Launch Checklist

Everything you need to know & do to create your handbook and launch it to an audience (aka employees).

Tom O'Dea avatar
Written by Tom O'Dea
Updated over a week ago

It's likely you've never launched an online employee handbook before. Thankfully, your launch checklist is built right in to Blissbook. You can now manage the project and know all the things that need to get done for launch (plus, actually do them) right in one place:

Everything you need to know is right within the checklist – just click through and read what's on the screen.

Here's a break down of all your tasks:

Content & Design

  • Write, Edit, and Design until your handbook looks like what you want to launch. Remember, it's digital and you can publish changes anytime you want so it doesn't need to be perfect. You don't have to tell employees when you update it and they'll always see the latest published version. This is also where you can optionally use Groups to create personalized content. Need help importing content or doing the design to match your brand? Contact us!

  • If you're going to collect electronic acknowledgement signatures, customize your acknowledgement message.

By the way, do you have stakeholders who need to preview your handbook before it's launched?

Audience

For some of these tasks, you might need help from IT. To add IT colleagues as Admins in Blissbook: click COLLABORATORS in the side nav. You'll be starting off in the Admins tab, and in there, click the Add an Admin button. Choosing a "Tech" role will limit their access to only the settings you need help with.

  • Define Your Audience – This is where you tell us who will be viewing your handbook/document. For most of you, this is everyone in your organization. Good thing we make it easy to tell us who's in your organization.

  • Who's Signing? – Tell Blissbook who will be signing your handbook/document, if anyone. You can even set a due date.

  • Notify Your Audience – When you launch, you'll be able to send a notification email to your audience. In this task, you can customize that email.

  • Links and Custom Domains – Here, you can see where your audience members will need to go to see your launched handbook. You also have the option to set up a custom domain (e.g. http://handbook.yourdomain.com).

Settings

  • Authentication & SSO – Optional – Decide how people will sign in and set up Set up Single Sign-On

  • Optimize Email Deliverability – Optional – Improve email deliverability by setting up a whitelist for Blissbook or a custom sending email account. This is important if you’re using Proofpoint or Mimecast. Within this task, you can also customize the name and reply-to email address.

  • Email Branding – Customize the look and feel of your emails to ensure your email design matches your brand. Send yourself a test email to make sure everything looks right.

Post-Launch Automation

  • Employee List Sync – Automatically keep your employee list up-to-date by setting up an automated sync. Note: This is really simple for BambooHR users.

  • Invitations – After you launch, when your organization's employee list is updated (if you upload a .csv file or set up an automated sync), you may have new employees come in. You can automatically send those employees an invitation to view and/or sign their handbook. Turn that on or off here and customize those email templates.

  • Signature Reminders – Optional – If you're collecting acknowledgement signatures, chances are employees won't sign right away and will need one or many reminders. Blissbook to the rescue! Set up automated reminders

Finished the Launch Tasks?

Click the check box on each task (or Mark Complete in the details panel) to check off your tasks as they are completed. Once they're all checked, click the now enabled Prepare to Launch... button in the top right corner. Here, you'll see a confirmation page and a launch button. If anything looks off or confusing, contact us and we'll help!

Questions? Need help? Contact us!

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