How to Automate Employee Onboarding Forms and NDA Signatures with Make and PandaDoc
Streamlining the employee onboarding process is crucial for a positive candidate experience and operational efficiency. Manual processing of onboarding forms and Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) can be time-consuming, prone to errors, and delay critical first-day preparations. This guide will walk you through leveraging the powerful integration capabilities of Make (formerly Integromat) and PandaDoc to fully automate the generation, sending, and tracking of these essential documents, ensuring a smooth, secure, and compliant onboarding for every new hire.
Step 1: Set Up Your Trigger for New Hire Data
The foundation of any automation is a reliable trigger. In Make, this typically involves connecting to your Applicant Tracking System (ATS) or Human Resources Information System (HRIS) where new hire data resides. Configure a Make scenario to watch for new records or status changes, such as a candidate moving to “Hired” or “Offer Accepted.” This trigger could be a scheduled poll, a webhook from your HR system, or a direct API call. Ensure you map all necessary data fields, including the new employee’s full name, email address, job title, start date, and any other information required for their onboarding forms and NDA. This initial data capture is paramount for the accuracy and completeness of subsequent steps.
Step 2: Prepare Your PandaDoc Templates
Before building the automation flow, ensure your PandaDoc account has well-designed templates for your standard onboarding forms (e.g., W-4, I-9, company policy acknowledgements) and your NDA. These templates should include fillable fields for all the dynamic data points you’ll be pulling from your HR system. Use PandaDoc’s ‘Roles’ feature to define who needs to sign what, ensuring the correct documents are routed to the new hire, hiring manager, or HR. PandaDoc’s template capabilities allow for pre-filling with variable data, conditional logic, and clear signature blocks, making the document generation process seamless and professional.
Step 3: Use Make to Create and Populate PandaDoc Documents
With your trigger and templates in place, the next step in Make is to connect to PandaDoc and initiate document creation. Add a PandaDoc module to your Make scenario, choosing the “Create a Document from Template” action. Select the appropriate onboarding form and NDA templates you prepared. Critically, you will then map the new hire data captured in Step 1 to the corresponding fields within your PandaDoc templates. Make’s intuitive interface allows you to drag and drop or select variables, ensuring that names, dates, job titles, and other personal information are accurately populated into the documents without any manual intervention. This eliminates data entry errors and significantly speeds up the preparation phase.
Step 4: Send Documents for Signature and Track Status
Once the documents are created and populated, the Make scenario should then trigger the sending of these documents to the new hire for their signature. Within the PandaDoc module in Make, select the action to “Send a Document” or set the document status to “Sent.” PandaDoc will then handle the secure delivery of the documents to the new employee’s email, along with clear instructions for reviewing and signing. Additionally, PandaDoc provides robust tracking features. You can configure Make to listen for webhooks from PandaDoc, allowing your scenario to receive real-time updates when a document is viewed, signed, or completed. This visibility is vital for monitoring progress and triggering subsequent actions.
Step 5: Automate Follow-Up and Archiving
Upon document completion, your Make scenario can perform several crucial follow-up actions. First, configure a PandaDoc module to download the signed documents once their status changes to “Completed.” These fully executed documents can then be automatically uploaded to your HR system, a secure cloud storage solution like Google Drive or SharePoint, or an internal document management system. You can also set up Make to send internal notifications to the HR team, hiring manager, or IT department, informing them that onboarding documents are complete and the new hire is ready for the next phase. This ensures all stakeholders are kept in the loop and that compliant records are maintained effortlessly.
Step 6: Maintain and Optimize Your Automation
Automation isn’t a “set it and forget it” process; it requires ongoing maintenance and optimization. Regularly review your Make scenarios and PandaDoc templates. As your company policies evolve or your HR system updates, you may need to adjust field mappings or template content. Monitor the logs within Make for any errors or failed scenarios, and address them promptly. Collect feedback from new hires and the HR team regarding the onboarding experience. Continuous improvement ensures your automated system remains efficient, compliant, and delivers the best possible experience for new employees, solidifying a professional first impression from day one.
If you would like to read more, we recommend this article: Mastering HR Automation: PandaDoc and Make for the Automated Recruiter
