically once the tasks it waits on are finished.

Use this to enforce real order — for example, keep a `Day One` task blocked until an `Admin/HR` task that sets up the account is done. When a dependency clears, the dependent task unlocks on its own.

## Link courses, review documents, and compliance tags

Each task can carry a few extras that make it do more than just sit on a list:

1. **Linked LMS course** — attach a course, and finishing that course **auto-completes** the task. The hire never marks it by hand.
2. **Review documents** (`reviewDocuments`) — attach the files a hire must read as part of the task.
3. **Compliance rule tag** — tag a task with the DODD rule it satisfies (for example, `OAC 5123-2-08` for training or `OAC 5123-2-02` for background checks), so your onboarding maps cleanly to the requirements it's meant to cover.

> Linking courses and tagging compliance rules is what turns a template into an audit-ready record. When a surveyor asks how you train a rule, the tagged task and its completed course are the answer.

## Reuse with inheritance and duplication

You don't have to rebuild similar templates from scratch.

- **Inheritance** — a template can inherit a parent template's tasks, so shared, baseline steps live in one place and each child adds only what's specific to it.
- **Duplicate** — copy an existing template as a starting point, then adjust.

## Activate and assign

When a template is ready, activate it so it's available to assign. Deactivate ones you're no longer using to keep the list clean. To put a template to work, see [Assigning and tracking staff onboarding](/help/assign-and-track-onboarding).