Configure the Employee Portal

Learn how to set up and get the most from the Employee Portal to improve the experience for your users and automate key tasks.

  Restore Visibility

   Take Control

   Estimated Read Time: 16 minutes 

---

Sections in this article:

• Introduction
  • Employee Portal vs. Public Forms
• Basic Configuration
  • Enabling the Employee Portal
  • Copy Link to the Employee Portal
  • Manage Employee Portal Administrators
  • Enable the Employee Portal for your Workflows
    • Enable Gatekeeper AI
• Advanced Configuration
  • Add Description to Form Tiles
  • Add a Description to Form Start
  • Copy Direct Links to Forms
  • Send FYI emails to Card Creators 
    • CC Email Examples
  • Hide Workflow Phases 
  • Re-order the Employee Portal Forms
  • Reorder User Navigation Menus
• Expert Configuration
  • Enable Just-In-Time User Account Creation (JIT)
  • Configure Personalised Touchless Links

---

Introduction

The Employee Portal module improves the experience for users who wish to initiate workflows and track the progress of their submitted forms.

When the Employee Portal is enabled, the Submit Requests Dashboard becomes available to all your Internal Gatekeeper users. This provides a central place for internal Gatekeeper users to submit and track workflow forms.

Pictured: A Submit Requests dashboard with Personalised links, Intake Forms, and Previous Submissions.

The same Submit Requests Dashboard can be made the only accessible feature for specific users through the separate Employee Portal. This is useful if you want some users to submit and track workflow forms without access to repositories, files, or other areas of Gatekeeper. These users are designated as Employee Portal Only users.

Employee Portal vs. Public Forms

In addition to improving user experience with the Submit Requests Dashboard, the Employee Portal offers enhanced security when compared to Public Forms. Since you control who has access to your forms, you can be confident that submissions come only from authenticated users within your organisation.

As a result of this, there are two main benefits to using the Employee Portal over Public Forms:

• Pre-filled data from your repository - When users select existing records (e.g. Vendors or Contracts), Gatekeeper automatically pulls in their metadata from your repository. This saves time and prevents discrepancies by ensuring users don’t manually re-enter information that may already exist in your repository.

• Allows the addition of new Vendor Users - When entering details about new or existing vendors into workflow forms, users can add new vendor contacts by entering their name, job title, and email address. However, to ensure security, Gatekeeper only enables this option if it can verify that the form submitter is part of your organisation.

Basic Configuration

Enable the Employee Portal

Once Employee Portal is added to your subscription, the module can be enabled by users with the Configuration additional permission. To do this:

1. From the navigation menu, expand the Modules option then click Employee Portal. 
2. Enable the Employee Portal toggle.

Copy Link to the Employee Portal

If you plan to create Employee Portal Only users or Just in Time User Provisioning, you will require the URL to access the Employee Portal: 

1. From the navigation menu, expand the Modules option then click Employee Portal.
2. Underneath the Enabled toggle, click to copy your Employee Portal URL.

Manage Employee Portal Administrators

Employee Portal administrators have access to an additional dashboard, allowing them to oversee use of the Employee Portal:

This displays: 

• The number of Employee Portal Only users.
• Which Workflows are actively enabled for Employee Portal forms, and how many Live cards exist on each.
• A list of all Open Forms and their status/progress.

Add an Employee Portal Administrator

To make a user an Employee Portal administrator:

1. From the navigation menu, expand the Modules option then click Employee Portal.
2. Click Add Administrator.
3. Select a user from the dropdown list then click Create.

Remove Employee Portal Administrators

1. From the navigation menu, expand the Modules option then click Employee Portal.
2. Expand the 3 dots on the relevant user then click Delete.
3.  Click OK to confirm your changes.

Enable the Employee Portal for your Workflows

After enabling the Employee Portal, the next step in setting it up is to make workflow forms available for selection within the portal. To do this:

1. From the navigation menu, click Workflows, then open the Workflow you wish to enable in Employee Portal.
2. Click to edit the Start Phase and navigate to the Form Access section.
3. Select the Employee Portal radio button.
4. Select the Authenticated checkbox then click Save.

