Building onboarding forms

Create the forms your new starters fill in during onboarding, set what each question collects, and see how the answers come back.

Onboarding forms are the forms that new starters complete in their onboarding checklist, such as emergency contacts, bank details or a declaration. You build and manage them under Settings > Onboarding, on the Forms tab. A form does nothing until it is chosen as a task in an onboarding template. Templates and tasks are covered in Setting up onboarding templates and Onboarding tasks and phases.

Who can build forms

System Admin and HR users can open the Forms tab and create, edit and delete forms. Members cannot. The Onboarding settings page is only available when onboarding is switched on for your organisation.

Creating a form

Go to Settings > Onboarding and open the Forms tab.
Select Add Form. A form called "New Form" is created straight away with one empty page. Select it in the list on the left to edit it.
Enter a Form Name (up to 255 characters, required) and an optional Description (up to 2,000 characters).
Choose a Source, complete the fields that appear for it, and select Save.

The three sources

The source decides what the new starter is shown and whether Recruit keeps any answers.

Create Form builds a form inside Recruit. This is the only source where the starter's answers are stored in Recruit, and the only one that produces a PDF.
Link points to a form held somewhere else. Enter the address in Form Link; it must start with http:// or https://. The starter opens it in a new tab, then selects I've completed this. Recruit records that the task was completed and nothing else.
Upload shares a document with the starter. Choose a file under Upload file (PDF, Word, RTF, plain text, ODT, PNG or JPG, up to 10MB). The file name appears under File Name and you can check the file with View file. A file must be uploaded before the form can be saved. The starter sees a View document button. Their Upload document button marks the task as submitted; it does not attach a file to their record.

If you want to collect written answers, choices or a signature, use Create Form.

Building a Create Form form

Forms are made of pages, and pages are made of fields. New forms start with a page called Page 1. Use Add page for more, rename a page from its tab, or remove one (this deletes the fields on it, after a confirmation). A form can have up to 20 pages and 500 fields. Page names are limited to 255 characters and must be different from each other.

Select Add Field on a page to add a question. Each field row has a label, a type, a Required switch, a delete button and a handle for dragging it to a new position. Open the arrow on the row to reach the detail settings.

Field types

Text, a single line, and Paragraph, a longer answer.
Email, Phone, URL and Date.
Dropdown, where the starter picks one option. Add options with Add option. You need at least one, each must have a label, and labels must be unique. A dropdown can hold up to 300 options, each up to 255 characters.
Checkbox, a single tick box. If it is required, the starter must tick it.
Content block, text shown to the starter with nothing to answer. Type the text under Display text (up to 10,000 characters). Use it for instructions or a declaration to read.
Image, a picture shown to the starter with nothing to answer. Choose it with Upload image (PNG, JPG, WebP or GIF, up to 2MB).
Signature, a box where the starter draws their signature.

Number, File upload, Multi-select and Heading appear in the type list but are greyed out. They cannot be chosen on onboarding forms, so a Create Form form cannot collect files from the starter.

Field settings

A field label is required and can be up to 2,000 characters. Repeating a label gives a warning but does not stop you saving.
Help text (up to 1,000 characters) appears under the question.
Required means the starter cannot move on or submit without answering. Content blocks and images are never required.
Answer length is available on Text and Paragraph fields. Set a minimum or maximum number of characters, words, or both. Use whole numbers of 1 or more, with each maximum no lower than its minimum.

Showing or requiring a field conditionally

Open a field's details and tick Show this field conditionally to display it only when an earlier answer matches your rule. Tick Require this field conditionally to make it required only in that case. Each rule picks an earlier field, an operator (equals, does not equal, contains, does not contain, is empty, is not empty) and a value. Add more rules with Add condition and choose whether all or any must match.

Only fields above the current one can be used as triggers, so drag the field lower down if the options are unavailable. A field cannot be both plainly required and conditionally required: turn Required off before adding a required condition. When a field is hidden, anything the starter had typed into it is cleared and it does not block submission.

Repeatable sections

Use a repeatable section when the starter needs to give the same set of answers more than once, for example several emergency contacts. On each field that belongs in the section, tick Allow multiple entries (repeatable section) and enter the same name under Group label (up to 255 characters). Fields sharing a name become one section. The name is required, and the form cannot be saved without it.

Under the section you can set Minimum entries and Maximum entries (whole numbers of 1 or more, maximum no lower than minimum). Setting them on one field applies them to the whole section. Without a maximum, a starter can add up to 20 entries. If a minimum is set, the starter sees "Add at least N entries" until they have filled in enough. Content blocks and images cannot be repeatable, and a Signature field needs to stay outside a section because it is not shown inside one. Conditions on fields inside a section can only refer to fields outside it.

Saving and errors

The Save button stays unavailable while the form name is empty or a field has a blocking problem, such as an empty label or a dropdown with no options. Fields with problems are opened for you so you can fix them.

Using a form as an onboarding task

Forms are chosen from the template editor, not from the Forms tab. In Settings > Onboarding > Templates, add a task, set its type to Form and pick the form under Form Source. Two switches apply:

Send to candidate email is on by default and controls whether the starter is emailed about the task.
Requires review sends the submitted form to Under review so your team can approve it. Without it, the task is Done as soon as the starter submits.

A Content task can also carry a form. Under Attach a form (optional), only Create Form forms are listed, and the starter reads the content above the form.

Once onboarding has started for a candidate, it keeps the version of the form as it was at that moment. Editing a form afterwards affects onboarding started later. Deleting a form cannot be undone, and it removes the form from any template tasks that used it.

What the new starter sees

The starter opens their onboarding link, with no login, and sees the task in their checklist. For a Create Form form the button is Fill out form. It opens the form on its own page, one page at a time with Back and Next, and a "Step 1 of 3" indicator when the form has more than one page. Required fields left empty show "This field is required" and stop them moving on.

Save progress keeps their answers so they can return later. Answers inside repeatable sections are not kept by Save progress, so those need finishing in one visit. Submit on the last page sends the form. The task then shows as Done, or as Under review with a message that the team is reviewing their submission.

Reviewing completed forms

System Admin and HR users see forms on the candidate's Onboarding tab. Select Preview form next to a form task to open its details. Under Submitted Responses the answers are listed page by page, with repeatable entries numbered. If the candidate's personal details are hidden from you, the answers are masked too.

For a task that requires review, Approve appears once the starter has submitted. Approving marks the task Done and emails the starter to say their submission was approved. Reset puts the task back to not started so the starter can complete it again. The new submission replaces the earlier answers.

Downloading PDFs

In Preview form, Download PDF gives you one form. It appears once the task is Done.
Download onboarding pack, at the top of the Onboarding tab, gives one PDF containing every completed form for that candidate.

PDFs show the starter's answers page by page. Signatures appear as the drawn image with the date and time they were signed. Only forms built with Create Form hold answers, so Link and Upload tasks have nothing to print.

Sharing forms across a group

If your organisation is the parent company of a group, you can share your onboarding forms with subsidiaries from Settings > Library sharing by sharing the Onboarding forms library. Subsidiaries then see those forms in their list with a "Shared from" label and can use them in their own templates. They cannot edit or delete them. Only the parent can change them.