Onboarding Wizard Guide

How to get there: The onboarding wizard appears automatically the first time you sign in to a new portal. After that, every setting it touched is editable in Settings.

The onboarding wizard is the first thing you see after signing up. It's a short, AI-assisted flow that asks for your product website, scrapes it for context, and then lets you set up your first board, drop in your first post, and brand the portal, all in a few minutes.

What the wizard does for you

  • Reads your website so AI can suggest relevant board ideas and an example first post.
  • Pulls a logo if your site has one, so you don't have to upload it manually.
  • Creates your first board based on what you tell it you want to do.
  • Sets brand color, theme, and dark/light mode in one screen.
  • Optionally lets you invite team members at the end.

You can skip any step. Everything is editable later in Settings.

Step 0. Product website (URL-first)

The very first screen asks for your product website (homepage URL).

  • Type your URL (e.g. https://yourproduct.com) and click Next step.
  • ProductLift queues a background job that uses the Firecrawl service to read the homepage. It uses what it finds to:
    • Pre-fill the product description.
    • Suggest example content for whichever board type you pick next.
    • Pull a logo and brand colors if it can.
    • Draft a starter Product Vision.
  • If you don't have a website yet, click I don't have a site yet to skip straight to manual entry.

While the page is reading your site, you'll see a "Reading your site..." spinner with a progress bar. This usually takes 5-15 seconds. The flow continues even if scraping is still running, you'll see "AI suggestions ready" appear later.

Step 1. Product description

Confirm or edit the one-sentence description of your product. Examples:

  • "A CRM for freelance designers"
  • "Mobile app for tracking workouts"

This text is used by AI features (vision, prioritization, suggestions) throughout the portal, so make it concrete.

Step 2. Pick what to start with

You'll see four cards:

  • Collect User Feedback -- gather and prioritize feature requests.
  • Roadmap -- share your product plans publicly.
  • Changelog -- announce updates and releases.
  • Knowledge Base -- help docs for your users.

Pick exactly one to start. You can add the others later from Boards → Add Board.

If AI suggestions are still being prepared, you'll see a small "Preparing suggestions..." spinner. It updates to "AI suggestions ready" when the background scrape finishes.

Step 3. Add the first item

The wizard asks for one starter item that fits the board you picked:

  • Feedback board: "What's one thing to add?" (e.g. "Dark mode")
  • Roadmap: "What's one thing to add?" (e.g. "Launch mobile app")
  • Changelog: "What's one thing to add?" (e.g. "New dashboard design")
  • Knowledge Base: "What's one thing to add?" (e.g. "Getting started")

If AI prepared a suggestion based on your scraped homepage, you'll see a Use suggestion button. Click it to drop the suggestion into the title and description, then edit before saving.

The description is optional. Click Create my board to continue.

Step 4. Setup loading

A short progress screen runs through:

  1. Creating your workspace
  2. Adding your first post
  3. Finishing touches

This usually takes a few seconds.

Step 5. Branding (Make it yours)

The branding screen lets you set, all on one page:

  • Logo -- upload a PNG, JPG, GIF, SVG, or WebP. (If your site had a usable logo, it's already filled in.)
  • Brand color -- color picker plus a hex input.
  • Theme style -- pick a structural theme: Clean, Rounded, or Sharp.
  • Darkmode -- Auto, Light, or Dark.
  • Screenshot extraction (if AI is enabled) -- drag a screenshot of your existing product into the dropzone and ProductLift detects brand colors and a matching theme automatically.

Click Continue to save, or Skip for now to leave defaults.

Step 6. Invite people (optional)

A simple page that lets you invite teammates by email. Skip it if you're flying solo, you can always invite later from Users → Invite Admins.

Step 7. Done -- choose what's next

The final screen offers three quick links:

  • Install Widgets -- go to the widget builder.
  • Import Users -- bring an existing user list into ProductLift.
  • Import Existing Data -- bulk-import existing posts from CSV/Excel.

Pick whichever applies, or click Skip to land on your portal home.

After the wizard

Everything the wizard set is editable:

  • Product description: Settings → General
  • Boards: Settings → Boards or the Boards sidebar item
  • Branding: Settings → Branding
  • Custom domain: Settings → Custom Domain (see Custom domain)
  • Users / team: Users in the sidebar
  • AI / Product Vision: Settings → AI and the Product Vision sidebar item

Troubleshooting

The scrape is taking a long time. It runs as a background job and can take 5-15 seconds, occasionally a bit longer. The wizard advances past the scrape automatically; suggestions appear later as a banner ("AI suggestion ready") on the relevant step.

I can't get past the URL step. If your site can't be reached (offline, login-walled, or blocking the scraper), click I don't have a site yet to skip ahead and enter your description manually. Nothing breaks; you just don't get AI pre-fill.

The wizard didn't appear. Either you've already completed it, or the portal you logged into already has content. There's no "restart wizard" button: configure missing pieces directly in Settings.

The logo it picked isn't right. Upload your own at Settings → Branding (PNG/JPG/SVG recommended; WebP is supported but may not render in some email clients).