Offboarding FAQ
Answers to common setup and operating questions about Offboarding.
For what the app is and how to set it up from scratch, see the
Offboarding Overview.
Setup
Do I need to create templates before I can start an offboarding plan?
No. When you create a plan without selecting a template, the system generates a
default task checklist based on the plan type you choose — voluntary, involuntary,
retirement, end of contract, or layoff. Each type produces different tasks with
appropriate departments and priorities. Templates let you standardize and reuse a
checklist across departures — you can keep separate templates per exit type, label
them by role level (entry, mid, senior, executive), and assign each task to a
department — but they are not required. HR picks the template when creating a plan.
What are the default configuration settings?
Until you change them in Settings, these defaults apply:
- Default notice period for HR-created plans: 14 days
- Default minimum notice period (resignations): 14 days
- Resignation approval levels: 2 (Manager then HR)
- Require exit interview to complete a plan: Yes
- Require knowledge transfer to complete a plan: Yes
- Auto-create offboarding plan on resignation approval: Yes
- Auto-revoke access on last working day: Yes
- Request exit interview during resignation: No
- Offer “Talk it through”: No
- Notifications to manager, HR, and employee: All on
- Ask AI agent: Enabled
Permissions and access
Who can see and manage offboarding plans?
There are two levels of access:
- Full access — admins, super admins, Offboarding app admins and contributors,
and anyone with an HR designation (an organizational role flagged as HR staff).
They see every plan in the business. - Manager access — managers see only plans for employees they manage (direct
reports and anyone within their reporting-structure reach). They cannot see plans
for employees outside their chain.
Nobody sees their own plan while it is still a draft.
Group Terminations, Separation Agreements, and WARN Notices are restricted further:
only admins, super admins, and users with an HR designation can access those tabs —
not managers, and not Offboarding app admins.
I can’t find the Offboarding app in my app directory — is it missing?
It is hidden on purpose. The app only appears for people who manage offboarding
(admins, managers, HR, app admins and contributors), for employees whose own
offboarding plan has been started or whose resignation is pending or approved, for
anyone asked to approve a resignation, and for anyone with an open task on a started
plan. If none of these applies to you, the tile will not show in your directory.
Resignations
How does the resignation approval flow work?
An employee submits a resignation through self-service. The request routes through
1, 2, or 3 approval levels depending on your configuration:
- 1 level: Manager only — manager approval finalizes.
- 2 levels (default): Manager then HR.
- 3 levels: Manager, then Department Head, then HR.
At each level, admins and super admins can approve, and anyone with an HR designation
can approve at the HR level — but nobody can approve their own resignation. If the
direct manager is on approved leave, the skip-level manager (manager’s manager) can
approve in their place. Once the final level approves, the employee is notified by
email and in-app, and the system auto-creates an offboarding plan (if that setting is
on) as a Draft for HR to review and start.
Can an employee withdraw a resignation?
Yes, as long as the request is still pending — it has not yet been approved or
rejected. Once approved, the employee cannot withdraw it. When it is withdrawn,
the person it was waiting on, anyone who already approved it, and the employee’s
manager are notified, with the reason the employee gave.
If an employee decides to stay after their resignation was approved, HR or an admin
can Rescind it from the resignation’s page: cancel the offboarding plan first,
then give a reason. The request is marked withdrawn with “Rescinded by HR” and the
reason on its timeline, the employee is told in the app, and they can resign again
later if they need to.
I submitted my resignation but it says I need more notice — what happened?
The system calculates a minimum notice period based on your country, region, and
employee type. Notice-period policies are matched from most to least specific: an
exact country + region + employee-type match wins, then progressively broader
matches, down to the Default Minimum Notice Period in Settings (14 days unless
changed). If your intended last day is before the calculated date, tick I would
like to request a different last working day on the resignation form. Your
approvers then see the difference and decide whether to accept it.
Plans and tasks
Can an employee have more than one active offboarding plan?
