When you create a document in Settings → Onboarding Documents, you pick how the document travels between you and the employee. That choice controls what the employee sees, whether they have to do anything, and what lands back in their profile.
There are four options.
Option | You attach a file | Employee does | Comes back to you |
Request from employee | No | Uploads their own document during onboarding | Their file, in their profile |
Supply to employee | Yes (required) | Views / downloads it. Nothing else | Nothing — it's for their information |
Supply and Request | Yes (required) | Reviews your file, confirms receipt, uploads their completed copy | Their completed file + a record of the acknowledgement |
Custom Document | No — you write it in urhere | Reads it and (optionally) signs it on screen | A signed PDF |
1. Request from employee
Use for: photo ID, TFN declaration, bank details form, qualifications, visa.
You're asking the employee to give you something — there's no file to attach.
These documents appear in the new-hire onboarding checklist the employee completes, and the file they upload is filed against their profile. Use this when you don't need to send anything out first.
2. Supply to employee
Use for: employee handbook, workplace policies, site maps, information packs — anything that's "here, read this."
You attach the file when you create the document. When you send it:
The employee gets an email with a Review document link.
The link opens the document so they can read it and download a copy.
That's it. There's no tick-box, no submit button, and nothing for them to send back.
Because nothing is being requested, the employee doesn't receive a confirmation email either — the document is simply delivered. If you need proof they've seen it, use Supply and Request instead.
3. Supply and Request
Use for: an employment contract, a policy that has to be signed, a form you've pre-filled that they need to complete and return.
This is the two-way option: you send them a file, and they send one back. When you send it:
The employee gets an email with a Review document link.
The link opens your file so they can read and download it.
They tick "I confirm that I have received and reviewed this file."
They attach their completed document (PDF, Word, image, spreadsheet or zip).
They click Confirm & Submit.
They can't submit until they've done both — ticking the box without attaching a file won't go through, and neither will attaching a file without ticking the box.
Once submitted:
The employee gets an email confirming their acknowledgement was recorded and their document received. No attachment — it's just a receipt.
You'll see the document marked as completed in the employee's profile, with the date and time.
Two files sit in their profile: the one you supplied, and theirs saved as “document name (returned)”. Both are downloadable from the Documents section of the employee's work profile.
Tip: the acknowledgement is time-stamped, so this is the option to use whenever you need a record that the employee received something.
4. Custom Document
Use for: documents you want to write inside urhere and have signed on screen — policies, letters, simple agreements.
Instead of attaching a file, you write the content in the built-in editor. You can drop in fields like the employee's name or start date, which are filled in automatically when you send it.
When you send it:
The employee gets an email with a link.
They read the document on screen.
If you marked it as requiring a signature, they sign it in the browser; otherwise they just confirm they've read it.
urhere generates a PDF of the signed document.
The employee's confirmation email includes that PDF, and the signed copy is stored against their profile for you to view or download.
Which one do I want?
I just need to give them something → Supply to employee
I need proof they got it → Supply and Request
I need a document back from them → Request from employee (nothing to send) or Supply and Request (you send a copy too)
I want to write it here and have it signed → Custom Document
Good to know
File types: uploads (yours and theirs) can be PDF, Word (doc/docx), Excel (xls/xlsx), CSV, TXT, images (jpg/jpeg/png) or ZIP. Anything else is rejected as soon as it's chosen.
Links expire: the emailed document link is valid for 30 days.
Employees don't log in: everything happens through the emailed link, so employees never need a urhere account to receive, read or return a document.
Changing a template later doesn't change documents you've already sent — those keep the wording and file they were sent with.