Sapling onboarding workflow engine and task automation
The onboarding workflow engine is Sapling's core feature.
The onboarding workflow engine is Sapling's core feature. HR administrators build workflows using a visual interface that supports task assignments, content delivery, automated notifications, conditional logic, and time-based triggers. Workflows can be customized by role, department, location, or employment type.
Each workflow step can be assigned to different stakeholders — HR, the hiring manager, IT, finance, or the new hire — with due dates and completion tracking. The workflow engine handles both the pre-boarding period (between offer acceptance and start date) and the post-start onboarding journey.
Role-specific and department-specific workflow templates
Sapling provides pre-built workflow templates that HR teams can customize. Templates for engineering, sales, operations, and other departments include role-specific tasks, training assignments, and stakeholder notifications. The template system speeds up initial setup while allowing ongoing customization as processes evolve.
Pre-boarding automation between offer and start date
Workflows can trigger as soon as a new hire record arrives from the ATS. Pre-boarding tasks include welcome messages, document collection, equipment provisioning requests, and cultural content delivery. The pre-boarding phase ensures new hires are prepared before day one.
Sapling offboarding workflows and exit automation
Offboarding is where Sapling differentiates itself from most competitors.
Offboarding is where Sapling differentiates itself from most competitors. The platform provides structured offboarding workflows that include IT access revocation, equipment return tracking, knowledge transfer documentation, exit interview scheduling, final paycheck coordination, and benefits continuation notifications.
Offboarding workflows trigger automatically when an employee's status changes to 'departing' in the system, and tasks are assigned to relevant stakeholders with due dates and escalation rules. This automation reduces the risk of missed access revocation — a significant security concern — and ensures departing employees receive consistent exit experiences.
IT access revocation and security checklist
The offboarding workflow includes a structured IT checklist for revoking access to email, Slack, code repositories, cloud storage, and other company systems. Tasks are assigned to the IT team with deadlines tied to the employee's last day, and completion is tracked and documented for compliance purposes.
Exit interview scheduling and feedback collection
Sapling automates exit interview scheduling by sending calendar invitations to the departing employee and the designated interviewer. Post-interview, the platform can collect structured feedback through survey forms that aggregate into reporting dashboards for trend analysis across departures.
Sapling people data management and employee records
The people data module serves as a centralized employee information hub.
The people data module serves as a centralized employee information hub. Each employee record holds personal details, role and department history, compensation data, reporting relationships, documents, and custom fields. The interface is designed for quick lookup and bulk data management.
Data can be imported from ATS platforms, payroll systems, or CSV uploads. Changes to employee records — promotions, department transfers, manager changes — update automatically across the platform, including the org chart and reporting dashboards.
Custom fields and data flexibility
Sapling supports custom fields for tracking data points specific to your organization — certifications, equipment assignments, work authorizations, or any other employee attribute. Custom fields appear in employee profiles and can be used as filters in reporting.
Bulk data operations and import tools
The platform supports bulk data imports and exports for companies migrating from spreadsheets or other systems. CSV import templates make initial data migration straightforward, and bulk update tools let HR teams make changes across multiple employee records simultaneously.
Sapling org chart and reporting structure visualization
The org chart auto-generates from reporting relationship data in employee records and updates dynamically as roles change.
The org chart auto-generates from reporting relationship data in employee records and updates dynamically as roles change. The visual interface shows the full organizational hierarchy with the ability to drill down by department, location, or team.
The org chart is not just a visualization tool — it is an operational reference that managers and employees can access to understand reporting lines, find team members, and see open positions within the structure.
Dynamic org chart updates
When a promotion, transfer, or manager change is recorded in an employee's profile, the org chart updates automatically without manual intervention. This ensures the chart always reflects the current organizational structure.
Employee directory and search functionality
The org chart doubles as a searchable employee directory. Users can search by name, department, title, location, or custom fields to find team members and view their profiles. This is particularly useful for distributed teams where employees may not know everyone in the organization.
Sapling integrations with ATS, payroll, and collaboration platforms
Sapling's integration ecosystem is one of its strongest technical features.
Sapling's integration ecosystem is one of its strongest technical features. Pre-built integrations connect with major ATS platforms (Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, Workable), payroll providers (ADP, Gusto, Rippling), HRIS platforms (BambooHR, HiBob), and collaboration tools (Slack, Microsoft Teams).
The integration architecture supports bidirectional data flow — new hire records from ATS platforms trigger onboarding workflows in Sapling, and completed employee data syncs to payroll and HRIS systems. This interoperability means Sapling can serve as the onboarding and people data hub within a multi-vendor HR tech stack.
ATS-to-onboarding data handoff
When a candidate accepts an offer in your ATS, their record automatically creates a new hire profile in Sapling with pre-populated data — name, role, department, start date, and manager. This eliminates manual data entry and ensures onboarding begins immediately upon offer acceptance.
Payroll and HRIS data sync
Completed onboarding data — including tax information, direct deposit details, and benefits elections — syncs to connected payroll and HRIS platforms. This reduces duplicate data entry and ensures the employee's system of record is populated accurately from day one.
Sapling reporting and onboarding analytics
The reporting module tracks onboarding and offboarding metrics including task completion rates, average time-to-completion, bottlenecks by department or manager, new hire satisfaction scores, and onboarding cycle time.
The reporting module tracks onboarding and offboarding metrics including task completion rates, average time-to-completion, bottlenecks by department or manager, new hire satisfaction scores, and onboarding cycle time. Reports can be filtered by department, location, role type, hire cohort, and time period.
The analytics capabilities help people operations teams identify process improvements and demonstrate program effectiveness. Trend reports show how onboarding metrics change over time, which is useful for measuring the impact of workflow redesigns.
Department and manager performance views
Reports break down onboarding metrics by department and manager, highlighting which teams complete onboarding tasks on time and which consistently fall behind. This granularity enables targeted interventions rather than broad process changes.
Onboarding cycle time analysis
The platform tracks how long each onboarding workflow takes from trigger to completion, broken down by individual task. This data helps HR teams identify which steps create delays and optimize the workflow accordingly.
