Setting up a Workflow

Table of Contents:

What is a workflow builder?
Basics
Steps
Conditional workflow steps
Sequential and non-sequential steps
Manually enroll user in a workflow
What happens when a Workflow is triggered?
Completing Workflow Tasks Early

What is a workflow builder?

Leapsome’s Workflow builder allows you to automate many actions, such as:

• Onboarding and Preboarding
• Reboarding of employees after long-term leave
• Automate processes based on manager or level changes
• Relocation of employees
• and many other events and dates

Building custom workflows makes all of these actions possible. Steps include sending notifications and tasks to employees and different stakeholders, updating data, setting user attributes, and more.

To start setting up a Workflow, navigate to 'Settings' > 'Automations' > 'Workflows' > +'New Workflow'.

You can decide whether to make the workflow from scratch or use one of the best-practice templates that are customizable as well. 

Basics

In the Basics tab, define what type of workflow this will be and its triggers:

• Title* - this is a mandatory field. Give your workflow a title that’ll capture the type of automated process this workflow will be about. For example: ‘Birthday celebration’. Please note: The workflow title will be visible to users in any tasks created by the workflow.
• Description - optional. Use this field to add a description to provide more context on the workflow.
• Category* - this is a mandatory field. Make sure your workflow is assigned to a category. All of your categories will show up in a classified order.

Trigger

Within the Trigger section, configure the Workflow process and its triggers. In the field’s ‘Trigger is based on*’ drop-down menu, choose whether this Workflow will be triggered based on a specific event, manual enrollment or relative to a date.

1) If the option ‘Manual enrollment’ is chosen, this means that the steps of this Workflow will only apply to employees who are manually included in this workflow’s dashboard. Please note: Manual enrollment is always possible in addition if the workflow is kicked off automatically by a different trigger.

2) If the option 'Self-service request' is selected, this enables employees and managers to initiate workflows directly without requiring admin involvement. Please note: This is only relevant to users who use Leapsome as their HRIS.

When selecting 'Self-service request', you can configure 'Who can submit requests': Use dynamic filters to specify which users can initiate this workflow:

• Employee self enrolment
• Manager of the employee
• Indirect managers of the employee
• HRBP of the employee

Once configured, users can submit requests through:

• Their profile or team member profiles by clicking on the 3 vertical dots > select 'Submit self-service request' option
• Quick actions menu from the main navigation >  select 'Submit self-service request'

3) If the option ‘Event’ is selected, a new field ‘Event*’ will show up. In the ‘Event’ drop-down, select the type of event this workflow will be triggered by. The available options are:

• Employee created
• Employee updated. Selecting this option will open a new field in which you will be able to select which attribute needs to be updated in order for the Workflow to be triggered. E.g.: You might select an attribute 'Teams' - this means anytime the 'Team' attribute is updated for the respective employee, they will be included in this Workflow (based on the 'Target group').
• Employee document uploaded. Selecting this option will open a new field in which you can select the document category. This will allow you to narrow down the type of documents used for the trigger, e.g. document category is 'Payment details'. Which means the workflow will be triggered only when employee uploads a document that falls under the 'Payment details' category. This also includes documents uploaded in bulk. 
• Employee absence request created
• Employee absence request updated
• Survey comment created
• Learning path completed
• Instant feedback not given. You will be able to select a "lookback period (days)" to which the system will check if the users have not given feedback within, to trigger their enrollment. 
• Instant feedback not received. You will be able to select a "lookback period (days)" to which the system will check if the users have received feedback within, to trigger their enrollment. 
• Instant feedback not requested. You will be able to select a "lookback period (days)" to which the system will check if the users have not requested feedback within, to trigger their enrollment. 
• Praise not given. You will be able to select a "lookback period (days)" to which the system will check if the users have not given praise within, to trigger their enrollment. 
• Praise not received. You will be able to select a "lookback period (days)" to which the system will check if the users have not received praise within, to trigger their enrollment. 
• Individual goal created
• Individual goal not created
• Individual goal progress updated
• Individual goal progress not updated

4) If the option ‘Relative to a date’ is applied, a handful of new fields will pop up to allow you to set up any employee date attribute you have in Leapsome.

• Relative to a date* - you will be able to select a date attribute here that can be applied to your employees’ profiles. Any employee attribute that is a date type can be selected as a trigger date. (Start date, termination date, notice date, etc). You can also selected a fixed date if you would like this workflow to be triggered on a specific date for enrolled users. If you select 'fixed date' as your type, you can then select the relevant future date.
• Repeat: you can select whether this repeats on the anniversary of the date, or it does not repeat.

