Your account is connected and your first automation is running — so what now? Trying to set everything up on day one is exhausting and ends up half done. This list spreads the work that actually pays off across seven days, keeping each day small enough to finish in fifteen minutes.
💡 Work through it in order. Each day builds on the one before; skip one and the next day runs on incomplete data.
Day 1: make the foundations solid
The first day is not about settings; it is about security and tidiness.
- Turn on two-step verification. In My user settings › Security. This account reaches your Instagram or WhatsApp account.
- Save your backup codes. They are shown once during setup and never again.
- Name your portfolio. The first one is created as My portfolio; give it your business name in Portfolio settings › General.
- Set your preferences. Language, theme and Account to open after sign-in in My user settings › Preferences.
- Install the app on your phone. It is the easiest way to keep an eye on the inbox during the day.
Day 2: get to know the inbox
Before building automations, see what your customers actually ask.
- Open the Inbox and try the filters: Open, Mine, Unassigned, Unread, Closed, All.
- Answer a few conversations by hand. As you do, note which questions keep coming back.
- Close a conversation and reopen it to see how that works.
- Set Enter sends the message in My user settings › Preferences to match your own habit.
The output of this day is a list: your five most common questions and their answers. That is the fuel for the rest of the week.
Day 3: set up saved replies and business hours
- Open Settings › Saved replies. Add one for every question on yesterday's list: a Shortcut (one word, for example
price), a Title and the Text. Typing / in the inbox composer brings them up.
- Open Settings › Business hours. Tick Use business hours and enter your real hours in the Weekly schedule. A day you leave empty counts as closed.
- Add public holidays under Holidays.
- Turn on Send an auto-reply outside hours and write a short text in Out-of-hours message. It goes out once per closed period, so someone who writes several times does not get it again.
- Optionally turn on Defer automations to opening time and Do not auto-assign outside hours.
⚠️ Note: The hours follow the account's time zone, which is printed at the top of the screen. A wrong time zone is the most common cause of "an automatic reply went out at 3 in the morning".
Day 4: add more automations
Your first automation runs. Now cover the rest of your most common questions.
- Browse the ready-made templates in Automations › New automation. Categories sit as tabs; pick the one that fits your business.
- Keep every new trigger narrow. "Contains + price" is a good start; "any message" should be a last resort.
- Sort your flows into folders. Use Manage folders in the Automations list to create folders and move flows into them.
- Set up the Default reply on the Automations › Basics tab: the answer given when no other automation runs. It keeps customers from being left unanswered.
- Try every flow with the Simulator on the Test tab before publishing it.
Day 5: set up your team
Do not skip this day if you will not be working the inbox alone.
- Send invitations from Portfolio settings › Team. You pick the role while inviting: Admin, Editor, Agent or Viewer.
- Give each person the accounts they should reach. An account they cannot reach never shows in their switcher.
- Decide how conversations are shared out in Portfolio settings › Chat assignment rules.
- Send your teammates the "joining a team" article so they can handle their own first day.
The short version of the roles: Admin changes settings, Editor builds flows, Agent replies, Viewer only looks.
Days 6 and 7: fine-tune and review
The last two days of the week are for measuring what you built against real data.
Day 6: fine-tune
- Open Settings › Messaging. The Typing indicator and Read receipt are off by default; turning them on makes automatic replies feel more natural. These settings work on Instagram accounts only.
- Review the account's name and basic details in Settings › General.
- If you have an Instagram account, open My profile and get to know your post grid and the Insights and Create post entries under it.
- Set up your tagging scheme in Contacts. A handful of tags such as "hot lead" or "shipping question" makes next month's reports readable.
Day 7: look at the results and fix things
At the end of the first week you have real data.
- Check the Needs attention card on the account's Home page. A run that could not finish, a message that could not be sent, an unassigned conversation or a broken connection — that is this week's job.
- Open the Logs tab of each automation. Read the sessions that did not go as expected; usually a single condition was set up wrong.
- Use Reports to see how many messages arrived during the week and how many were answered automatically.
- Note the questions that went unanswered and build flows for them. The first week ends in this loop: look, spot the gap, add a flow.
- Check your usage in My user settings › Plan and invoices. If you are on a trial, the days left appear there and in the band at the top.
What you should have by the end of the week
- A user account with two-step verification on.
- A named portfolio with at least one connected account.
- Automations covering your five most common questions, plus a default reply.
- Business hours filled in, with an out-of-hours message.
- Saved replies with their shortcuts.
- A team with roles assigned (leave this blank if you work alone).
- A first-week report you have read, and a flow or two you have corrected.
Once this list is done, you are past the setup phase. From there it is ten minutes of maintenance a week: read the logs, add new questions to your flows, switch off what is not working. If a screen puzzles you, press the Help button in the top bar while you are on it, or contact our support team.