Employee Onboarding Workflow

Overview

When a new employee joins, there are a dozen manual tasks that need to happen: creating their Google account, setting up IT access, notifying payroll and their manager, and more. This workflow handles it all automatically the moment an onboarding form is submitted.

What it does

• Triggers automatically when a Google Form is submitted
• Creates a Google Workspace account for the new hire
• Sends notifications to IT, payroll, and the manager with a customizable onboarding checklist
• Waits until the start date, then sends a welcome email to the employee's personal email
• Logs every onboarding to a Google Sheet for your records
• Sends an error alert if any step fails so nothing falls through the cracks

What you need

• A Google Workspace account with admin access
• An n8n instance (self-hosted or cloud)

What's included

• n8n workflow JSON pre-configured and ready to import
• Google Apps Script connects your Google Form to the workflow
• Full setup guide covering everything from Google Cloud to n8n credentials
• Pre-made Google Sheet and Google Form templates. Copy them to your Drive and you're ready to go.

How to set it up

Setup takes around 30-45 minutes. Here's what's involved:

1. 1 Copy the Google Form and Google Sheet

   Visit tl-hr.com and enter your license key to access the configurator. Download your pre-configured workflow and copy the Google Form and Google Sheet templates provided.

   Important: copying does not carry over the connection between the form and sheet. You will need to reconnect them in Google Forms (Responses tab → Link to Sheets → Select the copied sheet).
2. 2 Set up your Google Cloud Project

   Create a Google Cloud Project and enable the Gmail API, Google Sheets API, and Admin SDK API. Google provides official documentation for this step.

3. 3 Create a Service Account and enable Domain-wide Delegation

   Create a Service Account in Google Cloud and enable Domain-wide Delegation so the workflow can automatically create Google Workspace accounts for new hires.

   Domain-wide Delegation can take up to 30 minutes to propagate after being enabled.
4. 4 Connect your credentials in n8n

   Add three credentials to your n8n instance: Gmail OAuth2, Google Sheets OAuth2, and the Google Service Account. Our setup guides walk you through each one step by step.

5. 5 Configure and download your workflow

   Enter your company details, Google Sheet ID, and credential IDs into the configurator. Customize the onboarding checklist and download your pre-configured workflow JSON and Apps Script files.

6. 6 Import into n8n and add the Apps Script

   Import the workflow JSON into n8n and paste the Apps Script into your Google Form's script editor. Run the setup() function once to register the form trigger.

7. 7 Test the workflow

   Submit a test onboarding form and confirm all four notification emails send correctly and the onboarding record appears in your Google Sheet.