The story
Three departments, one first day.
The process starts when the contract is signed. HR creates the personnel file in the HR system, and then the work fans out. A parallel gateway, the diamond with the plus sign, starts three branches at once. HR registers the new employee for payroll. The manager plans the first weeks: who the new colleague meets, which projects, which training. IT sets up the accounts in the identity management system and then has the access rights approved.
That approval is the control step, drawn in blue. Accounts are created by IT; which systems and data the new employee may reach is decided by someone who is responsible for them. The step sits in the IT lane because IT carries it out, but it is a control because it may stop an account from going live.
A second parallel gateway joins the three branches. It waits until payroll, the plan and the approved access are all done. Then the manager runs the first day, the new employee completes the training in the learning system, and the onboarding is complete. The end event sits with the new employee, because that is who the process is for.
This is a fictional example model. A real onboarding would add the equipment order, the workplace, the works council where it applies, probation reviews and the many small welcomes that make a first day good. The example keeps the structure: three branches that must all finish before one date.
The diagram
The model as BPMN 2.0.
Three branches leave the first plus diamond and three flows enter the second. The IT branch is one task longer than the others, because the approval follows the set-up; it is the branch the join usually waits for.
Elements used
What is in the model, and why.
Eleven nodes, no exclusive gateway. Onboarding has few decisions and many hand-overs; the model is about who does what in parallel, not about yes or no.
Lanes: HR, Manager, IT, New employee
Four roles. The new employee has a lane because they do work in the process, the training, and because the end event belongs to them. The manager is a lane of their own because onboarding without the manager is administration.
Parallel split and join
Two parallel gateways in the HR lane. The split has three outgoing flows, the join three incoming. Every branch that leaves the split must reach the join, or the process never finishes; that is the rule parallel gateways enforce.
Control step: Approve access rights
The blue task in the IT lane, with the IAM system under it. It follows Set up accounts in the same lane: first the accounts, then the decision on what they may reach. The .bpmn file marks it as a control step.
Systems: HR system, payroll, IAM, LMS
Four systems, four lanes. Each role works in its own tool, and the personnel data has to arrive in all of them. Where it is re-typed, the model shows which lane does the typing.
End event: Onboarding complete
One end, in the new employee's lane, after the training. The first day is a task, not the end: a process that ends on day one leaves the training and the first weeks outside the picture.
Where the process waits
What to look at in an onboarding model.
The join is the whole story. The first day has a date, the branches do not, and the slowest branch sets the mood of the first morning.
Accounts without rights
Set up accounts is quick; Approve access rights waits for a person who owns the system. A new employee with a laptop and no access to anything is the visible result of the blue step not being done.
The plan nobody wrote
Plan first weeks is a task for the manager, and managers are busy. If the branch is skipped, the join still fires in practice, and the first week fills itself with waiting.
Who starts the branches?
The parallel split assumes that HR tells the manager and IT on the same day. Where the signed contract reaches IT only through the manager, the model has a sequence where it draws a split.
Training after the first day
Complete training is drawn after the first day, in the new employee's lane. Whether the mandatory training happens in the first week or in the third is the difference between the model and reality.
Request the file
The model as a .bpmn file.
The file is a fictional example model in BPMN 2.0 XML. It opens in standard BPMN tools such as Camunda Modeler, Signavio or ADONIS, with lanes, the parallel pair, the control step and the diagram layout. It is sent by email on request; nothing is downloaded from this page.
Back to the start of the library: claims handling. How a model like this is drafted from a conversation with HR, the manager and IT: how patchley works. Capturing a process in interviews and workshops: process capture.