Jira employee onboarding template with sub-tasks: the same steps for every new starter

Every new starter needs the same things done by the same people: a contract, a laptop, accounts, a desk, a plan for the first weeks. Here is how to give each one the same steps in Jira Cloud, with Jira alone and with an app.

By Rolf Eriksen Published 21 October 2026 11 min read

Checked against Atlassian’s pages and our development site on 21 October 2026 · We make an app for this (disclosure)

Jira Cloud has no work item templates, so there is no built-in “new starter” work item that arrives with its steps. The request for issue templates, JRACLOUD-7731, has been open since 2005 and is marked Gathering Interest. Three native routes get you most of the way:

• Clone a template work item. Keep one onboarding work item with its sub-tasks that nobody works on, and clone it for each new starter with Subtasks ticked. No setup, no Automation usage, but the copy keeps the old wording and dates have to be set by hand.
• An Automation rule. When an onboarding work item is created, the rule adds the same sub-tasks under it. Nobody has to remember, but only admins can change the list, and every run counts towards your Automation usage.
• Atlassian’s free New employee onboarding template sets up a space for tracking new starters, with custom fields such as start date. Its page does not mention sub-tasks, so it pairs with one of the two above.

If different roles need different steps, and the people who know those steps are not Automation admins, an app such as ours lets people pick the right onboarding template. The three lists on this page work with any of these.

A note on words: Atlassian’s newer pages say spaces, work items and work types for projects, issues and issue types. This page uses both.

Decide the shape before choosing a tool; every option below can build either.

• One work item per new starter, with sub-tasks. “Onboarding: Sam Lee, starts 3 November”, with ten to fifteen sub-tasks under it. Simple, fits a small team, and everything is in one place.
• An epic per new starter, with a task for each team. HR, IT, workplace and the manager each get a task under the epic, with their own sub-tasks, and each team can work from its own task. Better when several teams own a part. Jira allows two levels under an epic: tasks, then their sub-tasks. Our epic guide explains the hierarchy.

Keep one work item called something like “TEMPLATE: Onboarding”, with its sub-tasks, and never work on it. When someone joins, open it, choose ••• → Clone, change the summary to the new starter’s name, and tick Subtasks.

Atlassian’s Clone a work item page lists what a clone can include: attachments, sub-tasks, links, custom fields “if they’re set up to be cloned”, comments, and child work items for epics. You need the Create work items permission, and “the prefix Clone is automatically added to the Summary”.

We tried it on our development site on 21 October 2026, on a bug with three sub-tasks in a company-managed space. The dialog showed Summary and Assignee, and under Include it offered Attachments, Subtasks and Links, none of them ticked. The summary began “CLONE -”. Without the Modify reporter permission, Jira said the person cloning would be the reporter. Which options appear depends on what the work item has.

Where cloning drifts:

• The copy keeps the template’s wording, including anything someone forgot to update.
• The template work item shows up in searches and on boards unless you filter it out, and someone can edit or close it.
• Dates are not moved to the new starter’s start date; set them by hand.
• For the epic shape, Atlassian’s page does not say whether the children’s own sub-tasks come with them, and we have not tested it, so we make no claim either way.

Cloning uses no Automation. Our sub-task guide covers cloning in more detail.

Give onboarding its own work type, or a label, and add a rule:

1. Trigger: Work item created (triggers).
2. Condition: the work type is your onboarding type, or the label is onboarding.
3. Action: Create sub-tasks, one line per sub-task.

Atlassian’s actions page says Create sub-tasks “only supports setting the Summary of the sub-task”. To give a sub-task a description or other fields, choosing Add fields turns it into a Create work item action, one per sub-task. For a rule that clones a reference work item together with its sub-tasks, Atlassian has a Cloud knowledge base article that keeps the new parent’s key in a variable and clones each sub-task under it.

What to weigh:

• Usage. Every run counts towards your Automation usage. From December 2026 that is counted in steps; our guide to step billing explains how.
• Upkeep. The steps live inside the rule, and only space or Jira admins can edit rules. The HR person who knows the list may not be one.
• One list. The rule adds the same steps for everyone it matches. Different lists for engineers and sales mean more rules or more conditions.

