Onboarding new team members - hackforla/tdm-calculator GitHub Wiki

How to onboard new team members

Step 1

  • Volunteers ask to join the team via the # tdm-calculator Slack channel
  • Thank the volunteer in the same channel, so that other people on the project team can see you've responded
  • Then direct message them as follows:

Developer role?

Can they make the meetings?

Step 2

Email address

  • By direct message, ask them to send you their email address, and tell them you'll be sending them a bunch of email invites to 1Password, Google Drive, team meetings, Figma, and the team's GitHub, so they should keep an eye on their email inbox

Preparatory reading

Step 3

Start onboarding

1Password

  • Add the volunteer to the TDM 1Password vault by posting a message on the # admin Slack channel, asking for them to be added to TDM's 1Password vault, and giving both their Slack handle and their email address - the admin team will email them an invite, and let you both know in the channel that they've done so

Slack

  • Check that the volunteer has joined the # tdm-calculator Slack channel:
    • Click on the top right-hand button containing profile pics (the tooltip shows 'View all members of this channel')
    • Click on the 'Members' tab
    • Enter their Slack handle in the 'Find members' box

Google Calendar

  • Add the volunteer to the Google Calendar invite for the relevant TDM meetings for their role:
    • Sign into 1Password.com
    • Open the TDM Calculator General vault and click on the Mail icon to open credentials for the project email account
    • Keeping that browser window open, open a new browser window and go to Google
    • Sign into the [email protected] account using the credentials from the 1Password vault
    • Open Google Calendar (in the 'Google apps' bento box icon beside profile pic)
    • Double-click on the next meeting that's relevant to their role
    • Click on the Edit icon (pencil)
    • Under 'Guests', enter the person's email address in the 'Add guests' box
    • Click on their email address when it appears
    • Click 'Save'
    • Select the 'This and recurring meetings' option in the dialog box that follows
    • Repeat for any other meetings which are relevant to their role, including the TDM: All team meeting
    • Close the calendar and sign out of the [email protected] account

GitHub

  • Add the volunteer to the TDM GitHub repo:
    • Find their GitHub handle on the Hack 4 LA > People GitHub page on GitHub. If you can't find them, they may be using another handle, so you'll need to ask them for their GitHub handle via Slack before proceeding...
    • Once you've got their handle, go to the Hack 4 LA > Teams GitHub page and type 'tdm' into the 'Find a team' box
    • Five teams will appear - you only need to add them to these two:
    • Click the link for one of the above two teams, and click the 'Add a member' button
    • Type in the volunteer's GitHub handle
    • Select their account when it appears
    • Click 'Invite'
    • Click the 'Add [the person's GitHub handle] to [team]' button
    • Now select the volunteer's account in the list of team members (by clicking on the checkbox beside their name)
    • Click on the dropdown within the '1 member selected' button at the top of the list
    • If they're joining as a PM, click 'Change role' > 'Maintainer' > 'Change role'
    • If they're not joining as a PM, click 'Change role' > 'Member' > 'Change role'
    • Repeat for the other team (either tdm-calculator or tdm-calculator-write)

Google Drive

  • Add the volunteer to the TDM Google Drive:
    • In Google Drive, go to Shared drives > TDM Calculator folder
    • At the top level (i.e., without opening any of the folders contained there), click on 'Manage members' at the top of the page
    • Type the volunteer's email address into the 'Add people...' box
    • Deselect 'Notify people'
    • If they're joining as a PM, click the dropdown by their name to change their role from 'Content manager' to 'Manager'
    • If they're not joining as a PM, click the dropdown by their name to change their role from 'Content manager' to 'Contributor'
    • Click 'Share'

Figma

  • Add the volunteer to the TDM Figma folder:
    • Go to the TDM Figma folder
    • In the left-hand panel (NOT the main panel), click on 'All projects' under 'TDM Calculator project'
    • Double-click on the 'Team project' tile
    • Click on the 'Share' button at top right
    • Type the volunteer's email address into the 'Invite others...' box
    • Change 'Can view' beside their name to 'Can edit'
    • Click 'Send Invite'

Team Roster

  • Start adding the volunteer to the TDM Team Roster:
    • In Google Drive, go to Shared drives > TDM Calculator > TDM Calculator > Product Management, and open the TDM-Calculator Team Roster sheet. In a new row at the bottom, start filling in the new team member's details including:
      • Status (change to 'Active')
      • Dashboard (if they're a PM or other Lead, type 'L' for lead; otherwise type 'M' for member)
      • Slack ID (in Slack, click on the person's profile pic or the 'View Profile' button, then click on the More Options button (3 vertical dots), then click 'Copy member ID' and paste into the Team Roster)
      • GitHub handle
      • HFLA GitHub member?
        • Check that they ARE actually a member of Hack 4 LA: see 'Organizations' to the bottom left-hand section of their GitHub profile page
        • On the Hack 4 LA 'People' page on GitHub, check that their GitHub profile is marked 'Public'
      • GitHub read and write teams (copy and paste any completed cell from this column - it will autocomplete)
      • Issues Assigned (copy and paste any completed cell from this column - it will autocomplete)
      • Permissions on Google Project Drive, including their Google Drive role: see Google Drive section above
      • Agenda md tag (copy and paste any completed cell from this column - it will autocomplete)
  • On Slack, send them the link to the TDM-Calculator Team Roster sheet and ask them to complete remaining empty columns, especially their phone number, texting, and availability (tell them to ignore the grayed-out columns - and remind them to check their email inbox for invites to all of the above!)

Step 4: Finally...

  • Keep an eye on the Team Roster for completion
  • (Re: current GitHub version, 2025-03-29) send them the following message via Slack:
Let me know if you find that you're getting GitHub notifications about other teams in your email inbox. Some people in the organization have been impacted by a bug in the current version of GitHub which sends too many notifications. I can help you fix that if it happens to you, so just let me know.
  • The fix to this bug is under their profile in GitHub > Settings > Notifications. Switch 'Automatically watch repositories' to Off, then click the link 'View Watched Repositories' and unwatch other teams' repos by selecting 'Participating and @mentions' or 'Ignore'
  • If they're a PM, send them a link to the Forward emails to team members page from the Product Management CoP GitHub Wiki and ask them to set themselves up to receive emails from the team account
  • Remind them to join their Community of Practice, if they haven't already
  • Once you've completed all Action items in the onboarding issue, unassign yourself and put it back into the column in which it lives
  • Keep an eye on Slack for any other questions from your new team member!

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