How to Automate Your Client Onboarding Process with Dubsado
By Ema Katiraee, Certified Dubsado Specialist
TL;DR: An onboarding workflow in Dubsado automates what happens after a client books, including the welcome email, scheduler, questionnaire, reminders, and any follow-up emails leading up to the project date. Here's a breakdown of the actions you can include and how to trigger the whole thing.
Onboarding clients is a critical phase in your client process and worth getting right. Dubsado can really help simplify the process for both you and your clients by automating follow-ups and saving you time.
Since onboarding looks different depending on your niche, this post covers the types of actions you can include rather than walking through one specific workflow. Use what applies to your process.
Benefits of Using an Onboarding Workflow in Dubsado
An onboarding workflow lets you automate the welcome email, scheduler, and questionnaire without losing the ability to personalize things where it matters. It follows up automatically if a questionnaire hasn't been completed, holds subsequent steps until certain conditions are met, and kicks off the next phase of your client process once onboarding is done.
When to Use a Dubsado Onboarding Workflow
An onboarding workflow makes sense if you need to gather information from clients before starting work, if you meet with clients at the start of a project, or if you want to make sure nothing gets dropped between booking and your first session together.
Examples of Actions in an Onboarding Workflow
Once the content and templates that you need for your workflow are ready in Dubsado, you can build your onboarding workflow.
Some examples of the content you might need are: schedulers, questionnaires, canned emails and a welcome packet. But this will depend on your client process.
Activate the Client Portal
This step activates the client portal for them, so that when you send them an email with the link and password to the portal, they will be able to access it.
Activate the client portal for a project in Dubsado
Update Project Status
You can update the clients project status to ‘Booked’ or ‘Onboarding’ depending on what you have set up in your account. You can also trigger changes in project status after certain tasks are completed like: when the onboarding questionnaire is completed, or after the onboarding call has ended.
Change project status in a workflow
Send a Welcome Email
This step sends a welcome email with next steps that can include a link and password to their client portal, and a link to their welcome packet, using a canned email selected from the canned email list.
To set this up:
Create a canned email template with a warm welcome message
Include the smart field for their the client portal {{client | portalLink}} and password {{client | portalPassword}}
Include the link to their pdf welcome packet (if applicable)
Send a welcome email via a workflow in Dubsado
Send an Onboarding Scheduler
This step sends the appointment scheduler for the onboarding call using a canned email selected from the canned email list.
If you have a questionnaire they need to fill out before they book the call, make sure to attach that to the scheduler. You cannot send a questionnaire AND a scheduler in the same step. I would only recommend doing this if the questionnaire is relatively short.
If your questionnaire is longer, I recommend sending it using a separate action.
Send a scheduler link via a workflow
Send Onboarding Questionnaire
This step sends the onboarding questionnaire using a canned email selected from the canned email list.
You can trigger this action to happen after their onboarding call is scheduled, which is really helpful.
If you need them to complete the questionnaire first, you can trigger sending the onboarding call scheduler after the questionnaire is completed.
Send a questionnaire via a workflow
Send Reminder Email to Fill Out the Questionnaire
If the questionnaire has not been submitted, Dubsado will follow up with them and send them the same questionnaire again using a canned email that you choose from your list of canned emails.
You can set this reminder to go out however many days you want after the questionnaire was initially sent AND not submitted. Don’t worry, if someone already submitted their questionnaire, they will not get this reminder.
📌Note: You can send more than one reminder, just know that this is where Dubsado get finicky. The reminders have to be in increasing number of days (or hours), meaning:
First reminder X days
Next reminder X+1 days (or more)
So you can’t send a reminder 3 days after you first sent the proposal, and then send a reminder 3 days after that. It needs to be 3 days after you first sent the proposal, and then 4 days after that.
Weird, but it’s just how Dubsado works.
Send an automated reminder to complete a questionnaire
To-do Edit Email with Next Steps
In some workflows, you need to send an email right after a meeting. That email needs to be personalized based on the discussion you had during the call.
Placing a to-do to trigger right after the appointment ends, is a great way to stop that email from going out. Allowing you to edit it with clear next steps that are particular to this project, and once the edits are done then check off the to-do to send out the email.
Tip: Make sure to include a smart field with the clients name inside the to-do reminder, or else you might be confused trying to figure out which project the to-do notification / email is related to.
To-do action in a Dubsado workflow
Send Follow up Emails
You can send canned emails as you approach your project start date / wedding date / photography session date / etc.
Select an email from your canned email list, and have it send out X days before or after the project start date. You can send multiple emails: 1 week before the date, 3 days before the date, the day of project, a day after the project, etc.
📌 Important: In order to set this up to happen automatically, Dubsado needs to know the project start date.
In some cases - like weddings - this is easy to set up because you ask the couple for their wedding date in the proposal or lead capture form and map it to the project start date.
In other cases - this might not be as straightforward - so you may need to manually set the project date at the beginning of the workflow. To do this, use a to-do. It will send you a reminder to go into the clients project and set the project date. Now Dubsado will know when to send out all these emails for you.
Email that is sent after to-do action is complete
To-do Send Gift
Some businesses will send a gift to new clients. Using a to-do is a great way to make sure that you don’t forget to send out the appreciation gift to your clients.
Set the to-do to trigger at a time that makes sense in your workflow - like right after the welcome email is sent out, or right after the project is completed.
You can automate this even further with a Zap to an application called Handwrytten. When the invoice is paid or contract is signed, Zapier can trigger sending out a thank you card with Handwrytten and even include a gift card as part of the purchase.
Start Another Workflow
You can trigger another workflow to start at a certain point - like after the project start date or after an appointment ends.
This will help break up your client process into phases, and help you easily identify at what stage your client is at in their project.
Start the next workflow
How to Apply an Onboarding Workflow:
Automatically via another workflow:
If you have a booking workflow, you add an action to automatically start the onboarding workflow once the have signed their contract and paid they invoice.
Manually:
Once your client has signed their contract and paid their invoice, you can manually apply the onboarding workflow to their project.
Doing this task manually is sometimes necessary if your onboarding workflow is different for different packages that you offer on the same proposal.
To manually start a workflow:
Go to the clients project
Go to the Flows tab
Click Start a Flow
Select the onboarding workflow from the dropdown menu
Click Start flow
Video Tutorial: Build a Dubsado Onboarding Workflow
Below is an easy to follow tutorial showing you how to use different workflow actions in Dubsado to build your own onboarding workflow. Click below to get started!
See How This Fits Into Your Full Workflow
Onboarding works best when it's connected to everything that comes before it. If you haven't built out your full client process yet, here's how to create a Dubsado workflow from scratch.
Want Your Dubsado Onboarding Workflow Built Properly?
If you want your entire onboarding process built out correctly in Dubsado, I can help. Book a discovery call and let's talk about what that looks like for your business.
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