Onboarding Guide Template
Lay out a new starter's first weeks as milestones and tasks, and keep each task's how-to, links and contacts one click behind it.
Free forever on the Personal plan
Onboarding guides: an example
Milestones, not a wall of text
Each stage says what done looks like at that point.
Tasks with their how-to
Commands, links and who to ask open from the task itself.
People, not only pages
Who to meet and why, beside the work they help with.
The basics
What is an onboarding guide?
An onboarding guide takes a new starter from their first morning to working on their own: what to set up, what to read, who to meet, what to do in which week, and what done looks like at each stage. Good guides are written for one role, such as a new engineer, rather than for everyone.
Most onboarding is a long page of links that is out of date by the time the next person joins. A guide drawn as milestones and tasks shows the first weeks at a glance, and asking each new starter to fix one thing keeps it current.
In Blueprintr each task opens a stratum with its how-to, commands and contacts, and the guide can sit in your team's documentation site beside everything it links to.
Why Blueprintr
Onboarding new starters can follow on their own
The first weeks on one page, the how-to behind every task.
Milestones and tasks
Draw the milestones across the top and the tasks beneath each, with the people to meet below, so the first weeks read at a glance.
VellumThe how-to behind each task
Give each task a stratum with steps, commands in code blocks, links and who to ask, so nobody has to hunt for the instructions.
StratumWalk through it on day one
On Premium, present the guide with Podium in the first meeting, then leave the new starter the same canvas to work from.
PodiumPart of the team's docs
On the Team plan, embed the guide in a folium page beside the handbook, the system docs and the runbooks it links to.
FoliumImproved by every new starter
Give new starters edit access and ask each to fix one thing; each publish keeps a snapshot, so changes can be reviewed.
Questions answered from your docs
AI Assist answers questions from the blueprints and docs a new starter can open. The free plan includes 50 conversation turns a month.
How to
How to write an onboarding guide in Blueprintr
Create a blueprint
Sign up free and create a blueprint for one role's onboarding.
Set the milestones
Add a milestone for each stage, from day one to the end of the period, with what done looks like.
Add the tasks
Put the tasks for each stage beneath its milestone, in the order to do them.
Write each how-to
Right-click each task and add a stratum with the steps, links and who to ask.
Share it before day one
Send the new starter the link before they join, so the first morning holds no surprises.
FAQ
Questions about onboarding guides
Is this onboarding guide template free?
Yes. The Vellum editor and strata are on the free Personal plan. Podium presentations need Premium, and folium documentation sites are part of the Team plan.
What should an onboarding guide include?
Who it is for, milestones with what done looks like, the tasks for each, accounts to set up, people to meet, where to ask for help, and who owns the guide.
How long should an onboarding plan cover?
Long enough to reach a first piece of useful work. The example covers two weeks, up to a first production deploy; many teams follow it with a lighter 30, 60 and 90-day plan.
Can I share the guide before the new starter has an account?
Yes. Publish it as unlisted and send the link; anyone with it can read the guide and every task without signing in. Keep anything internal in a separate, private blueprint.
Can each team keep its own onboarding guide?
Yes. Save one guide as a template and give each team its own copy to adapt, so every guide has the same structure but its own tasks and people.
Can I track who has finished onboarding?
No. Blueprintr is not a task tracker, and its analytics count readers without identifying them. Track completion in your HR or ticketing system and link the guide from there.