Before we get started, we recommend taking the time to gather the following information:

Moving away from a long and complex client onboarding checklist with dozens of steps will allow you to:

Many of the workflows that we see new users import today are long and complex. These often take the form of single, run-on task lists with over a dozen steps --- that we know you dread using.

When loaded up with numerous clients, traditional workflow tools get really busy, making it impossible to see an overview of what needs your attention at a glance.

Despite establishing a repeatable experience, by and large, dreadfully long and complex workflows do more harm than good:

Here at Hubly, we recommend taking a simple 3-step approach to planning key processes based on best practices that we’ve seen work repeatedly for hundreds of users.

You can get started by selecting the New Client Onboarding template in Hubly:

We think of a Process as a funnel or a Kanban board, with each Workflow acting as a stage in the Process:

Clients usually start in the Workflows on the left side of the screen, and then get moved through the different Workflows to the right:

You do not have to move every client through every Workflow in the order that they appear on your screen, stages can be skipped or completed at the same time:

Well planned Workflows represent stages in your New Client Process and provide a high-level overview — making it easy to see where every client is at, identify bottlenecks, and spot what needs your immediate attention:

Long, run-on lists of Tasks begin to feel archival in nature, making it difficult to capture progress at a glance and often make the user feel micromanaged instead of empowered.

The best practice is always to keep things simple. We recommend keeping your Task lists concise and to the point.

Not only is it easier to get started this way, but you will also end up creating a Workflow that will actually be used to drive your work and see the next steps with ease.

Double-click on any templated Workflow to review its default list of Tasks:

You will see that our templates are designed in such a way that makes it easy to bookmark the progress being made — allowing anyone on your team to see exactly where things left off:

Start by reviewing this templated list of Tasks and adjusting it to work for your team. You can select the text of any Task to manually edit it:

You can re-order Tasks by using the grip lines along the left:

Tasks can be deleted through their in-line menu:

Select Add Task to create a new Task:

Tasks should help you standardize the experience that you want your clients to receive, without micromanaging the person working through them.

We often see long Task lists (or sub Tasks) used to capture all of the nuances that ensure your I’s are dotted and T’s crossed. But checking off these steps every single time, for every single client can become time-consuming and clunky.

To avoid creating cluttered, long task lists, we recommend capturing additional details or instructions as Descriptions within those tasks:

Select the Task Details icon to add a description or select Edit Task Details to edit an existing description:

Descriptions can also be used to keep important “how-to’s” from a software’s help desk within reach:

Or to identify the fields or inputs that will be needed:

Tip: Hubly is built to be flexible, and Task Descriptions are no different. These can be edited and customized for every client that you add to this Workflow. This means that fields can be filled out by whoever starts the Workflow, providing context to the team.

As your team grows, different responsibilities will be shared between team members — in Hubly we refer to these as shared Roles.

Hubly makes it easy to pre-assign Tasks directly to specific Users, or to Roles that can be shared between multiple users:

Tasks that are assigned to Roles can be routed based on workload balancing rules (such as capacity, or round-robin) — configurable from the Settings page:

Users can also be pre-assigned to Roles for specific clients, forming that client’s Service Team. Service Teams can be reviewed and updated in the Client Card:

Roles can be configured by using the Settings menu from the Service Team section on the Client Card:

From here you can manage the composition of a Service Team, configuring Roles to assign team members to specialized types of tasks:

Existing User assignments can also be synced from existing Roles in your CRM:

Hubly makes it easier than ever before to ensure that nothing falls through the cracks without requiring time-consuming, manual review, prioritization, and delegation of work.

That’s why when planning your Workflow Tasks, we recommend always ensuring that every Task is pre-assigned and a Reminder is set for follow-up Tasks and Tasks that get passed on from one user to another.

You can assign Tasks to a user or Role by selecting the user icon to the left of a Task's name and selecting the desired user or Role name:

You can configure automatic Reminders to keep work flowing by clicking the bell icon to the right of a Task’s name:

Reminders can be set to come due relative to when a client was added to the Workflow, or when the Task immediately before it was completed:

This way, when a client is added to the Workflow, Hubly will automatically ensure that every Task is delegated to the right person on your team — increasing visibility across the team and ensuring that nothing gets missed.

Tasks with Reminders will be summarized for every user in the HubFeed, making it easy to see a short list of Tasks that need their attention:

This makes it easy to see exactly who is working on every client, and what needs to be prioritized at a glance:

Tip: Use the Filter menu to quickly filter your dashboard by assigned User or Role, and by status to create a focused view of urgent and upcoming to-dos.

By and large, you will move new clients through these Workflows in the order that they appear. Configuring Next Workflow makes it easy to map out exactly where the client will be added to next:

Sometimes there will be multiple Workflows that need to be launched together (such as your signing, billing, and document collection stages). Multiple Next Workflows can be pre-configured to be launched together:

Next Workflows can be skipped or otherwise customized for every client that you add to this Workflow. This means that Next Workflows can be used to personalize each client’s journey, while also providing context to the team:

Tip: You can schedule a start date for any Next Workflow. Simply Add a Start Date and that Scheduled Workflow will continue to appear in the Client Card until its scheduled date.

The new client process often involves many manual, error-prone data re-entry steps. Hubly can help you eliminate these steps by configuring Workflow Rules and connecting your account to Zapier.