No. Each employee can have at most one plan in Draft or Active status. You
must complete or cancel the existing plan before creating another. The same
restriction applies to resignation requests — an employee cannot submit a new one
while a pending or approved request exists, or once HR has started an offboarding
plan for them.
What happens when a plan is completed?
Only an active plan can be completed. Completing it triggers several actions in
sequence:
- If Benefits Management is enabled, benefit enrollments are terminated and COBRA
eligibility is opened. - The employee’s termination date is recorded and their membership in your
organization is deactivated, ending their access. (Their login stays active only if
they still belong to another organization.) - Banked-time payout is triggered if the business has an auto-payout-on-termination
policy. - If the employee has a personal email on file, Former Employee Portal access is
granted and a portal-access email is sent (unless Auto-Send Portal Access on
Termination is off in Admin → People → Settings).
If Require Personal Email During Offboarding is on in those settings, the plan
cannot be completed until HR verifies the employee’s personal email.
How is the completion percentage calculated?
The percentage counts all required items: required tasks, required documents, plus
the exit interview and knowledge transfer if those are marked as required on the
plan. A required task counts once it is completed or skipped, a required document
once it is verified (an uploaded but unverified document counts as three-quarters of
an item), and the exit interview and knowledge transfer each count as one item. The plan reaches 100% only when every required item is
done.
Exit interviews and knowledge transfer
What question types are available in exit-interview templates?
Seven types: text, textarea (free-form), rating (1–5 scale by default),
NPS (0–10 scale), select (single choice), multiselect, and
boolean (yes/no). Rating and NPS questions auto-set a scale if you do not
specify one. Select and multiselect require at least one option.
My exit interview was submitted — why doesn’t the successor see it?
The successor is notified when knowledge transfer is submitted, not when the exit
interview is submitted. The exit interview is an HR-facing instrument — its NPS
score and summary are stored on the plan for HR to review. Knowledge transfer is
the employee-to-successor handover: the successor receives an email and an in-app
notification once the departing employee submits it.
What is “Talk it through” for exit interviews?
“Talk it through” lets the departing employee hold their exit interview as a
short conversation with an AI interviewer instead of filling in the form. They
type, or hold to talk (and, with Let leavers talk it through out loud on,
can also talk live), and the interviewer asks the plan’s exit interview
questions one at a time. At the end they see what will be recorded, can change
it or remove any answer that isn’t required, and send it — what they send becomes their exit interview,
exactly as if they had filled in the form.
- Off by default. An admin turns it on with Offer “Talk it through” in
Settings. It is then offered on voluntary, retirement and end-of-contract
plans; from a plan’s page, HR can offer it on another plan or keep one plan
to the form. It is always optional — the form is one click away. - When the employee gets the form instead. While your organization’s AI is
unavailable, once the employee has used their monthly AI allowance, or when
the plan’s questions can’t run as a conversation. The plan page says which. - Who sees what. The conversation itself is visible only to the employee.
HR and administrators receive the answers the employee approves, attached to
their offboarding record — not anonymous. Their manager sees that the step is
done, not what was said, unless the manager is an administrator or in HR. - Sending it. Nothing is sent until the employee sends it. When
Auto-Revoke Access on Last Working Day is on, their access ends once their last working
day has ended in your company’s time zone (at the next daily run, 06:00 UTC), so a
conversation they haven’t sent before then can’t be sent; the conversation
page names the day for them. An unsent
conversation is deleted 30 days after they last answered. - Reading it back. After sending, the employee can read the conversation
back from their exit interview page for 30 days, while they can still sign
in. The answers they approved stay on the plan. - Trying it. HR can try the conversation from Settings or from an exit
interview template — a rehearsal that is never counted and is deleted the
next day.
What are the default knowledge-transfer sections?
Eight sections ship by default: Key Responsibilities, Critical Processes,
Systems & Tools, Key Contacts, Ongoing Projects, Tribal Knowledge,
Documentation & Files, and Recommendations. The first five plus
Documentation & Files are required; Tribal Knowledge and Recommendations are
optional. You can create custom templates with different sections.
