Onboarding a new team member in Uku

Bringing someone new onto the team means more than adding their name to a list. A well-onboarded team member can find their tasks on day one, understands what they are responsible for, and has the tools set up to do the work efficiently. A poorly onboarded one spends the first week asking colleagues questions that Uku could have answered automatically.

This guide covers what a Company Admin needs to do before the new person arrives and in their first few days.

Quick answer

The onboarding sequence is: (1) send the invitation with the correct role, (2) assign client access, (3) configure flextime and time settings, (4) set up any company-specific tools (Magic buttons, etc.), and (5) verify the new member can navigate and use their dashboard. Allow 20–30 minutes for a thorough setup.

Who does this

• Company Admins and Company Owners handle the full setup.
• Company Members joining the team receive an invitation and complete their profile setup themselves.

Step 1 — Send the invitation

1. Go to Members in the left navigation.
2. Click Add member.
3. Enter the new member’s email address, first name, and last name.
4. Choose their status: Active (full access, counts as a paid seat) or Limited (visible in the system but cannot log in — useful for time-only tracking before they have full access).
5. Check the Administrator box if this person should have Company Admin privileges. Leave it unchecked for a Company Member (the standard role).
6. Click Save to send the invitation email.

The new member appears with Invited status until they accept. If the invitation email does not arrive within a few minutes, you can resend it by clicking the mail icon on their row. See How to manage members for full detail on member statuses and bulk actions.

Step 2 — Assign client access

A new Company Member only sees clients they are explicitly assigned to. A new Company Admin sees all clients by default.

For Company Members, assign them to clients as part of onboarding:

1. Go to Clients and open each client the new member will work on.
2. Click Edit client.
3. Add the new member to the Members field for that client.
4. Save.

Alternatively, open the new member’s profile in Members and assign clients from there if your account supports that view.

If the new member should have full management rights on a specific client (including being able to manage contracts and invoices for that client), also assign them as Client Admin on that client’s Members tab. See Roles and permissions for the distinction between company-level and client-level roles.

Step 3 — Configure flextime (if your firm uses it)

If your firm tracks working hours with the Flextime app, every team member needs an individual flextime agreement before their time data makes sense.

1. Open the new member’s profile in Members.
2. Go to the Agreements tab.
3. Set their agreed weekly working hours and the start date of the agreement.
4. If they have a non-standard schedule (part-time, flexible hours), configure accordingly.
5. Save the agreement.

Without this step, the Flextime report will show incorrect expected hours for this person. See How to activate and set up the Flextime app and How to see and change the Flextime agreement.

Step 4 — Set up Magic buttons for their common tasks

Magic buttons are a small setup investment with a large daily payoff. For team members who regularly handle specific task types (phone calls, document reviews, quick client queries), configuring their personal magic buttons on day one means they can start timing accurately from the very beginning.

Company-wide magic buttons are set up in Settings & Apps > Magic buttons by Company Admins. Personal magic buttons are set up by each member in their own profile settings. Either way, walking a new member through this during their first day takes 5 minutes and prevents the “I forgot to start the timer” problem that leads to missed billing.

See Magic buttons for setup instructions.

Step 5 — Walk them through the dashboard

Once the setup is done, spend 15 minutes with the new team member walking through their Uku dashboard. The key things to show:

• The Dashboard — their daily task view, sorted by due date. Show them how to use filters and bookmarks.
• Task view — how to open a task, log time, update status, and leave comments.
• Time tracking — how the timer works and how to add time manually if they forgot to start it.
• Catch Up view — where to see messages from clients and team comments on their tasks.

See Uku Dashboard overview and How to track time.

During the first week — what to watch for

A new team member’s first week in Uku is when habits form. Checking in briefly after the first two or three days helps catch configuration issues early:

• Are tasks appearing on their dashboard? If not, verify that they are assigned to clients and that those client workflows are confirmed.
• Are they logging time against tasks? Check the time report for their first days — zero entries after working days usually means they have not found the timer yet.
• Are they using the correct topics when logging time? Topics affect billing and reporting; a team member who logs all time as “General” creates reporting noise.

When someone leaves — the offboarding counterpart

When a team member leaves, the reverse process is important too:

1. Reassign their open tasks to other team members before deactivating. Use the bulk reassign feature to move multiple tasks at once. See How to reassign tasks during absence.
2. Deactivate the member (change their status to Inactive) — this removes their access and frees the paid seat while preserving all their historical time entries and task data.
3. Update any clients where they were the Primary member to ensure a new person receives AML and monitoring notifications.