Every new shop lands on a Dashboard card called Get your shop set up — a running checklist of the real setup work a shop needs before it's fully up and running. It's not a static onboarding email or a one-time tour; it's a live progress readout that checks your actual account data every time the Dashboard loads, and updates itself as you do real work elsewhere in the app.
Where to find it
The card sits on your Dashboard (`/app`), lower on the page below the KPI strip, "Right now" action cards, and the shop-health worklist row — it only renders when there's setup left to do. If your shop already has everything filled in, you won't see it at all; there's nothing to scroll past.
What it tracks
The card shows an "X of N" badge and a progress bar, and sorts whatever's still incomplete to the top so the next thing to do is always the first thing you see. Each row is a link straight to the page where you actually do that step:
1. Fill out your shop profile — phone number and address so customers can find you. (See Setting up your Shop Profile for the full field-by-field guide.) 2. Upload your logo — shows on quotes, invoices, and customer receipts. 3. Add your first service — window tint, detail, wrap, whatever you sell. 4. Stock your film catalog — film brands and VLT options for quoting. This step only appears for shops set up with a tint vertical; other shops don't see it at all, which is why the checklist can show either 9 or 10 items depending on your shop type. 5. Set up an installer or bay — so you can slot appointments on the calendar. 6. Invite a team member — bring your techs and front desk into the app. 7. Configure online booking — business hours and lead-time rules for self-booking. 8. Connect payments — take card payments and deposits online through Rainforest, SalesThumb's payments processor. 9. Add your first customer — or import your existing list from a CSV. 10. Book your first appointment — drop a vehicle on the calendar and you're live.
There's also a Prefer a guided walkthrough? panel above the steps that opens the full setup wizard — a separate six-step guided flow at `/app/onboarding` that walks a brand-new shop through the same essentials one screen at a time. See The setup onboarding wizard for what that covers; the Dashboard card and the wizard aren't the same thing, but they track overlapping ground, so finishing the wizard will check off several of the card's rows too.
How steps get marked complete
You can't click a checkbox to mark a row done — there isn't one. Every step is verified automatically against your shop's real data: it's done when the corresponding record actually exists (your first service saved, a customer on file, an appointment booked, a resource added, and so on), or when a relevant field is filled in (phone and address for your shop profile, a logo URL, a connected Rainforest merchant). Uploading a logo directly satisfies the branding step, but so does having an org-level logo pushed down from HQ if your shop is linked to a franchise — either way, the step reads as done because a logo actually resolves somewhere a customer would see it. The team-invite step needs at least one more person on the account beyond the owner, since the owner is added automatically when a shop is created.
Because the card re-checks live data on every load, there's no "undo" risk from doing things in a different order than the list shows, and no separate save step — do the real task, come back to the Dashboard, and the row flips.
Who sees this card
Only Owner, Admin, and Manager logins see the card at all — it's hidden entirely for Technician, Front Desk, and Service Writer accounts, not just grayed out or read-only. Every step on the list is ownership-level setup work (logo, film catalog, payments, booking policy, and so on), so the card is scoped to the roles that would actually act on it.
When it disappears
Two separate ways it goes away:
- All steps complete. Once every step the card is currently showing you is done, the whole card stops rendering — no "all done!" banner to dismiss, it just isn't there next time you load the Dashboard.
- You dismiss it. An X button in the corner hides the card immediately, even while setup is still incomplete, for shops that don't want the nag. That choice is remembered in your browser, so it stays hidden on that device/browser going forward — if you don't see it later and expected to, check whether you (or someone using the same login on that machine) dismissed it before. There's also a collapse/expand chevron next to the X that just tucks the steps out of view for that visit; it isn't remembered and the card reopens expanded next time.
Two different checklists — this one and the one in Settings
If you've also seen a progress card near the top of the Settings page, tracking Add your services → Add installers & bays → Turn on online booking → Connect payments, that's a completely separate, independently tracked signal from this Dashboard card — not the same checklist shown twice. See Finding your way around Settings for the full rundown of that one.
A few concrete differences worth knowing:
- Scope. The Settings hub checklist only tracks four steps (services, installers/bays, online booking, payments). This Dashboard card tracks all ten — the same four plus shop profile, logo, staff, customers, and your first appointment.
- What "online booking" means differs between them. On the Settings hub, that step is considered done as soon as you have at least one service *and* one resource — it's inferred from those two counts alone. On this Dashboard card, the equivalent step ("Configure online booking") checks for a saved booking-policy record specifically — your actual hours and lead-time rules from Settings → Online Booking. A shop can satisfy one of these without the other.
- What counts as "a service" or "a resource" also differs. The Dashboard card's service and installer/bay steps count any service or resource you've ever added. The Settings hub's badges only count active ones — an archived service or a deactivated bay still counts on the Dashboard card but reads as "setup needed" in Settings.
- Payments agrees. Both checklists check the same thing for the payments step — whether your shop has a connected Rainforest merchant — so that one row should always match between the two.
In short: they can legitimately be at different completion percentages at the same time, and that's expected, not a bug.
Frequently asked questions
How do I mark a step complete? You don't — there's no checkbox. Follow the row's link, do the real setup task (save your shop profile, add a service, connect payments, and so on), and the row updates automatically the next time the Dashboard loads.
Why don't my technicians see this checklist? It's restricted to Owner, Admin, and Manager logins. Technician, Front Desk, and Service Writer accounts never see the card, since every step is ownership-level setup work.
I dismissed the checklist — how do I get it back? Dismissing it is remembered in that browser, so it won't reappear there on its own. It can come back if you view the Dashboard from a different browser or device, or after clearing that browser's site data — otherwise it stays hidden even if setup is still incomplete.
Is this the same checklist I see on the Settings page? No. They're two separate, independently tracked progress signals — the Settings hub one only covers four steps (services, installers/bays, online booking, payments) and uses slightly different rules for what counts as "done" on some of them, while this Dashboard card covers all ten setup steps for a new shop.
What's the difference between this card and the setup wizard? The wizard at /app/onboarding is a separate six-step guided flow you can open from the "Prefer a guided walkthrough?" button on this card. They cover overlapping ground, so finishing the wizard checks off several of this card's rows, but they're different pages.