Access revocation and deprovisioning
What does the termination SLA track?
Two SLA targets, and which plans get them:
- Secondary SLA — set on every plan you start with a termination date: end of
business day one business day after the termination date. This is the deadline
for all remaining required tasks. - Primary SLA — set only on plans created from a termination in a connected HRIS:
end of business day on the termination date, or 4 hours after the termination was
logged if that was later. When it passes, the daily job disables the employee’s
account in each identity provider you switched on under Automated
Deprovisioning (Okta, Azure AD, Google Workspace). Plans started any other way
get no primary SLA and no outbound identity-provider deprovisioning — disable the
person’s accounts in your identity provider yourself.
Both deadlines use holiday-aware business-day math. Progress and breaches are
recorded in an append-only audit log on the plan.
What happens when the SLA is breached?
A plan past its secondary SLA with required tasks still open is marked as
breached. A daily escalation sweep runs at 09:00 UTC and notifies in tiers:
- At breach: the plan’s manager is notified.
- 24 hours past the secondary SLA: manager and HR are notified.
- 48 hours onward: manager, HR, super admins (executives), and the manager’s own manager
are notified.
Each tier transition is recorded in the plan’s audit log. After the top tier,
reminders repeat at growing intervals and stop 30 days after the secondary SLA, so an
abandoned plan does not email people forever.
Compliance and legal
How does COBRA tracking work?
COBRA runs in Benefits Management. When you complete an offboarding plan with Benefits
Management enabled, the person’s benefit enrollments end and Benefits Management opens
a COBRA eligibility record, for admin review, for each medical, dental, vision or FSA
enrollment that ended, with the qualifying event date and type. Coverage duration is
set automatically: 18 months for the employee’s own qualifying events (termination
or reduction in hours), 36 months for dependent events like divorce, death of the
covered employee, or loss of dependent status. An admin generates the election notice
in Benefits Management; the election deadline is 60 days from when the notice is
marked sent. An administrative fee of up to 2% (the federal cap) can be applied.
What ADEA/OWBPA rules apply to separation agreements?
When the departing employee is 40 or older, the system automatically adjusts the
separation agreement:
- Individual termination: 21-day consideration period, 7-day revocation period.
- Group termination: 45-day consideration period, 7-day revocation period.
For employees under 40, the consideration period defaults to 21 days with no
mandatory revocation period. California’s rules are applied automatically: the
non-compete is left out (an agreement that still carries one says it is not
enforceable in California under SB 699), and the release carries a Civil Code § 1542
waiver. Every other US state gets a default 12-month non-compete, which you can
change in the wizard — check that state’s limits (Illinois, for example, sets an
earnings threshold the system does not check) with counsel before you send it.
What WARN notice types are supported?
Three types: plant closing, mass layoff, and relocation. The federal
threshold is 50 employees for a plant closing and 500 for a mass layoff (or 50–499
if that is 33% or more of the workforce). The federal minimum notice is 60 days.
State-level WARN rules are also tracked. For example, California and Maryland
require 60 days at 50 employees; New York and New Jersey require 90 days (at 50
and 100 employees respectively); Illinois requires 60 days at 75 employees.
Licensing and limits
Does Offboarding require a licence?
Yes. Offboarding requires a licence and is disabled by default. An administrator
enables it from Admin → Apps → All Apps. It is not auto-enabled for any tenant.
Are there limits I should know about?
- Bulk CSV import: maximum file size is 5 MB and at most 5,000 rows.
Files over 100 rows are processed as a background job. Required columns: employee email, plan type, and
last working day. - Offboarding template duration: 1–365 days.
- Notice-period policies: each policy must target at least one criterion
(country, region, or employee type). Notice period range: 1–365 days. - Approval levels: 1–3 (manager only, manager + HR, or manager + department
head + HR). - Plans per employee: one active or draft plan at a time.
More help
- Offboarding Overview
- Ask AI — the assistant answers Offboarding questions from these articles.