If "relative to date" is selected as the trigger event, and it does not repeat, there is an option to enable a late enrollment window, in which users who's dates were added later than the specified window will still be automatically enrolled in the workflow. You can decide whether these late enrollers trigger or skip past-due steps.

5) In the option 'Webhook' - when the web request is received, users with the provided email addresses, who are also members of the target group, will be enrolled in the workflow.

Target group

Here, define whether this workflow will apply to all of your employee base or only a selected group. This group will be targeting who will be enrolled in the workflow. The recipients who will be notified of specified steps will be included in the steps section. 

Steps

In the ‘Steps’ tab, set up actions that will occur once an employee triggers the Workflow based on the date or the event defined. The step types are grouped by category, and available step types are:

• Checklist - this step allows to create one or multiple individual tasks. You can define the task under ‘Task description’ and attach the task to a URL link if needed. You can create multiple tasks within the ‘Checklist’ step. For example, you might be creating an onboarding workflow. A checklist step can have tasks, such as: ‘Update their address from personal to work’ and right after ‘Invite them to team meetings’, etc. Tasks are then displayed to relevant users on their home dashboards.
• Send notification - chosen recipients will receive a customized notification via email and in-app as soon as the workflow is triggered. This notification is sent to employees in statuses 'Active' and 'Invited, not active'. It can also be sent to employees in status 'New, not invited', e.g. to send new hires information before their first day of work.
  • Please note: If no users match the users defined in the recipient filter, the step will be skipped.
• Set user attribute(s) - sends a Leapsome task to the task owners to fill the selected user attributes. This task is only sent if the attributes are not yet filled. The task can be skipped, or, if marked required to proceed, will be marked complete once the attribute is filled. Enrolled users will not be able to complete the workflow step unless mandatory attributes are completed. You can select multiple attributes to be updated within the step. You can manage, monitor and modify your attributes by navigating to 'Settings' > ‘Employees’ > ‘Attributes and profile sections’. You can also define this task’s owners. Please note: The task owners will only be able to update attributes for which they have read and write access. Specifying task owners that do not have that access for the enrolled user may leave this step impossible to complete. You can toggle the option to skip the step if all specified attributes already have values, to disable the toggle if you would like the step to still show up in the task list to allow the user to update the values. Lastly, you can choose this step to be required or optional.
• Upload a document - in this step, select the document category and the document description that the chosen recipient will have to act based on. You can optionally add a task description to help the user know what file to upload. This step is considered completed once a new document is uploaded in the category that's assigned. 
• Create a document for the enrolled user - this step creates a document for the user in their profile's tab 'Documents'. The document can either be simple or contain an e-signature process. If there are missing variables or signatories, admins will get a notification that the document couldn’t be created for the specific user and that they’d need to manually trigger document creation. You can also enforce await all signatures before continuing with the workflow - this means that the workflow will be on pause until the e-signature document is signed by all relevant parties. A workflow status will show ‘Blocked’ if:
  • If the signatory rejects the signature
  • The process to generate the document failed due to missing attributes or the template did not contain filters for the required signees
• Enroll in Learning path - Selecting this step, gives you the option to select an active, one-off learning path from a drop down menu to enroll the user into. Please note: recurring learning paths cannot be selected through this workflow step. 
• Enroll in survey - Within survey timing settings, there is an option to set a survey to dynamically kick off based on a workflows. For surveys with these timing setting enabled in a survey, when a user enrolled in a workflow with "enroll in survey" step, reaches that step, they will be dynamically added to the survey. This is especially useful for onboarding/offboarding processes. 
• Send invitation email to pre-boarding package
• Send Leapsome invitation email - please note that this step will be skipped if the user has already accepted an invitation to Leapsome, and created an account.
• Call a webhook - when this step is reached, a webhook call following the schema (shown in the platform when creating a step) will be made.
• Create / update user in Entra ID - If the integration is set up, this workflow step can push information from Leapsome to Entra ID via Kombo to update the user's information when used in combination with the trigger event 'Employee updated." More information can be found in this article.
• Post message in Slack - if a slack integration is enabled, you can create a post that will post directly to a designated channel in slack (public or private). 
• Create calendar event - When triggered, it creates an event directly in the user’s connected Google or Outlook calendar.
• Wait for webhook call - the workflow will pause at this step until the webhook call is received.
• Delay - enforces a break for a specific number of days between steps. Generally, workflows are sequential and always in relation to the previous step. However, if you want to make the individual steps also relative to the trigger date, you can do so by creating a separate workflow.
• Upload profile picture

- Required — there is no option to skip, it needs to be done and the task remains in the task dashboard until it is done.
- Not marked as required — there is an option to skip the task and then it disappears from the open task list (these tasks will be shown in the recently completed (even if they weren’t completed).

