Not every journey step follows the employment start date — a promotion follows the date the new role begins, and a training rollout follows the date the journey is published.

You can base each step’s start and due dates on any date field from the employee profile, a custom date you enter when you create the journey, the journey publish date, or another step’s completion. This way, your templates work without fixed calendar dates.

Every step has a Start date card (when the step becomes active) and a Due date card (when the step should be completed). Both work the same way: turn the date on, set the number of days, and select the date source — the date the step is counted from.

Open the step you want to edit, or add a new one.

For templates, go to Journeys > Library > Templates and open a template or create a new one. For reusable steps, go to Journeys > Library > Load from the library

On the Start date or Due date card, turn on the toggle (the on/off switch).

Enter the number of days.

In the list next to the number of days, choose before, after, or on the exact day of.

Open the Select a date source list and select the date the step should follow. The list contains two groups:

Look at the preview under the date settings (Step starts or Step is due). It shows the calculated date as you change the number of days or the date source, so you can check the result before you save.

After you save, the step card in the template shows the dates you set — for example, “1 day before employment start date”.

You can use any date field on the employee profile — employment start date, probation end, employment end, and other date fields on the profile. For example, if your profiles include a contract end date, you can set a “Prepare contract renewal” step to start 60 days before it.

A few things to know about profile date fields:

Some processes don’t have a matching date on the profile — for example, a promotion’s effective date (the date the new role begins), a return from leave, or a relocation date. Instead of adding a field to every employee profile, you can name a custom date in the template. Then, each time you create a journey from that template, you enter the date for that journey.

On the Start date or Due date card, open Select a date source.

Under From this journey, choose the option for a date you set for this journey.

Give the date a name that tells the person creating the journey what to enter — for example, “Promotion effective date”.

Set the number of days and choose before, after, or on the exact day of, as for any other date source.

When someone creates a journey from the template, they see a field with the name you chose — for example, “Promotion effective date”. They enter the actual date in this field, and every step based on the custom date is calculated from it.

Under From this journey, you can also base a step on:

If a step doesn’t need a date, turn off the toggle on that card:

Say you’re building a promotion template. Every step depends on the day the new role begins, and that day is different for each employee. Name a custom date — for example, “Promotion effective date” — and base each step on it: the announcement is due 5 days before, the system access changes are due on the day, and the manager check-in starts 30 days after. When HR creates a journey from the template, they enter the effective date once, and every step gets its date from it.

Say your employee profiles include a contract end date. Set a “Discuss renewal” step to start 60 days before it, and a “Sign new contract” step to be due 14 days before it. Each employee’s journey then follows their own contract end date, so you don’t need to enter the dates for each person.

Say you’re rolling out compliance training to the whole team, and it has nothing to do with employment dates. Base the “Complete the training” step on the journey publish date, due 14 days after. Everyone who receives the journey gets the same two-week window, counted from the day you publish it.