Start here. This is the sequence that gets a new workspace from empty to running. The finish line for week one is concrete: your leadership team holds its first full weekly meeting in SPLX OS, with a scorecard to review and this quarter's priorities to report on. Everything below is ordered to get you there.
When Diego set up Northwoods Outfitters, he spent day one on the basics in Owner: your first day — modules on, CRM mode chosen, first invitations out. This guide picks up from there. If you have an admin doing the hands-on configuration, share Admin: your first week with them; it goes deeper on each module. This guide is the owner's view: what has to be true by the end of each day, who can do it, and the one mistake that most often stalls it.
One thing to know up front: every noun below — "Deal," "Task," "Priority," "Stand Up" — is a default label, not a fixed one. Settings → Terminology (/settings/terminology) lets you rename any of them to match how your team already talks, without losing any functionality.
Day 1: People and roles
Where: People → Directory (/people/directory) to add team members, People → Departments (/people/departments) for department structure, People → Org Chart (/people/org-chart) to place seats, and Settings → Team (/settings/team) to invite people to sign in.
Who can do this: inviting and changing roles requires the owner or admin role. Creating profiles and departments needs people.profiles.create-stub and people.departments.manage (owner, admin, or advisor by default). Placing and editing org-chart seats needs people.seats.manage.
Done looks like: every current team member has a directory profile, the org chart reflects real reporting lines, and everyone who needs to log in has been invited from Settings → Team and accepted.
Common pitfall: creating stub profiles for the whole team and stopping there. A stub profile shows up in the directory and the org chart, but it isn't linked to a login — nobody using that stub can sign in, and anything assigned to them (a check-in, a role-fit review, a task) has no one to act on it. Link each stub to a real account, or send the invite first, before moving on.
Related: How to build your org chart via departments · How to invite and onboard a new employee
Day 1–2: Strategy
Where: Strategy → Vision, Mission, Values (/strategy/vision-mission) for the plan's foundation, Strategy → Annual Plan (/strategy/annual-plan) for annual goals, Strategy → Quarterly Priorities (/strategy/quarterly-priorities) for the current quarter, and Strategy → Scorecard (/strategy/scorecard) for metrics.
Who can do this: strategy.values.manage for vision, mission, and values; strategy.annual-goals.manage for annual goals; strategy.quarterly-priorities.manage for quarterly priorities; strategy.metrics.manage for the scorecard. All default to owner, admin, and advisor.
Done looks like: at least one annual goal exists, this quarter has priorities that trace back to it, and the scorecard has a small number of metrics — each with a named owner — on a regular check-in cadence.
Common pitfall: building a full scorecard before assigning an owner to each metric. Owner is optional when you add a metric (it is only required for individual-scope metrics), so it is easy to leave blank. Metrics an owner still needs to update show up in the Metrics you owe section of that person's My Day — a metric with no owner never appears there, so it goes stale within a month and the scorecard stops being trustworthy. Add owners as you add metrics, not after.
Related: How to set a quarterly priority · How to build a scorecard metric · How to define your company's core values
Day 2–3: Meeting cadence — book the first weekly meeting
This is the day that sets up the week-one finish line.
Where: Rhythm → Team Sync (/rhythm/team-sync) for the weekly meeting — its Recurring Series tab holds the series — Rhythm → Stand Up (/rhythm/standup) for daily stand-up boards, and Rhythm → One on One (/rhythm/one-on-one) for manager/report check-ins.
Who can do this: rhythm.series.manage to create or edit a recurring Team Sync series (owner, admin, and advisor by default); rhythm.team-sync.manage for a single session, rhythm.boards.manage to set up a stand-up board, and rhythm.one-on-one.manage for 1:1 series — each of those also includes contributor by default.
Done looks like: a weekly leadership Team Sync series is scheduled with every attendee added and an agenda that reviews the scorecard and this quarter's priorities; the first session is on the calendar for later this week. Once the weekly meeting is in place, add a stand-up board with real columns and a 1:1 series for each manager and direct report.
