A repeatable client onboarding workflow
Use templates, intake, access, and the first project to start every relationship consistently.
Onboarding is the workflow clients judge you on first. Making it repeatable means the tenth client gets the same experience as your best one, not whichever version the account manager remembers.
Create the client workspace and set access
Give the client their own workspace so their projects, people, and files never mix with another engagement. Decide at this point who internally needs access, and with which role, rather than adding people reactively later.
Apply an onboarding project template
Start from a template rather than rebuilding the task list. A template brings a consistent set of onboarding tasks with sensible sequencing, which is what stops the fifth onboarding missing the step the second one caught.
Collect what you need through an intake form
Send one structured form for brand assets, access credentials, approvals contacts, and constraints, instead of a chain of emails. A form gets answered once and gives you a record of what was supplied.
Invite the client as a guest and set their access level
Add the client contacts as guests attached to their projects. Give Approve only to the person who actually holds sign-off, and Comment to the stakeholders who should be heard but do not decide.
Hold a kickoff against the visible plan
Run the kickoff inside the workspace the client will use, walking their portal rather than a slide. That single session sets the expectation that status lives in Trellis, which is what removes the weekly status email later.
What success looks like
- A new client has their own workspace, a populated onboarding project, the right guests with the right access, and a kickoff that showed them where to look from then on.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Rebuilding onboarding by hand each time, so quality depends on who set it up.
- Collecting assets over email, leaving no record of what was actually supplied.
- Giving every client contact Approve, which makes it unclear whose decision counts.
Common questions
Access and sharing follow the workspace, so a workspace per client keeps engagements genuinely separate.
No. Guests are free and unlimited on paid plans.
Related pages
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