For the epic shape, the rule in our epic guide creates tasks under the epic and sub-tasks under each.

• New employee onboarding (Jira). Atlassian’s free template page offers board, list, calendar, form and report views, and says to “use custom fields to record other details like start date, equipment needed, and more”. It tracks each new starter as a work item moving through statuses. The page does not mention sub-tasks or checklists, so add the steps with cloning, a rule or an app.
• Jira Service Management, HR. The HR space template is, in Atlassian’s words on its templates page, “designed for HR teams needing a central place to manage staff and their requests”. Its request type groups page gives an example group “Employee onboarding” with request types such as “Conduct background checks”, “Set up payroll” and “Provision hardware for new employee”. This suits onboarding run as requests to other teams. Our JSM request templates guide has a new starter request type to copy.

Type them into a template work item, a rule, our app’s template editor or a planning document. Change the wording to your company’s and leave out what you never do. {{parent.summary}} means the parent’s summary, as our app writes it; in an Automation rule, write {{issue.summary}} instead.

New starter, one work item

Work type:  Task
Summary:    Onboarding: [name], starts [date]
Label:      onboarding

Sub-tasks, in order:
   Before day one
 - Send the contract and get it signed
 - Add them to payroll
 - Order the laptop and accessories
 - Create their accounts: email, chat, Jira and Confluence
 - Book a desk, or send the remote setup guide
 - Pick a buddy
   Day one
 - Welcome and tour, in person or on a call
 - Hand over the laptop and check that sign-in works
 - Security and data protection basics
   First weeks
 - Agree goals for the first 30, 60 and 90 days
 - Introduce them to the teams they will work with
 - Manager check-in after week four

12 sub-tasks (the indented headings are for reading, not sub-tasks)

New starter, one task per team

Epic summary:  [name], starts [date]
Label:         onboarding

1. Task: HR for {{parent.summary}}
     - Contract signed
     - Payroll and pension set up
     - Policies sent and acknowledged
2. Task: IT setup for {{parent.summary}}
     - Laptop ordered and prepared
     - Accounts created
     - Access to the team's systems
3. Task: Workplace for {{parent.summary}}
     - Desk, keys or building pass
     - Equipment sent, if they work remotely
4. Task: Manager's plan for {{parent.summary}}
     - First-week schedule
     - Buddy named
     - Goals for the first 30, 60 and 90 days
5. Task: Check-in after the first month

5 tasks, 11 sub-tasks, 16 work items under the epic

And the reverse: someone leaving

Work type:  Task
Summary:    Leaving: [name], last day [date]
Label:      offboarding

Sub-tasks, in order:
 - Agree the handover
 - Remove them from rotas, on-call and groups
 - Final pay and holiday balance
 - Exit conversation
 - Collect the laptop, keys and pass
 - Remove access to every system on the last day

6 sub-tasks

These are our suggestions, not Atlassian’s templates or an HR standard. Follow your own HR and legal requirements, and the notice periods and steps that apply where you are.

An onboarding work item names a person and a start date, and people across teams see it. Keep everything else out of Jira: salary, bank details, ID numbers and health information belong in your HR system. If a space holds anything sensitive, limit who can browse it. The same goes for templates: write the steps, not the person.

We make Issue Templates & Create Defaults for Jira. That is why this page exists. This section follows its documentation as it stands on 21 October 2026 (version 2.12.0).

• A template per kind of starter. “New starter, engineering” and “New starter, sales” can each carry their own sub-tasks, or the epic shape with a task per team and sub-tasks under each (docs).
• Picked, not remembered. On the project’s Templates page, the person picks the right template and Jira’s own Create dialog opens filled in, for example with the summary “Onboarding: ”. They add the name, create the work item as usual, and the steps are created under it, in order, with {{parent.summary}} filled in.
• Fields on each step. A step can be unassigned or assigned to the person using the template, due a number of days after it is created, put in a component such as IT or HR, and set custom fields (docs).
• Start from a good one. Save as template turns an onboarding work item that went well into a template, with its formatting and checklists (docs).
• From a rule, if you prefer. The app adds an action to Jira Automation, Add work items from template, so a rule can add a template’s steps under a work item when it is created (docs).
• Owned by the people who know it. Project admins manage their own project’s templates without being Automation admins. The Templates page uses no Automation, and the work items are created with the permissions of the person using the template.

