Why this matters
A new hire’s first day sets the tone for the job. When the laptop isn’t ready, nobody has named a buddy, or the paperwork is still open, they spend day one waiting, and the hiring manager remembers it.
The warnings are usually there. They are just scattered: a note from IT, an email from the new hire, a manager who hasn’t replied, and one new hire nobody has said anything about. Keeping track by hand every week is easy to get wrong.
In this module you build an AI agent in n8n that turns those updates into one row per onboarding item: done, waiting or unclear, who owns the next step, and what to chase. It saves every item to a Google Sheet, and it keeps bank, ID and medical details out of it.
What you’ll build
An n8n workflow with a chat trigger, an AI Agent with a system prompt for Fernway Logistics (a made-up distribution company), an OpenAI chat model, memory and a Google Sheets tool, plus an Onboarding Tracker sheet with five columns: New hire, Item, Status, Owner and Follow-up.
You paste in the week’s updates for three made-up new hires and get five entries: a laptop that is done, a buddy the manager still has to name, a paperwork question to answer, bank details that arrived by email (not logged, with a note to use the payroll form) and a new hire with no updates at all. Then the agent saves all five as rows.
What you need
- Nothing to start the practicen8n, OpenAI and Google Sheets are practice copies. No account is created and nothing is billed.
- An n8n account, to do it for realn8n Cloud has a free trial, or you can self-host. The steps are the same.
- An OpenAI API key with a little creditLogging a week of onboarding updates costs fractions of a cent.
- A Google accountFor the Onboarding Tracker sheet. n8n asks you to sign in to Google once.
- Your onboarding checklist and data rulesThe items every new hire needs at your company, and what personal information must never go into a shared sheet. The system prompt in the download is a starting point.
Concepts
3 ideas you’ll use in the practice.
The system prompt is your onboarding checklist
It lists the items every new hire needs before day one, and exactly what one entry looks like: new hire, item, a status from a fixed list, who owns the next step, and the follow-up.
A fixed status list (Done, Waiting, Unclear) and an Owner column are what make the sheet useful on a Thursday: filter by Owner and you know who to chase.
Keep personal details out of the log
New hires send bank details, ID scans and benefits questions by email, and those details don’t belong in a shared sheet. The prompt says to record only whether something was received, never the details themselves.
It also says no legal advice about hiring paperwork or benefits. The agent tells you to reply with your company’s steps; it doesn’t decide what the rules are.
Silence is a status too
The new hire nobody has mentioned is the one most likely to have a bad first day. The prompt says that a new hire with no updates gets Unclear and a note on what to check, so they show up in the sheet instead of falling out of it.
Memory lets you say “save those” afterwards, and the Google Sheets tool writes the rows itself.
Practice
Do every step yourself in a practice copy of the real tool. It checks your work, and “Do it for me” finishes any step you get stuck on.
Do it for real
Now repeat it in your own account. Tick each step as you go.
Downloads
- Onboarding tracker agent system prompt (.txt)The system prompt, the five column headers and the sample updates from the lesson.
Quick check
3 questions to check you’ve got it.
1. A new hire puts his bank details in an email asking about direct deposit. What does the agent log?
- The bank details, so payroll has them
- Direct deposit as Unclear, with a note to use the payroll system’s form, and no bank details
- Nothing at all
Show the answer
Direct deposit as Unclear, with a note to use the payroll system’s form, and no bank details. The prompt says never record bank details or ID numbers. The row says what to do, not the details.
2. One new hire has no updates from anyone. What happens?
- The agent skips her
- She gets an Unclear entry with what to check today
- The agent marks everything Done
Show the answer
She gets an Unclear entry with what to check today. Silence is the risk. An Unclear row keeps her on the list.
3. Why is there an Owner column?
- Google Sheets needs five columns
- So you know who to chase for each open item
- To track who wrote the update
Show the answer
So you know who to chase for each open item. Filter by Owner and the follow-ups to IT, managers and payroll are each one list.
Buffer: Write One Post and Schedule It to Every Channel
Every new hire now has a tracker before day one. Pick your next course, or point the same agent at next week’s starts.
Start module 14 →