Create and run an employee journey
Journeys help HR coordinate the tasks and messages involved when an employee joins, leaves or needs structured follow-up during probation.
This feature appears only when Journeys is enabled for your organisation and your role allows you to manage journeys. The related employee activities then appear in Workspace → My Tasks automatically; your organisation does not need to enable a separate task feature for journeys.
Create a journey
- Open People, then Journeys.
- Select New journey.
- Choose Onboarding, Offboarding or Probation follow-up. This choice stays fixed so dates and existing journeys keep the correct meaning.
- Give the journey a clear name, such as Employee onboarding, Employee offboarding or Probation follow-up: Norway.
- Under Do, add each task, acknowledgement, document request, access-closure confirmation or approved email the journey needs.
- For a task, choose whether it is completed by the Employee, their Current manager or the Journey starter. The journey starter is normally the HR person who starts the journey.
- Choose whether each activity happens before, on or after the first working day for onboarding, the last working day for offboarding or the probation end date for probation follow-up.
- Select Review journey and check the journey type, recipient, timing and activities in order.
- Select Publish journey when the setup is ready to use.
When you add an email, the template picker shows which languages each approved email supports. Choose a template that covers the languages used by the people who will receive that journey. Markular uses the recipient's saved language when the email is prepared. Older approved emails that do not yet have a matching translation use English.
Your organisation must complete every enabled language before a new email template can be published. This keeps HR from starting a journey that later switches unexpectedly between languages. Once an email has been prepared for delivery, its language and wording stay fixed even if the recipient changes their language preference or HR updates the template afterwards.
Publishing creates a fixed version. Employees who already have an active journey keep the version they started with. Later changes apply only to journeys started from a newer published version.
An employee task is assigned to the employee selected when the journey starts. It appears in Workspace → My Tasks, explains why it was assigned and links the employee to their own profile. If that employee does not yet have a usable sign-in identity, the activity is shown as needing attention instead of being assigned to somebody else.
A current-manager task follows the employee's active reporting line when that activity opens. The task then stays with the manager selected at that point, so later organisation changes do not silently transfer work that is already in progress. If Markular cannot find exactly one active manager, the activity is shown as needing attention. Correct the reporting line before resuming the journey.
Choose Request document when the employee must provide one particular document, such as an employment certificate or completed form. Select the People document type before the journey can be reviewed, give the activity a clear name and add any instructions the employee needs. The selected type tells Markular where an approved document belongs; the employee does not have to classify it. The accepted formats and maximum size are shown with the request.
The employee opens the request from Workspace → My Tasks, or from their limited preboarding page before their work account is ready. They can check, replace or remove a private draft before choosing Send to HR. The activity is completed when HR approves the document, not when the employee uploads it.
Publishing fixes the document type for that journey version. Correct a draft template before publishing. Later template changes apply only to new journeys; they do not silently reclassify a document already requested from somebody.
Choose Ask for acknowledgement when the employee should read information and explicitly confirm that they have read and understood it. Write a clear, self-contained statement. The employee reviews that statement in Workspace → My Tasks, selects the confirmation and then chooses Acknowledge. Markular records who acknowledged it and when, and completes the journey activity.
An acknowledgement is not an electronic signature, consent or proof that the employee agrees with the content. Use a signing process when a document requires a legally binding signature. A journey that has already started keeps the published statement it started with; changing the template affects only newer journeys.
For an offboarding journey, choose Confirm access closure when HR or the employee's current manager must verify that agreed access has been closed. Add a clear confirmation statement and select the responsible person. The employee cannot be made responsible for confirming their own access closure.
The responsible person opens the Task in Workspace → My Tasks, reviews the statement and explicitly confirms completion. Markular records who confirmed and when. This records the controlled check; it does not itself deactivate an account in Microsoft Entra ID, an external HR system or another service.
Start a journey for an employee
- Find the published journey and select Start journey.
- For onboarding, choose whether you are selecting a Future starter or a Current employee. Offboarding and probation follow-up list only current employees.
- Confirm the employing country and choose the employee.
- Choose the employee's first working day for onboarding, last working day for offboarding or probation end date for probation follow-up. Markular uses this date to calculate activity timing.
- Review the employee, date and journey version.
- Select Start journey.
Add someone who has not started yet under Future starters on the Journeys page. This lets HR prepare onboarding while keeping the person out of the ordinary Directory and operational workforce views. See Add and follow a future starter.