Enable AI Extract

Within the Submit Requests dashboard, users can upload contract documents (in Word or PDF format) and Gatekeeper will review and extract data to populate the core details of the form automatically. See the walkthrough below and follow the steps to configure this:

To configure this:

1. From the navigation menu, click Workflows, then open the Workflow enabled in the Employee Portal.
2. Click to edit the Start Phase and navigate to the Form Access section.
3. Select the Create Card from Contract checkbox.

To learn more, see AI Extract in Workflows.

Advanced Configuration

The following sections outline extra optional steps you can take to improve the user experience of the Employee Platform.

Add Description to Form Tiles

You can customise Forms Tiles so your users have extra context before clicking request.

To add this: 

1. From the navigation menu, click Workflows.
2. Expand the 3 dots on the relevant workflow, then click Edit This Workflow.
3. Enter a description.
   1. You can also edit the Icon/Icon Colour and Label.
4. Click Save.

Add a Description to Form Start

Once a user starts a new form, you can add introductory guidance about the form that will appear on the page. To add this:

1. On your workflow, click to edit the Start phase.
2. Enter the Description field.
3. Select the appropriate radio button to determine where the description text will appear (either Above the form, or alongside it in the Sidebar).
4. Click Save.

Copy Direct Links to Forms

You can generate a direct, clickable URLs to link specific forms from other platforms or within Gatekeeper (e.g. in invitation emails or workflow notifications). To do this:

1. Navigate to the Submit Requests dashboard.
2. Right-click the Request button for your desired form then select Copy Link Address.

When users follow this link, Gatekeeper will open the Submit Requests dashboard and automatically display a new form, ready for completion and submission.

Send FYI emails to Card Creators 

CC Card Creator emails are a useful tool to keep your requestors informed about processes they have initiated. When enabled, Gatekeeper automatically notifies users when a card reaches a particular phase, making it an effective way to inform them of key workflow milestones. To enable these:

1. On your Workflow, click to edit a phase where you wish to enable a CC email.
2. Click the Notifications section, then enable the Card Creator toggle.
3. Click the pencil icon to edit the Email Template.
4. Enter a Subject Line, Content and Button Text.
5. Click Update then click Save to store your new notification settings.

CC Email Examples

Example 1 - Submission Confirmation 📥

This would notify users that their form was successfully submitted and will now be reviewed.

To achieve this, enable a CC email on the first phase cards arrive at once forms are submitted:

You could provide users with a confirmation that the form has been received, information on what happens next in the workflow, and instructions on how to check progress

Example Email Appearance:

 

Example 2 - Delay at Key stage ⏳

Alerts users when their request has spent a long time in a workflow phase. To achieve this, enable the Email Reminders toggle for the Card Creator rather than enabling the Email Notification toggle:

This notification could include an FYI that a form of theirs has been delayed,  what this delay could mean and some possible actions to take.

Example 3 - "Done" Confirmation ✅

Confirms that the request has completed all workflow steps.To achieve this, enable a CC email on the Done phase of your workflow.

This could include a confirmation that the form has been completed, possible next steps, and how to view the form/records in Gatekeeper.

Hide Workflow Phases 

In the Employee Portal dashboard, progress is displayed in the form of counters and in the View More timeline. However, for some of your workflows, there may be some phases you wish to hide to simplify the view for your requestors. 

This could be phases where no user interaction takes place (i.e. AutoAction Phases) or phases which do not form part of a standard path (e.g. Rejection phases).

To do this: 

1. From the navigation menu, expand Modules, then click Employee Portal.
2. Expand the 3 dots on the relevant workflow then select Edit.
3. Select the Hide checkbox on the phases you wish to hide, then click Submit.

