Multiple-People Forms vs. Workflows: Choosing the Right Solution

Many business processes involve multiple people contributing information or taking action. In ClayHR, there are two primary ways to accomplish this:

• Multiple-People Forms, which allow several users to complete different sections of the same form.
• Workflows, which orchestrate an entire business process involving forms, approvals, notifications, tasks, integrations, and automation.

While both can involve multiple participants, they solve different problems. Understanding when to use each approach will help you build simpler, more maintainable processes.

1. Understanding the Difference

The easiest way to think about the distinction is:

• A Multiple-People Form is primarily a data collection tool.
• A Workflow is a process automation tool.

If your goal is simply to gather information from several people into one form, a Multiple-People Form is often all you need.

If your goal is to automate an end-to-end business process with different actions, and types of tasks involved (trainings, document uploads, data collection, etc.) use a Workflow.

2. When to Use a Multiple-People Form

Multiple-People Forms are ideal when several users need to contribute information to the same record.

Each participant can complete only the sections assigned to them while all information is stored in a single form submission and in the Employee record

Typical scenarios include:

• Employee onboarding checklists completed by multiple departments
• Equipment handoff forms
• Incident investigations
• Project intake questionnaires
• Facility access requests involving Security, IT, and Facilities
• Office move or workspace relocation requests
• Internal service request forms requiring input from several teams
• Business continuity or incident reports where different stakeholders document their findings
• Customer or partner onboarding checklists completed collaboratively by multiple internal teams
• Compliance or audit questionnaires where each department completes its own section
• New office or branch opening checklists involving HR, IT, Facilities, Finance, and Operations

In these situations, the primary objective is collecting information—not managing a complex business process.

3. When to Use a Workflow

Workflows are designed for complete business process automation. Unlike a form, a workflow is not limited to collecting information. It can perform many different types of activities throughout the process.

Examples include:

• Assigning forms to users
• Sending email notifications
• Assigning training
• Assigning documents
• Requesting electronic signatures
• Uploading files
• Creating follow-up tasks
• Updating records automatically
• Executing business rules
• Calling integrations or APIs
• Triggering additional workflows
• Waiting for specific dates or events before continuing

A workflow can include as many of these activities as necessary to automate the complete process.

4. Forms Are Often Part of a Workflow

One important concept is that Forms and Workflows are complementary, not competing features.

In fact, forms are one of the most common tasks within a workflow.

A workflow might:

1. Assign an employee information form.
2. Wait until the form is completed.
3. Send notifications.
4. Assign mandatory training.
5. Create additional onboarding tasks.
6. Close the process automatically.

In this example, the form is only one step within a much larger automated process.

5. When a Multiple-People Form Is Enough

Use a Multiple-People Form when:

• The primary goal is collecting information.
• Several people need to complete different sections.
• The process ends once the form is submitted.
• Minimal automation is required.
• No complex routing or business logic is needed.

6. Best Practice

Whenever possible, keep each component focused on its primary purpose:

• Use Multiple-People Forms for collaborative data collection.
• Use Workflows to coordinate and automate the broader business process.

Rather than choosing one over the other, many of the most powerful ClayHR solutions use Multiple-People Forms inside Workflows, allowing organizations to collect information efficiently while automating everything that happens before, during, and after the form is completed.

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