The selected date is saved with the journey, so later template or employee-record changes do not move already scheduled activities. Starting a journey does not change the employee's first or last working day in People. Keep externally mastered employment dates in their authoritative system.
Starting offboarding does not automatically disable accounts or delete employee data. Add clear return, handover and Confirm access closure activities to the journey. Account closure and data retention remain separate controlled processes until your organisation has configured the responsible integrations and policies.
Prepare access before the first working day
If the future employee does not have a work account yet, open the active journey and find Preboarding access.
- Select Prepare invitation.
- Enter the employee's private email address.
- Choose the invitation language and how long it should remain valid.
- Select Prepare invitation.
The journey then shows Ready to send, the masked recipient and the expiry date. Preparing an invitation does not send it. This gives HR a separate review step before external access is issued and keeps the private address separate from the employee's future work account.
When the details are correct:
- Select Send invitation.
- Review the masked recipient, language and expiry date.
- Select Send invitation again to confirm.
The status first changes to Sending while Markular delivers the branded email, then to Sent when the email service accepts it. Do not prepare a new invitation while delivery is in progress. The link is private, expires on the shown date and grants only the limited preboarding access connected to this employee journey.
The future employee opens the link, checks the organisation and masked private email address, and asks Markular to send a one-time code. The eight-digit code is valid for 10 minutes and can only be used once. After verification, Markular opens a separate preboarding page that cannot be used as ordinary People or Workspace access.
Preparing the invitation also makes employee activities that were waiting for a sign-in method available in the employee's limited preboarding page. The future employee sees only their own tasks, progress and controlled completion actions. Document requests cannot be marked complete without the required submission.
Review preboarding documents
Open the active employee journey and find Preboarding documents. Only documents for employees within your area of responsibility are shown.
- Select Review and check the file against the document type and instructions shown beside it.
- Select Approve and file in Documents when it is correct. The same file is placed in the employee's protected Documents area and the activity is completed.
- Select Request changes when the candidate must replace it. Write a short, actionable explanation containing only information the candidate should see, then send the request.
The candidate receives an email that an update is needed, but the explanation itself is shown only after they verify their identity in preboarding. They must replace the file and explicitly send it back to HR. The earlier submission is kept in the process history.
Use Internal notes on the journey to coordinate with authorised colleagues. Each note shows its author and time. These notes are separate from the candidate-facing explanation and are never visible to the candidate. Do not copy sensitive document contents into a note.
End preboarding access
Open the employee journey and find Preboarding access when the private sign-in should no longer be used.
If the employee's managed Markular sign-in is ready, select Move to Markular access. Review the exact work sign-in, sign-in method and access role, then confirm the move. The private sign-in and its active sessions stop immediately. The employee continues with the same tasks and journey history through the managed work identity; Markular does not create a second employee record, copy the journey or send another welcome.
If the offer is withdrawn or access should simply stop, select Revoke preboarding access. Revoking closes the private sign-in immediately but does not delete the employee journey, tasks or audit history. Only authorised People administrators can still review that retained history.
Move to Markular access appears only after the private preboarding identity is verified and the same active People record has a managed work identity with active minimum access. If it is not available, give or adopt Markular access from the person's profile first. A UPN, UPN2 or matching email address by itself is never sufficient proof; Markular binds the reviewed managed identity to the existing People record and rejects confirmation if either side changed after review.
Follow progress
The Employee journeys overview shows the employee, organisation context, journey, progress and status. Search by employee or journey, or filter the list by status.
Open a journey to see every activity. Needs attention means an activity could not continue, for example because a required recipient was unavailable. Read the explanation, correct the cause and select Resume journey.
An offboarding journey also shows Offboarding readiness. This summary counts only required activities, so an optional farewell activity does not hide an unfinished access, handover or equipment control. Open activities stay with their assigned owners and continue to use the normal Task reminders. Reaching the last working day never marks them complete or cancels them automatically. Cancel the journey only when the offboarding process itself should stop.
Authorised HR users can also see the employee's journeys and next activity from the person's profile. This keeps the process connected to the employee without exposing it to people who cannot manage journeys.
Cancelling a journey stops open and later activities, but keeps the history. Use cancellation only when the employee journey should no longer continue.
If you need help
If an employee cannot be selected, check that you chose the correct population, that they belong to the expected employing country and that they are included in your area of responsibility. Offboarding accepts only current employees.
If an email activity needs attention, confirm that the intended recipient has a usable email address before resuming the journey.
For guidance on probation checkpoints, privacy and responsibilities, see Follow an employee through probation.