# Setting up your workspace

> The OpenATS setup steps after sign-up: who you hire for, departments or clients, your team, your sources and your pipeline.

Right after sign-up, OpenATS walks you through a few choices: who you’re hiring for, your departments (or client companies), who to invite, which tools to learn from, and whether to import your pipeline from another ATS or set it up here. Everything can be changed later in **Settings**, and **Skip for now** takes you straight in.

*Getting started · Last updated 2026-11-11*

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## The steps

1. **Who are you hiring for?** Choose **Company** or **Staffing agency**.
   An agency’s roles belong to client companies; a company’s belong to departments. This can’t be switched later, so choose the one that fits how you hire.
2. **Departments**, or **Client companies** for an agency.
   Add the ones you hire for now. You can add more from **Settings → Business information**.
3. **Invite your team.**
   Use the same work email each person used in your previous tools, so OpenATS can credit their notes and emails to them. You can invite more people later in **Settings → Team**.
4. **Teach OpenATS how your team hires.**
   Connect the sources OpenATS learns from: your **Email inbox** (Gmail), a **Meeting notetaker**, **Slack** and **Your previous ATS**. Teammates connect their own inbox and notetakers from Settings.
5. **Your hiring pipeline.** Choose **Import from another ATS** or **Set it up here**.
   Importing opens that provider’s import as soon as you finish. Setting it up here opens your pipeline.

Choose **Finish setup** to start using OpenATS. Until setup is finished or skipped, OpenATS brings you back to it.

> **Note:** Only admins can finish or skip setup. A teammate who signs in before then sees the setup screen too.

> **Tip:** The fourth step, teaching OpenATS how your team hires, is part of OpenATS Cloud. A self-hosted install goes from the team straight to the pipeline.

## After setup: the onboarding card

Your dashboard shows an **Onboarding** card for your first 30 days: **Post your first role**, **Add a candidate**, **Schedule an interview**, **Attach a transcript**, and **Make it yours** (upload your logo). Each one ticks itself off when you do it, and the card goes away when they’re all done. **Hide onboarding** hides it in that browser.

If you start an ATS import, its progress page offers **Take a quick tour** of the dashboard, AI search, the pipeline, interviews and sequences.

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Still need help? Write to the OpenATS team at https://openats.ai/support (or support@b150.ai). We reply by email.

Source: https://openats.ai/docs/getting-started/set-up-your-workspace
OpenATS help center: https://openats.ai/docs