Clicks, fields, and submits
Account settings, onboarding forms, and configuration screens. The customer has to open their own account and complete those actions there.
Web-app onboarding
How to onboard customers to a web app without another demo
How to onboard customers to a web app, when you walk the customer through setup: decide which stretch they must click through on the real page, and send that stretch as a short link so they can finish it without booking another demo.
1Mark the live task
The clicks the customer has to make on the real page.
2Leave the plan aside
Meetings, emails, and schedules stay off the link.
3They finish on that page
The next action is pointed out where the work happens.
The split
Which part of web-app onboarding is a live task
Split the work before you look for a tool. Only the part the customer has to perform inside the web app belongs on the link.
Anything they can finish without the product
A kickoff, a welcome email, a software implementation guide, a timeline, or a note about who owns the next phase. Those schedule or explain the work. They are not the clicks.
Does the next action exist only on a page?
If they can settle it in a call or a document, keep it there. If the control only exists in the product, that stretch is the live task.
The gap
Why another demo does not finish setup
A demo, a shared screen, and a PDF can show the path. None of them stay on the page at the moment the customer has to act.
They watch, then reconstruct
You run the happy path on your account. Later they are alone in theirs and have to remember which control came next.
The session ends with the call
You point, they click, and the meeting is over. The next customer needs another call for the same clicks.
The picture and the page are apart
They look at a file, then switch into the product and hunt for a control that may not sit where the picture showed it.
See a step, do a step means the next target is visible on the page they are already using. Watching, sharing a screen, or reading a file splits that moment in two.
Record once
Record the setup path once
Record the repeatable path from the page, and the account state, the customer will actually open.
Same page, same kind of login
If they land in their own workspace on a setup form, start there. If their role sees different settings than a staff account, record from the view they have. Share a route through account settings, onboarding forms or configuration screens without booking another call.
Roadbook records the path as you do it
Roadbook records that onboarding path once on the real web page. Hold the shortcut and work as usual: click, fill, submit. Each step keeps the location, a screenshot, and the action type.
For how to record a step someone can follow, see create a step-by-step guide.
The handoff
Send one link, and let the customer finish on the real page
They open the short link and stay on the original web page. The rest of the page dims. One target is marked with corner brackets. Finish that action and the next step appears. Click the wrong place and they get a reminder.
What they do next
No remote meeting. No screen share. No PDF. The next click is pointed out on the page where the setup actually happens, and a finished action moves them forward.
What this is
Interactive customer onboarding, here, means the customer performs that next step on the real page. It is not a tour built into the product, and it is not a project plan.
The phrase
Customer onboarding software is not one category
Customer onboarding software, in public results, is mostly an implementation portal: tasks, progress, and a shared workspace in place of spreadsheets and email threads. That job is not the same as pointing at the next control on the customer’s real page.
Plan, people, and status
The work lives in a shared place: what is due, who owns it, and how far the project has moved. Use that when the unsolved problem is coordination.
The clicks on the web app
The customer still has to open the product and finish a setup path. A portal does not put the next target on that page.
A tour the product itself ships
That guide is written into the app for its own new users. This page is for a person walking a customer through setup, not for installing a tour inside the product.
Use something else
When a document, a video, or a project portal is the right tool
Use a short link only for the live setup stretch. The rest of onboarding often needs a different deliverable.
| What you need | What to use | Why the short link is the wrong tool |
|---|---|---|
| Project schedule and shared status | A project portal | Tasks, progress, and a shared workspace are the work. A setup link does not run that plan. |
| The whole process, not only the clicks | Process documentation | This page is only the live setup path. It is not the rest of the process. |
| A document someone reads beside the product | A written guide | They need explanation or a record, then they switch into the app themselves. |
| A tour written into the product | In-product guidance | The product team ships that for every new user. You are not recording one customer path. |
This is not the whole of process documentation. The live setup path is one slice of process documentation software. If the deliverable is an annotated screenshot document, see Roadbook vs Scribe. If the deliverable is a video manual, see Roadbook vs Guidde. A PDF, narration, or a completion report is a reason to use another tool.
After the UI changes
Keep the route true after the interface changes
When a screen on the recorded path changes, the person who owns that customer setup path re-records the changed stretch. That is the same person who walks customers through the clicks.
Who re-records
The owner of the route. If several people onboard customers, one of them owns the path, so a moved button does not leave the next customer on a stale step.
When to send it again
After the recorded path matches the page the customer will open. Same starting page, same kind of account. Then send the short link.
Let the customer finish the live steps
Record the setup path once. Send one link. They finish on the real page.