We recommend using Streams to quickly and visually categorize your Leads, Lost Leads, Prospects, New Clients, and Active Clients:

Add/Remove Stream or Tag Rule

Take time to review the following Add/Remove Streams or Tag Rules on the Workflow templates:

Double-click on an existing Rule, or select the in-line menu to edit the Rule:

You can create a new rule by selecting “Add Rule”:

Important Client Date Rule

We recommend utilizing the Meeting Date section in Hubly’s Client Card to track the different meeting types of your New Client process:

From there you can select an existing client meeting type, or start typing to configure a custom name:

Once you have created these Meeting Date Types in Hubly, consider configuring the Important Client Date Rule on Workflows for the corresponding meetings:

Zapier

You can leverage Zapier to automate how incoming leads get created and added to your funnel in Hubly. No matter how you collect your leads, whether it’s through a form embedded in your website, or through your calendar software, once a new lead has been entered, we can use this information to set up a Zap.

Start by enabling the Zapier integration through your Hubly account’s settings page:

In Zapier, select the triggering event by starting with a lead source and setting it up as the first step in your new Zap:

The next step, your first action, will be in Hubly — you always want to start with the Find or Create a Client action event to avoid creating duplicate contacts in Hubly and in your CRM:

Quick Tip: Don't see Hubly as an available App? Learn how to set up the integration.

Once you’ve logged into your account, you can set up the action.

Following the "template" below, you want to start by selecting your Hub and the new lead's email address (from the triggering step) — this is the unique field that you will be "searching" your Hubly/CRM contact list by.

Since the new lead is unlikely to already exist, you want to select "Create Hubly Client if it doesn't exist yet". This will create a new client in Hubly, and in your CRM.

Once the option is selected, you will be able to map the submitted fields (full name, email address, and phone number) from the triggering step for the new client's card.

The next, and final, action in your Zap will be in Hubly, once again — this time to add the client to the Prospect Workflow.

To set this up, select the Add Step option in Zapier and choose Hubly as your app. Your action will be to Assign the client to the Workflow.

Simply select your Hub, find the ID from the client you’ve just created (in the previous action step), and then the Workflow you want to add them into.

You can also use Zapier to set new client meeting dates and types in Hubly. If you use Calendly, Accuity, or ScheduleOnce, you can leverage Zapier to trigger when a new meeting gets booked — saving this information in Hubly and adding them to the corresponding Workflow.

Too much time is lost doing simplistic data re-entry/update actions manually. With this type of automation, you can ensure that your workflows don't wait on anyone to do these manual steps.

For this new Zap, we’ll use Calendly as the triggering app, with the trigger event being that a meeting event is created:

Tip: Depending on the meeting scheduling tool you use, you may need to add a Zapier filter step to ensure only specific Calendly event types allow the Zap to proceed.

For your first action step, select Hubly as the app and Find a Client as the action.

Use the Email Address submitted via Calendly in the triggering step to locate the corresponding contact record in Hubly. :

Quick Tip: In this case, we assume that the contact record already exists. If it does not exist, you will want to select the "Create Hubly Client..." button.

Now that this Zap has located the client in Hubly, we’ll need to set up our second action event to save the date of their next meeting.

To do this, start by selecting your Hub and taking the ID of the client that we found in the previous step under the Client field:

Then select "Meeting" as the Hubly Client Date Type and the type of meeting date you’re setting the automation up for under the Hubly Meeting Date Type. We kept the meeting type “Intro Call” but you should select the meeting type corresponding to this Zap:

Finally, you will set the New Client Date field from the date and time provided by the Calendly event:

Quick Tip: You'll be looking for the date called Event Start Time in the drop-down, it's the one that looks the ugliest and most complicated!

Now that we’ve set the date, you might want to add the client to the appropriate Workflow in Hubly. For this final Zapier step, you will want to set up an Assign Client to Workflow action in Hubly.

Configure this action by once again selecting your Hub and taking the ID of the client that we found in the previous step under the Client field:

Now simply select the Hubly Workflow — in this example, it’s our “Prospecting 2: Intro Call/Meeting” Workflow:

Your Workflows will continue to evolve and change along with the needs of your client demographic, and the composition of your software stack and team.

Investing the time to document your new client journey will give you a starting point to iterate and improve while providing your new clients a consistent, repeatable experience and ensuring that new client tasks don't fall through the cracks.

Whether you’re working alone or with a team, breaking the new client journey into well-defined stages will give you visibility over the entire funnel — making it easier to spot which new clients are falling behind and where your bottlenecks are.

Pre-assignment and smart reminders on Tasks will help your team reduce the operational burden by automatically routing work to the right service team for every new client.

Well-planned Tasks will empower your team to work independently while helping to ensure compliance, giving you the confidence to train new team members and introduce new technology into your firm.

Most importantly, the work that you do from the start of every client’s journey will be available in one single source of truth — making it simple to see exactly what has been done, by who, and when.

Now that you’ve tested these Workflows and applied the finishing touches by automating away repetitive, time-consuming actions, it’s time to onboard your team.

Getting a team to form new, collaborative habits all while learning a new software will take time, collective effort, and persistence. Having everyone aligned on the goals they’re working towards, and with a clear understanding of the challenges that they’re set to overcome is an important first step.

Prior to getting your team into Hubly, it’s important to facilitate an honest conversation around the challenges they face with their work structures and the goals that you’re working towards together. We’ve prepared this helpful facilitation guide: Creating Alignment Amongst Your Team.

We’ve also prepared a facilitation guide for when it’s time to get your team up and running with their new dashboard of client onboarding Workflows in Hubly: Getting Started Check-List For Teams.

Join us in a live training, or sign up for a 1:1 office hours session with one of our workflow experts who can help you get your New Client Onboarding workflows ready for client activity.

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