Accessing the Report
Navigate to More Reports > Onboarding Time from the left sidebar.
The subtitle reads: "Find out how fast your team members onboard."
Important Limitations
Two warning banners appear at the top of the page:
Onboarding time is only available for GitHub. To request support for other platforms, please contact [email protected].
Onboarding time is only available for developers onboarded after signing up to Haystack.
This means:
GitLab and Bitbucket users will not see onboarding data
Engineers who joined your team before you connected Haystack will not have onboarding metrics
Filters
Filter | Options |
Date range | Preset ranges (Last 3 Months, etc.) or custom dates |
Team selector | All Teams (with count, e.g., "+21"), or specific teams |
Apply Filter | Additional filters |
Save Filters | Save your current filter combination |
A "Showing all Repositories" badge appears when no repo filter is applied.
Tabs
The report has four tabs:
Tab | What it shows |
Onboarded Developers | Number of developers onboarded over time, with a headline rate (e.g., "0.15 developers / month") |
Time to First Commit | How long it takes new engineers to make their first commit after joining |
Time to 10th Pull Request | How long it takes new engineers to reach their 10th merged PR — a proxy for full ramp-up |
Onboarding Time by Team | Compare onboarding speed across teams |
Tab Details
Onboarded Developers
Shows the number of developers onboarded over time as a trend chart. The headline metric shows the rate (e.g., 0.15 developers / month), giving you a sense of hiring velocity for the period.
Time to First Commit
Measures the number of calendar days from when a new engineer is added to Haystack to their first commit on a tracked GitHub repository.
This reflects how quickly a new hire gets their dev environment set up and starts contributing code.
Time to 10th Pull Request
Measures the number of calendar days from when a new engineer is added to Haystack to when their 10th pull request is merged.
By the 10th PR, most engineers have navigated the codebase, understood the review process, and are contributing independently. This is a proxy for full ramp-up.
Onboarding Time by Team
Compares onboarding metrics across teams so you can identify which teams onboard new engineers faster and learn from their practices.
Using the Report to Improve Onboarding
If Time to First Commit is high
The bottleneck is usually environment setup or access provisioning.
Check | Action |
Dev environment setup | Automate with scripts, Docker, or dev containers |
Repository access | Ensure GitHub permissions are granted before day 1 |
Documentation | Provide a getting-started guide with build and run instructions |
First task assignment | Have a "starter task" ready that can be completed in a day |
If Time to 10th PR is high
The bottleneck is usually onboarding depth — the engineer is contributing but slowly.
Check | Action |
PR size expectations | Encourage small PRs — new engineers often try to do too much in one PR |
Buddy/mentor assignment | Pair with an experienced team member for the first month |
Code review turnaround | Ensure new engineers' PRs are reviewed quickly to avoid blocking |
Task complexity | Start with well-defined, smaller-scoped tasks before moving to ambiguous work |
FAQ
Q: Does this work with GitLab or Bitbucket? A: No. Onboarding Time is currently GitHub-only. Contact [email protected] to request support for other platforms.
Q: Can I see data for engineers who joined before Haystack was set up? A: No. Onboarding metrics are only tracked for developers onboarded after your Haystack account was created.
Q: When does the onboarding clock start? A: From the date the engineer is added to a team in Haystack. If they were added late, the numbers may undercount their true ramp-up time.
Q: Are bot commits and PRs counted? A: No. Bot activity is excluded, consistent with all other Haystack reports.
Q: Does the 10th PR need to be on a specific repo? A: No. The 10th merged PR is counted across all tracked GitHub repositories the engineer contributes to.
Q: Who can access this report? A: Both Admin and Member roles. The data shown depends on the team filter selected.