Re-order the Employee Portal Forms

If you have many workflow forms in your Employee Portal, you may want to choose a specific order they appear for users. For example, you may want to reorder your forms to prioritise:

• The Forms that are most popular, putting them first so they can be found quickest
• The order in which the forms should be used, e.g. Vendor Onboarding, then Contract Requests, then Contract Updates/Amendments.

To do this: 

1. From the navigation menu, expand Modules, then click Employee Portal.
2. Click Reorder Workflows.
3. Drag and drop your forms into the order they should appear in Employee Portal, then click Update to save the changes.

Reorder User Navigation Menus

The left-hand navigation menu is the primary way to navigate Gatekeeper. If you want to prioritise the Submit Requests dashboard for users, you can move it to a higher position in their menu.

1. From the navigation menu, expand Settings then click Configuration.
2. Click Navigation, Charts & Email, then enable the Dynamic Navigation toggle.
3. Refresh your browser, then click the padlock icon to enter the Edit Menu mode.
4. Drag and drop the menu options into the desired order, then once finished click the tick icon to store this as your new menu layout.
5. Return to Navigation, Charts & Email in the Configuration area.
6. Click View on Set Default Navigation.
7. Click the relevant button to apply the view you have just configured to all existing users and/or set it as the default for any new users added to Gatekeeper.

Expert Configuration

The following sections outline additional advanced configuration to improve the user experience of the Employee Platform.

Enable Just-In-Time User Creation

If you frequently onboard new users, you don’t need to add them manually. By setting up a pre-approved list of email domain and enabling SSO, Gatekeeper can automatically create user accounts when users with a valid email attempt log in for the first time. To configure this:

1. From the navigation menu, expand Settings then click Configuration.
2. Click Just-in-Time (JIT) Provisioning.
3. Enable the Just-in-Time (JIT) Provisioning toggle.
4. Enable the Google SSO or Microsoft SSO toggle based on your email address type.
5. Select the Default Department that any new users will be added to when signing up.
6. Enter the Domain/s for which user accounts should be allow to register.
7. Click Save.

 

Configure Personalised Touchless Links

If you have a Touchless Contract workflow, you can configure links for each of your Gatekeeper users which will appear in their Forms dashboard.

These links allow Gatekeeper to capture an Internal Card Creator, even if the user submitting the form is a vendor. By having an Internal Card Creator, AutoActions can assign the key internal stakeholder for the new agreement/relationship generated via the workflow.

1. Navigate to your Touchless Contract Workflow
2. Click to edit the Start phase and click the Form Access section.
3. Click Manage Personal Links, click ➕ Add Personal Links.
4. Search for and select the users who should have these, or click Select All to generate a link for all your users.
5. Click Save to generate the links.

Using Personalised Links

Once created, your users can access their personalised Touchless forms within their Submit Requests dashboard, and send these out in two ways:

1. Click Send To and enter a Vendor Email Address to send a form to.
2. Click Copy Link and distribute the URL.

Additional Reading 📚

• Configuring Workflow Forms - Learn how to build a form for your Employee Portal users, including the fields, guidance and dynamic layout settings required to get all the right information at the start of your workflow.
• 🛠️ Touchless NDA - This workflow can used in combination with Personalised Links to provide a quick way to get your new Vendors to sign-up to Gatekeeper while executing a new NDA (or similar introductory agreement).
• 🛠️ Vendor Onboarding Requests - This workflow can be used to onboard and risk assess new vendors to ensure all necessary data and documentation is in place to maintain a safe and beneficial relationship.
• 🛠️ New Contract Requests - This workflow can facilitate the setup, negotiation, approvals, and execution of new agreements you wish to store in Gatekeeper.
• 🛠️ Contract Variation Requests - This workflow can be used to allow your users to request updates to existing agreements (such as early renewals, terminations, amendments to the terms and pricing, etc). Presenting this in a workflow form (rather than allowing these changes to be made directly to records in your repository) allows you to maintain control over your data, and ensures all updates go through the proper channels.