• Someone starts it. A person picks a template, or a rule runs the app’s action. Nothing happens on its own when a contract is signed.
• Dates count from creation. A step can be due a number of days after it is created, not a number of days before or after the person’s start date.
• No named assignee. A step can be unassigned, Jira’s default or the person using the template, not “always Alex in IT”. Components help each team find its steps.
• Two levels. Like Jira: tasks under an epic, sub-tasks under those. Up to 30 children, 20 sub-tasks each, 100 work items in one template.
• Not for service projects. Atlassian lists the Create dialog support the app uses for software and business spaces. We have not tested it in Jira Service Management.
• Jira Cloud only. Not Data Center or Server.

If there is one onboarding list and an admin is happy to own it, cloning or a rule is enough and costs nothing extra. The app earns its place when different roles need different lists, and HR or team leads should keep them up to date themselves.

Our plain advice: write the list down first, using the ones above as a start. One list for everyone? Clone a template work item, or add a rule if forgetting is the real problem. Several lists, kept by HR or team leads? Try an app.

Does Jira have an employee onboarding template?

Yes. Atlassian offers a free New employee onboarding template for Jira, with board, list, calendar, form and report views, and custom fields for details such as start date and equipment. Its page does not mention sub-tasks or checklists, so the steps for each new starter still need cloning, an Automation rule or an app.

Can cloning a work item copy its sub-tasks?

Yes. In the Clone dialog, tick Subtasks under Include. Atlassian’s page lists attachments, sub-tasks, links, comments, custom fields set up to be cloned, and child work items for epics among the options. The copy’s summary starts with Clone, and you need the Create work items permission.

Can Jira add onboarding sub-tasks automatically?

Yes, with an Automation rule: the Work item created trigger, a condition that picks out onboarding work items, and a Create sub-tasks action with one line per sub-task. That action sets only each sub-task’s summary, and every run counts towards your Automation usage.

Should onboarding use Jira’s Set to recur?

Usually not. Set to recur repeats a work item on a schedule, with its fields (except start and due dates) and child work items. Onboarding happens when someone joins, not on a calendar, so cloning, a rule or an app fits better.

Does the Issue Templates app fill in Jira’s Create dialog by itself?

No. A pick on a project’s Templates page opens Jira’s own Create dialog filled in, and for a work type with a default template, the Create dialog names the default. The app writes nothing into a form by itself and sets no default values for fields.

• Jira issue templates in Jira Cloud: the hub. Default descriptions, block templates, Automation, cloning and request types, and where each stops.
• Jira templates with sub-tasks: the same sub-tasks under every new work item.
• Jira epic template with stories and sub-tasks: the same breakdown under every new epic.
• Add the same sub-tasks to an existing Jira work item: by hand, with a rule run from the work item, or with an app.
• Jira default description: a description template for each work type.
• Jira employee onboarding template with sub-tasks: this page.

Also useful:

• Request templates in Jira Service Management: a new starter request type to copy, among others.
• All guides, by product area.

Every statement about Jira on this page comes from the Atlassian pages below, read on 21 October 2026, or from what we saw on our development site that day, which the text says. Where Atlassian’s pages did not say something, we left it out or said so. The three lists are our own suggestions.

• Clone a work item (checked 21 Oct 2026)
• Automation actions (Create sub-tasks) (checked 21 Oct 2026)
• Jira automation triggers (checked 21 Oct 2026)
• Automation: how to clone tasks and stories along with their sub-tasks (KB) (checked 21 Oct 2026)
• New employee onboarding template (checked 21 Oct 2026)
• Jira Service Management space templates (checked 21 Oct 2026)
• Using request type groups (checked 21 Oct 2026)
• Schedule work items to recur using automations (checked 21 Oct 2026)
• JRACLOUD-7731: Issue Templates (checked 21 Oct 2026: Gathering Interest)

Changelog

• 21 October 2026. First version, describing Issue Templates & Create Defaults for Jira 2.12.0.

Corrections

None yet. If something here is wrong, email [email protected]. We will fix it and say so here.