How to Create Automated Onboarding Sequences in HighLevel After an Offer Acceptance

In today’s competitive talent landscape, a seamless and professional onboarding experience is crucial for retaining new hires and ensuring they reach full productivity faster. Manual onboarding processes are not only time-consuming but also prone to errors, leading to a fragmented experience for your valuable new team members. Leveraging HighLevel’s robust automation capabilities, HR and recruiting teams can construct sophisticated, automated onboarding sequences that engage candidates from the moment they accept an offer, ensuring a smooth transition into their new role. This guide will walk you through setting up such a system, transforming your post-acceptance workflow into an efficient, scalable asset.

Step 1: Define Your Onboarding Objectives and HighLevel Setup

Before diving into HighLevel, clearly outline what you want your automated onboarding sequence to achieve. What information needs to be shared? Which forms need completion? What immediate actions should the new hire take? Think about the desired journey from offer acceptance to their first day. Within HighLevel, ensure you have a dedicated “Onboarding” pipeline or a custom field on your “Contact” record to signify their onboarding status. This foundation allows for precise segmentation and triggering of workflows. You’ll also want to organize your custom fields to capture critical new hire data, such as start date, department, manager, and any unique identifiers needed for other integrated systems. A clear, well-defined objective acts as your blueprint, ensuring every step in HighLevel serves a purpose.

Step 2: Establish the Trigger: Offer Acceptance & Webhook Integration

The entire sequence hinges on a reliable trigger: the moment a candidate formally accepts an offer. This event typically originates from your Applicant Tracking System (ATS), HRIS, or even a digital signature platform like PandaDoc. To connect this event to HighLevel, you’ll primarily use webhooks. Many modern HR platforms support sending webhooks upon specific actions. Configure your ATS to send a webhook to a HighLevel workflow when an offer is accepted. If your ATS lacks direct webhook functionality, tools like Make.com (formerly Integromat) can act as an intermediary, catching the event and then sending a HighLevel-compatible webhook. The payload from this webhook will contain vital candidate data, which HighLevel will use to create or update the contact and initiate the onboarding sequence.

Step 3: Design Your Onboarding Sequence Workflow in HighLevel

With your trigger in place, it’s time to build the workflow. In HighLevel, navigate to Automation > Workflows and create a new workflow. Your initial trigger will be the “Contact Tag” or “Pipeline Stage Change” that signifies an offer acceptance, or the “Webhook” trigger if you’re using an external system. From there, map out the entire sequence. This might include:

• Sending an immediate welcome email with essential information.
• Scheduling a series of follow-up emails leading up to the start date.
• Assigning internal tasks to HR or IT for equipment setup.
• Adding the contact to a specific onboarding list.
• Updating contact custom fields with onboarding progress.

Each step should be logically connected, with appropriate delays and conditional logic to personalize the experience based on roles, departments, or other factors. For example, a new sales rep might receive different pre-boarding materials than a software engineer.

Step 4: Create Comprehensive Communication Templates

Effective communication is at the heart of a successful onboarding experience. Within HighLevel, pre-design all the email and SMS templates that your workflow will send. These templates should cover a range of topics, including:

• Welcome messages and next steps.
• Introduction to company culture and values.
• Requests for necessary documentation (e.g., I-9 forms, direct deposit info).
• Links to internal portals, employee handbooks, or training materials.
• Reminders about start date, first-day agenda, and dress code.

Utilize HighLevel’s custom values to dynamically pull in the new hire’s name, start date, manager’s name, and other relevant details, ensuring each communication feels personal. Ensure a professional tone and clear calls to action, guiding the new hire smoothly through the pre-start period. Consistency and clarity here will reduce anxiety and increase engagement.

Step 5: Integrate Essential Onboarding Tools (via Make.com)

While HighLevel excels at communication and workflow management, a complete onboarding sequence often requires integration with other specialized tools such as HRIS systems (e.g., BambooHR, Workday), digital signature platforms (e.g., DocuSign, PandaDoc), or project management tools (e.g., Asana, Trello). This is where Make.com becomes an invaluable asset. Within your HighLevel workflow, you can add a “Webhook” action step to send data to a Make.com scenario. This scenario can then:

• Create a new employee record in your HRIS.
• Generate and send offer letters or contracts via PandaDoc for e-signature.
• Set up accounts in various company systems (email, Slack, etc.).
• Create onboarding tasks for relevant departments.

This multi-tool integration ensures all critical steps beyond HighLevel’s native capabilities are automated, creating a truly end-to-end, hands-off process.

Step 6: Test and Refine Your Onboarding Sequence

Before deploying your automated onboarding sequence to actual new hires, rigorous testing is non-negotiable. Create a dummy contact in HighLevel and manually trigger the workflow to simulate the entire experience from the new hire’s perspective.

• Verify that all emails and SMS messages are sent as intended.
• Check that custom values are populating correctly.
• Confirm that delays are working accurately.
• Test all external integrations (e.g., ensure HRIS records are created, documents are sent for signature).

Pay close attention to the timing, tone, and clarity of your communications. Gather feedback from a colleague or even a recent hire who can offer insights from a fresh perspective. Iterative testing and refinement will help you identify and resolve any bottlenecks or errors, ensuring a flawless experience for your future talent.

Step 7: Monitor, Analyze, and Optimize for Continuous Improvement

Once your automated onboarding sequence is live, the work isn’t over. Implement a system for ongoing monitoring and analysis. Track key metrics such as:

• Completion rates for pre-boarding tasks.
• Engagement with onboarding materials.
• Feedback from new hires during their first weeks.
• Time saved by your HR team.

HighLevel’s reporting features can help you track contact progression through pipelines and workflow stages. Regularly review your workflow for areas of improvement. Are certain emails being opened less frequently? Are new hires consistently asking the same questions that could be addressed earlier in the sequence? Use this data to continually optimize your sequence, making it more efficient, engaging, and effective over time. Automation is not a one-time setup; it’s an ongoing journey of refinement.

If you would like to read more, we recommend this article: Mastering CRM Data Protection for HR & Recruiting: A Complete Guide to Keap & HighLevel Backup & Recovery