How do Sequences work on Vome?

How do Sequences work on Vome?

Overview

A sequence is an ordered set of steps that a person works through, most often between submitting an application form and being ready to start. You design every step yourself, so the same module also handles qualification renewals and internal checklists your team runs without the user ever seeing them.

Every step does one of three things: it gives information, it collects information, or it does both. Everything else is configuration on top of that.

Info
Plan required: the Course step type needs the Enterprise or Ultimate plan. The Background check and E-Learning step types need their integration connected first, Sterling Volunteers and SCORM Cloud respectively.

1. What do people use sequences for?

Most organizations use them to:

  • guide someone through onboarding after they apply
  • collect documents, forms and signatures in one place
  • share orientation and training material
  • track internal checkpoints that only administrators see
  • manage qualifications that need renewing over time

A sequence is a process, and onboarding is only the most common one. Nothing ties the module to new arrivals. A sequence can be the initial onboarding journey, or it can be onboarding to one specific opportunity or one specific program, or it can be any other series of steps your team runs. Think of it as process management rather than an intake funnel, and the rest of the module makes more sense.

Any user can go through any sequence at any time. Somebody who has been with you for three years can be put into a sequence today: to become eligible for a new opportunity, to renew a certification that is about to expire, to complete the extra requirements one site asks for, or to work through a program's own orientation. Being new is not a condition, and having finished onboarding once does not close the door.

For every way somebody ends up in a sequence in the first place, see How do I get people into a sequence?

If you are still deciding how to structure onboarding before you build anything, start with How should I organize onboarding on Vome?

2. Can the people assigned to a sequence see it?

You decide, with the sequence's Visibility setting.

Visible to administrators only. Assigned users are not notified, the sequence does not appear on their profile, and it works purely as an internal workflow. Use this when you are tracking your own process rather than asking anyone to do something.

Visible to assigned users. Users are notified when they are assigned, they can see their steps and statuses, and they can complete the steps you have made visible to them. This is the setting that turns Vome into the one place people go to finish onboarding, instead of a chain of emails and attachments.

One thing to know either way: users only see their assigned sequences while those sequences are Active or Paused. Finished and inactive sequences are hidden from them.

3. What step types can I add?

Twelve, and each behaves differently. In the Add step menu you will find:

  • File uploads. You write the instructions and can attach a document for the person to download. They upload a file back, and the step is marked Uploaded. If you need several documents, either ask for a single ZIP file or use one step per document.
  • Interviews. A title and a description for something arranged outside Vome. Put your booking link in the description. Completion is recorded on the step.
  • Orientations. Session details, dates and links to materials. Completion is recorded on the step. This type cannot take sign-ups on its own, so see question 5 if you need people to pick a session.
  • Trainings. The same shape as Orientations, for training content.
  • Fillable PDFs. You upload a fillable PDF and choose which fields the person has to complete. They fill and sign it inside Vome, and the completed copy is saved. An administrator can also sign or add information to a user's copy.
  • Fillable forms. The step points at a form from the Forms module. This is the step type to reach for whenever you need answers to questions, file attachments, digital consent or a shift booking, because one form can do all four.
  • Videos. You upload the video and Vome records that the person watched it through to the end.
  • Checklists. Several items inside one step, ticked off one at a time.
  • Courses. A published course from the Courses module, Vome's own learning tool, with progress, scores, pass or fail results, certificates and credential expiry tracked for you. Each course step carries a gate: Hard (the default) blocks the next step until the course is passed, Soft records the result but lets the person carry on, and None applies no gate. You can set a minimum score on the step, which overrides the course's own pass mark for gating.
  • Custom. Anything that does not fit the types above. A title, a description, an optional attachment, and an optional file request.
  • Background check. Runs through the Sterling Volunteers integration. The person is sent out to Sterling, comes back to Vome, and the step completes on its own. Later changes to their check status keep syncing back.
  • E-Learning. A SCORM course from SCORM Cloud, launched from inside the step. Progress and completion sync back to Vome, and the detailed analytics stay in SCORM Cloud.

Whichever type you use, the sequence's coordinators and watchers are notified when a step is completed. For the full detail on each type, including exactly what the user sees, read What are the different step categories when adding steps in a sequence?

4. How do I collect answers, files and digital consent?

Use a Fillable form step. It puts a Vome form inside the sequence, so in a single step the person can answer questions, upload files, give digital consent, and meet any other form-based requirement.

This is almost always the right answer when a step needs to collect structured information rather than just confirm that something happened. Use a Fillable PDF step instead when the document itself matters, for example a waiver you need signed and filed in its original layout.

5. How do I let people book an orientation or training session?

The Orientation and Training step types describe a session, they do not take sign-ups. To make a session bookable from inside a sequence:

  1. Create an opportunity for the orientation or training.
  2. Add shifts for each available date and time.
  3. Build a form that includes the Shift calendar section, pointed at that opportunity.
  4. Add a Fillable form step to the sequence and point it at that form.

