--- title: "Getting Started" description: "How to set up your account, complete onboarding, and navigate FormAssembly for the first time." slug: "getting-started" audience: "all" generated_at: "2026-10-16T17:37:22.073Z" screenshots: - "/docs/screenshots/getting-started/homepage.png" - "/docs/screenshots/getting-started/builder-checklist.png" --- ## Exploring Before You Sign Up FormAssembly lets you start building a data collection workflow before creating an account. This explore-first approach means you can try the product and work with Fai — the FormAssembly AI agent — without signing up. 1. Go to the FormAssembly homepage. 2. Click **Start for free**. 3. Follow the short wizard to select your industry, describe the workflow you want to build, and choose where you want the collected data to go. 4. You'll land in the builder, where Fai begins creating your workflow based on your description. You can also go straight to the guest builder by visiting `/explore`, which opens the same builder without the wizard. If you're already signed in to FormAssembly, you'll be taken to your own builder instead. In this guest mode, you can: - Continue collaborating with Fai to refine your workflow. - Edit the workflow canvas manually. - Choose a visual theme for your workflow from the FormAssembly-supplied presets in the properties panel. The theme you pick carries over with the workflow when you create an account. Guest workflows are stored temporarily and expire after 4 hours of inactivity. You cannot publish, test, or save your work permanently without creating an account. Publishing, testing, and opening analytics all prompt you to create an account first. When you sign up, any workflow you built as a guest is automatically carried over to your new account, along with your Fai conversation. If you reload the page while exploring, the builder may appear empty for a moment and then restore your guest workflow from your session. --- ## Creating Your Account FormAssembly supports three ways to sign up: with your Google account, your Apple account, or an email address and password. ![FormAssembly homepage](/docs/screenshots/getting-started/homepage.png) ### Sign up with email or a social account You can create a FormAssembly account at any time. A sign-up dialog opens automatically when you try an action in the guest builder that requires an account (such as publishing, testing, or viewing analytics). You can also open the sign-up dialog from the homepage by clicking **Log in** and switching to the sign-up tab. 1. Choose your preferred method — Google, Apple, or email and password. 2. If you sign up with email, you'll need to verify your email address before you can continue. The password field has a show/hide toggle on the sign-up form, the login form, and the reset-password form (where both new-password fields have one), so you can reveal what you've typed before submitting. If you sign up with an email address and password, your password must be at least 12 characters long (and no more than 128), and include at least one number and one special character. Your password cannot contain your first name, your last name, or the part of your email address before the @ sign. You also cannot reuse your last 4 passwords. What happens next depends on your email domain: - **Personal email** (Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, iCloud, etc.) — A personal account is created for you automatically. You'll proceed straight to onboarding. - **Work email, first from your domain** — An organization account is created for you, and you become its admin. You'll proceed to onboarding. - **Work email, but your organization is already on FormAssembly** — A join request is sent to your organization's admin. You'll see a message that your request is awaiting approval. Once an admin approves, you can log in. Subdomains of the same organization are grouped together, so signing up from `mail.example.com` joins the same FormAssembly account as `example.com`. > **Note:** Personal accounts are single-user, so they cannot invite team members. If you signed up with a personal email address and later need a team, change your email address to your work domain — once the new domain is verified, your account becomes an organization account and team features such as invitations and member management become available. ### Log in to an existing account instead If you already have a FormAssembly account, you don't have to sign up to keep the workflow you built as a guest. Switch to the login tab in the same dialog and sign in — the workflow you built as a guest, along with your Fai conversation, is carried into your existing account, and the action you were trying to take (such as publishing or testing) resumes once the workflow loads. > **Note:** Guest work is carried over on all three login paths — email and password, Google, and Apple. If you sign in with Google or Apple, the claim finishes just after you land in FormAssembly, so you may briefly see your workflows list before you are taken to the claimed workflow. ### Accept an invitation If someone on your team has already invited you, use the link in your invitation email. You can accept the invitation using Google, Apple, or by setting a password — as long as your email address matches the one the invitation was sent to. Invited users skip onboarding entirely since your organization's account is already set up. --- ## Completing Onboarding After signing up, you'll walk through a short two-step onboarding flow before you can access the rest of the product. A progress indicator at the top of the screen shows which step you're on. The indicator is informational only — you cannot click it to go back to a completed step. If you built a workflow in the guest builder before signing up, it is automatically carried over to your new account during this process, together with your Fai conversation history. ### Step 1: Review