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Set up

Part 1 · Your workspace

  1. 1Create your workspace
  2. 2Your plan
  3. 3Your account
  4. 4Invite your team
  5. 5Roles & permissions
  6. 6Set up Pods
  7. 7Build your Teams
  8. 8Custom fields
  9. 9Connections & security

Part 2 · Your first project

Part 3 · Run your first sprint & go live

Part 4 · Everyday use

Every section

Projects & backlog

Boards, sprints & retros

Goals, roadmap & releases

Reports

Your organization

Settings, security & connections

Set up · Part 1 of 3

Your workspace — set up your foundation

Everything in this part is workspace-wide. You do it once, and it powers every project — who's on your team, what they can do, and how your work is grouped. Most of it lives in the sidebar under Organization: Members, Teams, Pods, Billing and Settings.

1

Create your workspace

Your workspace is your company's home in Flow. Signing up creates it and makes you its Owner.

~4 minDo this once
Sign up · Organization › Settings › General
  1. On the sign-up page, enter your first and last name, your work email, a password (at least 8 characters, with an upper-case letter, a lower-case letter and a number), your organisation name and your workspace address — the short name in your web address. Flow checks the address is free as you type. Click Create workspace.
  2. Check your inbox and verify your email with the link we send you. Until you do, the workspace pages stay locked.
  3. Once inside, open Settings (under Organization in the sidebar). The General section shows your organisation name, its Working day timezone, its address and your current plan.
  4. Edit the name if you like, and set the Working day timezone to where most of your team works, then save.
💡Why this matters — your workspace name and address appear across the app and in the web address your team signs in to. The working day timezone decides when sprints start and end and what "today" means in your reports. The address can't be changed after sign-up, so pick one you're happy with.
2

See your plan & what's included

A quick look at which features your plan unlocks and how many people it covers — so nothing surprises you later.

~3 min
Organization › Billing
  1. Open Billing from the sidebar (only Owners and Admins see it) to check your plan, your seats and what's included.
  2. Compare the plans below. Only the Owner can change the plan, add seats or cancel.
FreeStarterBusiness
MembersUp to 35 included25 included
Stakeholders2 free for every paid seat
Projects310Unlimited
Teams13Unlimited
Pods—1Unlimited
Storage1 GB10 GB100 GB
Goals, Retros, Velocity, Cumulative flow, Cycle & lead time—✓✓
Single sign-on (SAML)——✓
Kanban & Scrum, backlog, custom workflows, GitHub✓✓✓
🔒New workspaces start on a free 14-day Business trial. You get the full feature set while it lasts, then the workspace moves to the Free plan automatically — everyone keeps their access. On a paid plan your seats are the number of members you can have, and Stakeholders (people who follow along) are free up to two per paid seat. A padlock on a feature just means it isn't in your current plan — Owners and Admins see a View plans button there. Enterprise plans are tailored — contact us.
3

Set up your account

Your own settings — your name and photo, how you sign in, how you're notified and how the app looks.

~4 minRecommended
Your name (foot of the sidebar) › Your account

Click your name at the foot of the sidebar and choose Your account. It has four tabs:

Profile

Add a photo and check your name, so your comments and assignments show a friendly face.

Your account › Profile
Sign-in & security

Change your password and turn on two-factor authentication — a code from an authenticator app on top of your password. Strongly recommended for Owners and Admins.

Your account › Sign-in & security
Notifications

Choose what reaches you, in the app and (for most kinds) by email, each switched on or off separately.

Your account › Notifications
Appearance

Pick Light, Dark or System. It's stored in this browser only, so each device can have its own.

Your account › Appearance
🎨Point your team here too. Everyone has their own Your account page — these settings only ever affect the person who changes them.
4

Invite your team

Bring your people in. Each person gets an email inviting them to join your workspace.

~1 min each
Organization › Members › Invite member
  1. Open Members and click Invite member (Owners and Admins only).
  2. Enter their email and choose their Access: Member for people who do the work, Stakeholder for people who follow along, or Admin (only the Owner can invite Admins). Roles are explained in the next step.
  3. Optional: under Add to a project, pick a project and choose what they'll be there in As — Scrum Master, Developer or Stakeholder.
  4. Click Send invite. They get an email to set a password and join. An Invite link also appears with a Copy link button, if you'd rather share it yourself.
📧Keep an eye on Pending invites — people who haven't accepted yet are on the Pending invites tab of Members. Invite links last 48 hours; use a row's ⋯ menu to send a new link, resend an expired invite or revoke it. More: Members.
🪑Seats — the Free plan allows up to 3 members. On a paid plan each member uses a seat; if they're all in use, Flow asks you to add seats on the Billing page first. Stakeholders don't use a paid seat (up to two per paid seat).
5

Roles & permissions

Flow uses two simple layers: an access level for the whole workspace, and a role in each project.

