How do I order onboarding forms into stages?

Sequencing sets the order forms show up in. That's all it does. The employee can still hop around using the top navigation bar and fill out forms in whatever order they like.
Stages gate the forms. The employee can't get to Stage 2 until everything in Stage 1 is done, can't reach Stage 3 until Stage 2 is complete, and so on.

So: sequencing is a suggested order, stages enforce it.

When to use each

Use sequencing when you want forms to appear in a sensible order but don't mind if the employee jumps ahead. Good for when there's a natural flow but no hard dependency.

Use stages when order actually matters and one step has to clear before the rest make sense.

The classic stage use case is a gate. Say an account runs a background check before any other paperwork and doesn't want the employee filling out tax and direct-deposit forms until that check comes back clean. Put the background check in Stage 1 and everything else in a later stage, and Onboarded holds the later forms until Stage 1 is done.

Another common gate is policy acknowledgment. If an account needs employees to read a handbook or policy before they sign off on it, sequencing alone can't hold them to that order — an employee could open the acknowledgment form and sign it before ever opening the policy. Put the policy form in an earlier stage than its acknowledgment, and the acknowledgment stays Locked until the policy is complete.

Worth calling out: sequencing alone won't do this. If you only ordered the forms, the employee could still click ahead to the tax forms using the top nav. Sequencing won't stop them, stages will.

Build the stages

The flow is three moves: create your stages, drop forms into them, then set the order within each.

[SCREENSHOT: the Form sequence view in the Forms area, showing stages and the unsequenced forms list]

1. Click Forms in the navigation column, and then click Form sequence to view in the Forms area of your account.

2. Add a stage and give it a name that describes the step, for example Pre-boarding, Day 1, or Week 1. You should see the new stage appear as an empty group.

3. Add the rest of your stages in the order you want them to run, top to bottom.

4. Move each form into the stage where it belongs. Any form you don't place stays in the unsequenced list.

5. Within a stage, drag the forms into the order the employee should see them. This is the sequencing part; it sets the order inside that stage.

A couple of things to keep in mind:

• Forms left in the unsequenced list aren't gated; they fall outside the stage order entirely.

• If a form isn't behaving like part of the gate, confirm it's actually assigned to a stage and not sitting in the unsequenced list.

What the employee sees

The employee works through the current stage first.

Forms in later stages show a Locked badge and can't be opened until every form in the earlier stage is complete.

Once the stage clears, the next stage unlocks on its own. There's nothing for you or the employee to trigger manually.

Within a stage, forms are ordered the way you sequenced them, but the employee can still move between them freely using the top nav. The lock only applies across stages, not within one.

Clear the "needs to be sequenced" banner

When forms in your account aren't part of a sequence, Onboarded shows a banner on your dashboard: You have N forms that need to be sequenced, with a Manage form sequence button. That button opens the same Form sequence view.

To clear it, move each flagged form into a stage, or into the order within one. Forms left in the unsequenced list keep the count up, so the banner stays until every flagged form has a place in the sequence.

One thing that catches people out: sequencing a form sets its order — it doesn't decide whether the form sends. A form reaches an employee only when a policy assigns it, so a form can sit in your sequence and still never appear for a new hire if no applicable policy includes it. See 📄 Understanding policies.

Verify

Open a test onboarding link, or preview it as the employee.

Confirm the first stage's forms are open and later stages show as Locked.

Complete the first stage and confirm the next stage unlocks.

If a later form is open when it shouldn't be, it's almost always still in the unsequenced list rather than in a stage.

Related

• 📄 How do I add form-level conditions to a policy? — pairs with a sequence when you also need to control which forms an employee gets, not just their order.

• 📄 Understanding forms