Onboarding — Guiding Clients Through Their First Steps

The Onboarding tab is a step-by-step checklist that walks a client through everything needed to get a project started — signing agreements, uploading assets, scheduling calls, or any other early-stage action. Steps come from a reusable template, so you build the checklist once and apply it to every new portal.

---

How Onboarding Differs from Tasks #

• Tasks — General project work, organized into lists, ongoing for the life of the project.
• Onboarding — A focused, front-loaded checklist for getting a client started, built from a shared template, and locked in once the portal becomes active.

---

Creating an Onboarding Template #

Templates are managed by admins in the WordPress dashboard, not inside a portal.

1. Go to ClientPress → Onboarding Templates.
2. Click Add New Template.
3. Give the template a name (e.g. “Standard Client Onboarding”).
4. Add steps — each step has:

• Title — the action to take (required)
• Body — optional instructions or context (supports rich text)
• Link — an optional URL pointing to a form, contract, or resource

1. Drag steps to set the order clients will see them in.
2. Save.

You can create multiple templates for different client types or service offerings.

---

Assigning a Template to a Portal #

Open the portal’s edit screen in wp-admin and choose an onboarding template from the Onboarding Template field. Once assigned, the template’s steps appear on that portal’s Onboarding tab.

---

Completing Steps #

Clients (or team members) check off a step by clicking its checkbox. Completed steps collapse with a green checkmark, keeping the active checklist focused on what’s left.

---

Cancelling and Reopening Steps #

Not every step applies to every client. Instead of deleting a step that doesn’t apply:

1. Click Cancel step.
2. The step is marked Cancelled with a visible status pill, separate from completed steps.

To bring a cancelled step back, click Reopen — it returns to its previous state.

---

Assigning Steps to People #

Steps can be assigned to a specific portal member.

1. Click into a step’s assignee field.
2. Type to search, or use @ to mention a team member or client.
3. Select a name — their avatar appears on the step.

Assignees are notified if they have onboarding notifications enabled (see Notification Preferences).

---

Custom Steps Per Portal #

If a specific client needs a step that isn’t part of the shared template, admins and project managers can add it directly to that portal:

1. Open the portal’s Onboarding tab.
2. Click Add step.
3. Fill in the title, optional body, and optional link.

Custom steps only affect the portal they’re added to — the shared template is not changed.

---

Why Template Edits Don’t Affect Active Clients #

Once a portal’s status moves out of Pending, its onboarding steps are locked into a snapshot specific to that portal. If the shared template is edited afterward — a step added, reworded, or removed — existing portals keep the steps they started with. Only new portals (or portals still in Pending status) pick up the latest version of the template.

This prevents a client’s in-progress checklist from changing unexpectedly partway through onboarding.

---

Enabling or Disabling Onboarding #

The Onboarding tab can be turned off globally under Settings → ClientPress → Features. When disabled, the tab is hidden from all portals and the Onboarding Templates admin screen is unavailable.