Drive Higher SaaS Retention with Onboarding Playbooks

Learn how to efficiently set up and manage customer onboarding using playbooks in the new unified console. Discover features like adding customers, editing playbooks, and configuring stages and activities.

15 Apr 2025 By Jonathan Lapinsky

In this guide, we'll learn how to set up and manage onboarding processes using playbooks in a unified console. Playbooks allow you to streamline the onboarding of new users by organizing tasks and activities into stages. This helps ensure that customers connect with the value of your software early, supporting retention goals. We'll explore how to create, edit, and manage playbooks, including adding customers, configuring stages, and setting tasks. This guide will also cover how to track customer progress and utilize filtering options to manage playbooks effectively.

Let's get started

With playbooks, customers can easily set up the onboarding process as described in our PRFAQ. In the new unified console, click on the Onboarding tab, then select Playbooks. Here, you will see any previously created playbooks. If you're new, simply click Add Playbook.

Step #1: Click on "Onboard" — Click on "Onboard"

For example, we've created a playbook called "Onboarding New Users." It is active, and there are nine customers in the playbook.

Step #2: Click on "Onboarding - New Users" — Click on "Onboarding - New Users"

Clicking on a playbook will display the customers in the Onboarding New Users playbook in the center. To add a customer, click on Add Customer. You can also edit the playbook. On the left, if you're searching for other playbooks you've created, you can click to filter and change the center display to show the desired playbook. We will offer more filtering options soon, such as filtering playbooks by Is Active. To edit or create a new playbook, click on the Edit Page.

In edit mode, you can change it from active to non-active and add the playbook name. Currently, it's set up to track how many days a customer is in a specific playbook. Ensuring customers achieve the activation metric means connecting them to the value early and often in your software to maintain the net retention metric. You can specify how many days you'd like your customers to be on track, behind, or stuck. Then, configure the stages and activities accordingly.

There are three different levels of configuration. Stages activities and tasks. An example of a stage might be setting up access. An activity in that stage is more specific and can include setting up user management, roles, and permissions. A task in that stage is designed for a specific user within the app to define those permissions as needed.

Step #5: Click on "+ Add Task" — Click on "+ Add Task"

Click "Add Task" to open a modal. Enter the name and description, then click "Save."

Step #6: Click on "Add Task" — Click on "Add Task"

You can make it either required or optional.

Once your playbook has been created, you can simply add customers into the playbook to monitor their progress.