Multiple steps can be created within one workflow.

Please note:

• Workflow status needs to be 'Active' in order to be used.
• Target groups will be users who are enrolled in a workflow. Recipients/Task owners selected within steps of the workflow will be the users who are notified of the steps/actions. For example, you may have a workflow to send a notification to the manager of an enrolled user when it is the enrolled user's birthday. Within the steps section, you would then select Dynamic filter : Manager of the enrolled user, to ensure that the manager's are notified of their direct report's birthday. 

Conditional workflow steps

You can also choose if specific steps are conditional for specific groups of users to be included in or excluded. Simply select "add conditions" to the relevant steps in the workflow, and select the relevant users, team, etc, that should be included or excluded from the workflow step. If the enrolled users satisfy the inclusion criteria, they will be included in the step of the workflow, otherwise, that step will be skipped and they will continue on with the other steps in the workflow that are relevant for them. 

You can also use conditions to specify which trigger events should execute a workflow step.

Example 1: Date-based triggers If your workflow is triggered relative to a start date, you can configure a step to launch only on a specific anniversary of that date. The step will only execute for users who meet the selected inclusion criteria on that anniversary.

Example 2: Document update triggers If the trigger event is when an employee document is updated, you can specify the document category in the conditions. This ensures the step only launches when documents are uploaded to a specific category by users in the selected group.

Sequential and non-sequential steps

You may find it necessary to have steps that are dynamically triggered based on the completion of the step that came before it, in this case, using sequential steps are useful. To create a sequential step, which means the following step will only occur once the previous one is completed, expand the step, and click "+new sequential step" within that step. This would create a sequence. 

If you have different steps in a workflow that are non-necessarily linked to the completion of a previous step, you can simply create a new step. Then you will have the option to select a trigger timing for that particular step.

Manually enroll user in a workflow

There are a few ways you can enroll users manually into a workflow. 

You can manually enroll users through the workflow setting's itself. Navigate to Settings > automation > Workflows > select a workflow >'+ Enroll users'

You can enroll users in bulk through the employee list through navigating to 'Company'> 'Employees' > select the user(s) you want to enroll in a workflow > Enroll in workflow > select the workflow configuration you would like to enroll the user(s) in, as well as the effective trigger date. 

You can also do so through a singular employee's profile through the '...' button on the user profile > enroll in workflow > select the workflow configuration you would like to enroll the user(s) in, as well as the effective trigger date. 

What happens when a Workflow is triggered?
 

When a workflow is triggered, the corresponding actions are executed as defined in the workflow configuration. For example, if we are creating a ‘Birthday celebration’ workflow, we can add steps, for example: ‘Send a notification’ and select a date-based trigger for an employee’s birthday. When the Leapsome system recognizes an employee’s approaching birthday, it’ll scan the existing workflow and follow its set guidelines. Completed workflow steps will be listed under the enrolled user in the workflow to manage an audit log. 

Please note: Steps can be skipped in a workflow, however, once skipped, they cannot be triggered for the enrolled users for which they were skipped.

Completing Workflow Tasks Early

Admins and workflow participants can now complete individual workflow tasks ahead of their scheduled due dates, providing greater flexibility and enabling proactive employees to stay ahead in their workflows. This feature is especially useful when you want to:

• Manage your workload more effectively
• Stay ahead of deadlines during busy periods
• Complete tasks when you have available time, even before they’re officially due
• Maintain momentum throughout your workflow process

Participants can access their workflow tasks by navigating to Profile → Workflow tab. Upcoming tasks that appear greyed out indicate those that are not yet due but can now be completed early.

Hover over the greyed-out task, then click on it to access and complete it as you normally would.

Please note:

• Tasks within a sequence can only be completed after the previous steps in the sequence are finished. They must still be completed in the correct order.
• Early tasks will remain visually greyed out until their official due date.
• You will not receive notifications or dashboard alerts for these tasks until they become officially due.

With this update, you can complete tasks when it’s most convenient for you, without having to wait for the official due dates. Please note that this feature only applies to new workflows created after September 2025. Existing workflows created before this date do not support early task completion.