Because only the people who reach that step can see the form, it usually makes sense to turn on Auto-approve opportunity and Instant book. With both on, the person picks a session and is booked right away, with no administrator in the middle.

6. Can a step assign a profile tag automatically?

Yes. A step can assign a profile tag when it is completed, or when someone is moved from one step to another.

This matters because profile tags work everywhere else in Vome. A person completes the Fillable PDF step that signs your waiver, Vome assigns the Waiver signed tag, and from then on you can find, filter and report on that person by the tag in the Database, in reports, in scheduling views and in sequence reporting.

The rule of thumb: if completing a step proves something you may want to search or report on later, have it assign a tag.

7. Can someone be in more than one sequence?

Yes, with no limit. It is normal for one sequence to handle general onboarding, another to handle requirements specific to a role, and a third to handle a renewal a year later.

8. Can someone go through the same sequence twice?

No, not from the start. Once a person has been through a sequence, they cannot be assigned to it again as a fresh run.

If they only need to redo part of it, move them back to the earlier step. If they genuinely need to repeat the whole thing as a separate, separately tracked process, copy the sequence and assign the copy.

9. What happens if the same requirement appears in several sequences?

It is tracked once, centrally. A waiver, an interview, an orientation session or a training session is created once and can then be used in as many sequences as you like.

If the same person is assigned to several sequences that share a requirement, completing it anywhere marks it complete everywhere. You do not maintain the same requirement separately in each place.

10. What settings does each step have?

Each step is configured on its own, and this is the part worth spending time on. For any step you set:

  • whether the user can see it at all
  • whether it provides information, collects it, or both
  • whether an administrator has to review it before it counts as done
  • whether it can complete automatically
  • whether the person moves to the next step automatically
  • whether completing it assigns a profile tag

Two steps of the same type in the same sequence can behave completely differently because of these. Configure each step around what it is actually for, rather than making everything behave the same way.

11. What can a step do on its own, without an administrator?

Quite a lot. Every step can carry step automations, which watch one person's progress on that step and run actions when a condition is met. You set them up from the step's settings, under Step automations, once the step has been saved and published.

An automation fires on one of three triggers: when the person enters the step, when they complete it, or after they have been sitting on it, still pending, for a length of time you choose. The pending trigger can also repeat, for example every three weeks up to four times, which is how you build a polite chase without remembering to send it.

When it fires, it can send a notification (email, push, or both, from your connected domain or from Vome, optionally using a saved template), assign or remove profile tags, sites and opportunities, mark the person inactive for the sequence, remove them from it, archive their profile, or add them to your database.

The one to know about is the "Still interested?" notification. Turning it on adds Yes and No buttons to the email. Clicking yes puts the person back into the sequence, and clicking no runs whatever follow-up actions you configured for that case, so a stalled application can close itself out cleanly instead of sitting in your list forever.

Full detail is in How do sequence step automations work on Vome?

12. What happens when someone finishes the sequence?

Whatever you tell it to. Open Settings and automations on the sequence and you can apply all of the following the moment a profile is marked as finished:

  • Auto-add to database. The person becomes a full profile in your database.
  • Auto-assign sequences. They are enrolled in the next sequence you pick, which is how you chain general onboarding into role-specific training.
  • Auto-assign opportunities. They are approved on the opportunities you pick, so they can reserve shifts and log hours straight away.
  • Auto-assign profile tags. Tags land on the profile for filtering and reporting.
  • Auto-assign sites. Access to the sites you pick is granted.

The same screen holds two related settings: Auto-assign this sequence via form, which enrols people into this sequence when they submit one of the forms you link, and a custom completion notification, where you replace the default finish email with your own subject and message (or turn it off).

Where to put Auto-add to database. If you run an onboarding sequence, put it here rather than on the application form. Adding people to the database when they submit the form means everyone who ever filled it in is in your database, screened or not. Adding them when they finish the sequence means your database is the list of people who actually completed your process, which is what most organizations want it to be. The Automations summary pill at the top of the settings sidebar shows everything you have switched on in one place, which is worth checking before you publish.

More detail in What are sequence automations and how do I use them?

Best practices

  • Make the sequence visible to assigned users whenever they have something to do in it.
  • Use Fillable form steps for anything you need to collect, and Fillable PDF steps when the signed document itself is the point.
  • Pair a private form and a shift calendar when people need to book an orientation or training session.
  • Assign a profile tag on the steps whose completion you will want to report on.
  • Reuse shared requirements across sequences instead of rebuilding them.
  • Add a review step only where a person genuinely has to look at something. Every extra review is somewhere people wait.
  • Put a pending-duration automation on the steps where people typically stall, so the follow-up happens without you.
  • Add people to your database when they finish the sequence, not when they submit the form.

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