and accept legal agreements On the first screen, you'll see links to the **Master Subscription Agreement**, **Privacy Policy**, and (for account admins) the **Data Processing Agreement**. Each link opens in a new tab so you don't lose your place. - Check each box to confirm you've read and agree to the documents. - Once all required boxes are checked, the button to continue becomes active. Click it to proceed. > **Note:** If you're the founding admin of your organization, you'll accept the Data Processing Agreement on behalf of your entire team. Team members who join later are covered by your acceptance. If your organization has already accepted the current Data Processing Agreement, you won't see that checkbox at all. If FormAssembly publishes a new version of the Master Subscription Agreement or Data Processing Agreement, admins of accounts that are already set up see this first screen again the next time they sign in. In that case you only accept the outstanding documents — the account setup step is skipped, and you're taken straight back into the product. ### Step 2: Name your account On the second screen, you'll set two things: - **Account name** — The display name for your account (for example, your company name). - **Account URL** — A short, permanent identifier used in your account's web addresses. This must be 3–30 characters long, using only lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens. It cannot start or end with a hyphen. As you type the account URL, any unsupported characters are automatically converted to hyphens and consecutive hyphens are collapsed. The button to continue stays inactive until you have entered an account name and at least three characters of account URL. If the account URL you choose is already taken, you'll be asked to pick another one. Once you confirm, a short "Taking you to your workflows…" panel appears while FormAssembly finishes setting up, and then you're taken to the **Workflows** page. If you built a workflow as a guest before signing up, FormAssembly opens that claimed workflow instead, so you can carry on where you left off. > **Important:** Your account URL cannot be changed after onboarding, so choose carefully. --- ## Exploring the Builder The builder is where you create and manage your data collection workflows. From the **Workflows** page, open an existing workflow to edit it in the builder, or start a new one. ![The builder with the onboarding checklist](/docs/screenshots/getting-started/builder-checklist.png) ### Start a conversation with the AI agent Fai is the FormAssembly AI agent that helps you design your data collection workflow step by step. The Fai panel appears alongside the builder canvas. To begin: 1. Type a description of what you need into the chat input area. 2. To include a reference file (such as a PDF of an existing form), click **Attach file**. 3. Click **Send** to submit your message. If you're not sure what to ask, click the suggestions button in the chat input area for prompt ideas. To start over with Fai, use the control to clear the conversation history at the top of the Fai panel. ### Navigate the builder panels The builder canvas has two view modes, accessible from the top of the builder: - **Overview** — A read-only map of your whole workflow. Overview draws every step and the connections between them; hovering over a step highlights its path, and clicking a step card switches you to Focus view. Nothing on the Overview canvas adds, edits, moves, or removes a step. - **Focus** — Where you work on a specific part of your workflow in detail, and where all structural controls live. Adding, duplicating, moving, and deleting a step are Focus-view actions, so the **Add step** menu is available in Focus view, not in Overview. You can also ask Fai to add a step from either view — only the **Add step** button itself is limited to Focus view. In the add-step menu, the data collection step is labelled **Collect**; the same step appears as **Form** on the canvas badge and in the detail panel. The Fai panel can be minimized, repositioned, or resized using the controls at the top of the panel. The properties panel opens alongside the canvas when you select part of your workflow, and is where you set options such as your workflow's theme. To access the main navigation at any time, click the button to open the navigation menu (located near the FormAssembly logo at the top of the page). **Workflows**, **Themes**, and **Connections** are there for everyone. **Compliance** appears only for people who can view compliance. The menu also holds your personal pages (**Profile**, **Security**, **Invitations**), the account pages your role allows (such as **Settings**, **Team**, **API clients**, **Identity providers**, and **Billing**), **Documentation**, and **Get help**. --- ## Onboarding Checklist After you finish onboarding, a floating checklist widget appears in the bottom-right corner of the screen. It highlights the key actions to help you get the most out of FormAssembly. The checklist is purely informational — it never blocks you from using any feature. ### What's on the checklist The items you see depend on your role. The checklist lists these items in order: 1. **Create a workflow** — Create your first workflow in the builder. 2. **Connect a third-party service** — Link an external service in your connection settings. 3. **Test a submission** — Run a test submission on any workflow. 4. **Publish a workflow** — Set a workflow to active so it can receive real submissions. Account admins see three further items after those four: 5. **Complete your account address** — Add your organization's address in account settings. 6. **Invite a team member** — Send an invitation from your team settings. 