Common pitfall: creating the Team Sync series and never adding attendees. The create form collects the title, schedule, facilitator, and an optional department, but not attendees. Right after you create the series, open it from the Recurring Series tab with the pencil (Edit series) and add every attendee under Attendees — series attendees are copied onto each generated session, so you set them once instead of per meeting. Also set the series' department so the scorecard and priorities segments pull from the right team.
Related: How to schedule a recurring Team Sync · How to run your first stand-up · How to run a 1-on-1 check-in
Day 3–4: Execution
Where: Execution → Projects (/execution/projects) to turn a priority into a project, Execution → Tasks (/execution/tasks) for the work itself, and Execution → Ideas (/execution/ideas) for anything not ready to commit to yet.
Who can do this: execution.projects.create to create projects (owner, admin, advisor, and contributor by default), execution.projects.manage to edit any project and execution.tasks.manage to create standalone tasks and manage any task (owner, admin, and advisor by default). Contributors create and edit tasks inside projects where they are members.
Done looks like: this quarter's priorities are each backed by a project with an owner, milestones, and a first batch of tasks — so the weekly meeting has real progress to review.
Common pitfall: creating a project and assigning tasks before adding the right people as project members. A contributor's ability to create and edit tasks on a project comes from their membership role on that project (Member or Owner, not Viewer), not from a workspace-wide permission — a contributor who isn't a project member can't add or edit tasks on it. Add members to the project first.
Related: How to create your first project · Project members and roles · From idea to quarterly priority
Day 4: Process
Where: Process → Library (/process/library) to author a procedure, then run it against real work with Start run on the procedure.
Who can do this: process.processes.manage to draft and edit (owner, admin, advisor, and contributor by default), and process.processes.publish to move a process from draft to active (advisor and above by default).
Done looks like: the handful of procedures your cadence depends on — how you run the weekly meeting, how you triage a new idea — are written down and published, not left sitting in draft.
Common pitfall: writing the process and stopping before publishing it. A draft process isn't runnable — nobody can start a run against it — so a documented-but-unpublished process gives a false sense that the procedure is live when the team is still working from memory. Publish it, or route it through Approvals (/approvals) if your workspace requires sign-off first.
Related: How to write your first SOP · How to run an SOP as a checklist
Day 5: CRM
Where: CRM → Pipeline (/crm/pipeline) to configure stages, CRM → Contacts (/crm/contacts) and CRM → Companies (/crm/companies) to load existing relationships, and CRM → Deals (/crm/deals) for active opportunities.
Who can do this: crm.pipelines.manage to configure pipelines (owner, admin, and advisor by default), and crm.contacts.manage / crm.deals.manage for records — those also include contributor by default. In B2C CRM mode the Companies, Deals, and Forecast pages are hidden and a Visits page appears instead.
Done looks like: pipeline stages match your actual sales process, existing contacts and companies are loaded, and at least one deal has moved through a stage change so the team can see forecasting working end to end.
Common pitfall: running every kind of deal through a single pipeline. CRM supports more than one pipeline kind (new business, renewal, referral, and so on) — collapsing them into one makes stage names ambiguous and muddies the forecast. Set up a pipeline per distinct flow before loading deals.
Related: How to build and manage deal pipelines · How to create your first contact
End of week one: hold the weekly meeting
Run the first Team Sync session you booked on day 2–3. Walk the scorecard, report on each quarterly priority, and capture any issues and to-dos in the session. When that meeting is done, the workspace is running: the team has a shared plan, numbers to watch, a place to raise issues, and a weekly habit that keeps all three current.
From here, the Getting started card on your dashboard shows what is left. It lists up to six items — set up your workspace, invite a teammate, create a project, set a quarterly priority, run a stand-up, and add a scorecard metric — shows only the ones your role can act on, and can be dismissed with the X. Completion is workspace-wide: the project, priority, stand-up, and metric items tick as soon as anyone in the workspace has one, including content added from a starter template. The rest of the Roles & Onboarding guides cover each role in depth.