7. **Set up your privacy policy** — Add your account's privacy policy text in account settings. Team members see only the first four items. Sending an invitation is enough to complete the invite item — the person you invited does not have to accept it first. A draft workflow is enough to complete the create-a-workflow item. ### How it works - The checklist shows your progress (for example, "2 of 7 complete" for an admin, or "2 of 4" for a team member). - Click any incomplete item to jump directly to the relevant page. - Completed items display a checkmark and cannot be clicked. - Most items are shared across your team — if anyone on your account creates a workflow or saves your privacy policy, that item is checked off for everyone. The exception is **Connect a third-party service**, which tracks your own connections. - The checklist updates on its own as you complete actions, including actions you complete in another browser tab. - The checklist always reflects your own account. While you are working in another organization's account as a guest, the checklist widget is not shown. ### Collapsing and dismissing the checklist - Click the collapse button to shrink the checklist into a small progress pill. Click the pill to expand it again. - You can drag the widget or use the move button in the header to reposition it so it doesn't cover other parts of the interface. The move button cycles the widget through the four corners of the screen, which is useful if you prefer the keyboard. - If every item is already complete the first time the checklist loads, the widget starts collapsed as a "You're all set!" pill. If you complete the last item while the checklist is open, the widget stays open and its title changes to "You're all set!" instead of collapsing on you. - To permanently hide the checklist, click the dismiss (×) button. A confirmation dialog will remind you that you can re-enable the checklist from your profile page. --- ## Signing In After Setup Once your account is set up, return to the homepage and click **Log in**. Sign in with the same method you used to create your account (Google, Apple, or your email and password). You'll be taken to your list of workflows, where you can open an existing workflow or start a new one in the builder. Your session stays active as long as you use FormAssembly at least once every 30 days. After 30 days of inactivity, you'll need to sign in again. --- ## Tips & Troubleshooting - **Guest workflow expired?** Guest workflows are stored temporarily and expire after 4 hours of inactivity. If your guest workflow has expired, start a new conversation with Fai after creating your account. - **"Awaiting admin approval" after signing up?** If your organization already has a FormAssembly account, your sign-up creates a join request rather than a new account. Ask your organization's admin to approve your request. Join requests expire after 30 days — if yours expires, signing in again or submitting the sign-up form again resubmits your request and notifies your admins. If your request was declined, contact your organization's admin for help. - **Forgot your password?** Click **Log in**, switch to the login tab, and use the forgot-password link. FormAssembly emails you a one-time link for setting a new password. Setting a new password signs you out of all your other sessions, so sign in again with the new password. - **Reset link not working?** If the link in your password reset email is expired or incomplete, FormAssembly shows a notice that the link is invalid and lets you request a new reset email on the spot. - **Sign-up rejected your email address?** FormAssembly does not accept disposable or throwaway email addresses. Use a work email or a standard personal email provider instead. - **Dialog won't close when you click outside it?** That is intentional. The login and sign-up dialog closes only with the Escape key or its close button, so a stray click (for example, when a password manager moves your pointer) can't discard what you've typed. Closing the dialog does discard anything you've typed into the form. - **Guest work didn't carry over?** If your browser blocks cookies or site storage (for example, Safari's "Block all cookies" setting, or an embedded browser window), your wizard prompt and guest workflow may not carry into the builder or your new account. Sign-up itself still works; enable site storage and rebuild the workflow with Fai. - **Can't publish a workflow?** Phone verification is required before you can publish. If you haven't verified your phone number yet, you'll be prompted to do so. You can add and verify your phone number at any time from your profile page. - **Can't find the Add step button?** Structural controls are only available in Focus view. Switch from **Overview** to **Focus** at the top of the builder, or ask Fai to add the step for you from either view. - **Account URL looks wrong?** During onboarding, special characters and spaces are automatically converted to hyphens. Review the URL carefully before confirming — it cannot be changed later. - **Checklist disappeared?** If you dismissed the checklist, you can re-enable it from your profile page. - **Checklist still showing after you dismissed it?** Dismissal is only applied once it is saved. If saving fails you'll see an error message and the checklist stays visible — dismiss it again. - **Signed up with the wrong method?** If you signed up with email and later sign in with Google (or vice versa) using the same email address, your accounts are linked automatically — as long as your email address is already verified. If your password account is still unverified, verify your email address first, then sign in with Google or Apple. - **Need to leave your organization's account?** You can remove yourself from the account in your account settings. Be aware that your workflows will be removed when you leave, and the connections you authorized are deleted rather than transferred. If you're the only admin, you'll need to promote another team member to admin before you can leave — or cancel the account entirely.