~5 min
Organization › Members · Project settings › People
1 · Workspace access — set on the Members page

Owner (that's you) has full control · Admin manages people, projects, teams and settings, and can see billing · Member works in projects · Stakeholder reads, comments, @mentions and watches work items, but doesn't change them — and is free. Change someone's level from the Access dropdown on their row. You can't change someone at your level or above, and only the Owner makes Admins.

2 · Project roles — set in each project's People tab

Product Owner (one per project) owns the backlog, the product goal, releases and components · Scrum Master runs sprints and retrospectives and looks after the workflow · Developer creates and works on work items · Stakeholder follows along. Whoever creates a project becomes its Product Owner. While a project has no Scrum Master, its Product Owner covers that role.

🔑Who does what, in short — Owners and Admins set up the workspace and create projects and teams (a Member can too, if a custom role gives them Create projects or Create teams for the whole organisation). Inside a project, the Product Owner and Scrum Masters are its leads: only they (and Owners/Admins) open Project settings, plus anyone whose custom role gives Change project settings or Add and remove project members, for those tabs only. Everyone else simply uses the project — Developers and Stakeholders don't see Project settings in their menu — that's by design. More: Project settings.
🧩Need something in between? Owners and Admins can build custom roles under Organization › Teams › Custom roles — click New role, tick the permissions, then give it to a person for the whole organisation or for one project. Custom roles only ever add abilities (for example "Create work items" for a Stakeholder); they never take any away. Some organisations also have a built-in Agile coach role (create projects and teams, create and change company, team and pod goals, see every team and pod). Most companies never need them. More: Roles & custom roles.
6

Set up your Pods

Pods are your capability areas — Frontend, QA, Design — the long-lived groups people belong to by expertise.

~5 minOptionalStarter plan & up
Organization › Pods › New pod
  1. Open Pods (under Organization) and click New pod (Owners and Admins). Give it a name, e.g. "Frontend" or "Quality", and click Create pod.
  2. Open the pod and use Add people to add the people who belong to it.
  3. Optional: use Link project and Link team to connect the pod's projects and teams. The pod's Flow, last 30 days tile then shows items finished and average cycle time across its linked projects.
  4. Repeat for each capability area — Starter includes one pod, Business as many as you like.
💡Why Pods? Pods are how you group people by skill. You can draw on them to staff your delivery Teams next, and a goal can name a pod. They're stable — teams come and go, pods stay. Being in a pod, or linking a project to one, never changes who can open a project. More: Pods.
7

Build your Teams

Teams are your delivery squads — the people who ship work together. A project can belong to a team.

~5 minRecommended
Organization › Teams › New team
  1. Open Teams and click New team (Owners and Admins, or a Member whose custom role gives Create teams for the whole organisation). Give it a name (e.g. "Mobile Squad") and click Create team. You become its Team manager.
  2. Add members with Add people, or use Add from a pod to pull a whole capability group in at once.
  3. Optionally make someone a Team manager — they can keep the team's member list up to date.
🧩Pods and Teams are separate on purpose. Adding from a pod copies those people into the team — later pod changes don't quietly reshuffle your squads. A Team manager looks after the list only; what someone can do in a project comes from their project role. Free includes 1 team, Starter 3, Business as many as you need. More: Teams.
8

Add custom fields

Extra fields on your work items — for anything your team needs to capture beyond the built-in ones.

~4 minOptional
Organization › Settings › Custom fields
  1. Open Settings and choose Custom fields, then click New field (Owners and Admins).
  2. Name it — e.g. "Environment" or "Customer" — and choose its type: Text, Number, Date, Single choice, Multi choice, Person, Link or Checkbox. Choice fields get their own list of options.
🗂️Custom fields appear on every work item across your projects. The built-in fields — type, priority, severity, size, story points, assignee, labels, components, fix version, dates and parent — cover most teams, so add your own only for a specific need. A workflow stage can even require one to be filled in (Step 11). More: Custom fields.
9

Connections & security

A few Settings extras — connect Slack and GitHub, prepare workflow templates, and tighten sign-in for everyone.

WheneverOptional
Connect Slack

Paste a Slack incoming-webhook address (it starts with https://hooks.slack.com/services/), save, then press Send test message. Flow then posts assignments, comments, mentions, status changes on watched items, and sprint starts and completions to that channel.

Organization › Settings › Slack
Connect GitHub

Click Connect GitHub to install our GitHub app on your GitHub account (GitHub shows you the app to install). Each project then chooses its repositories (Project settings › Repositories), and branches, commits and pull requests that mention a work item's key — like PROJ-12 — show on that item's Development card. Available on every plan. More: GitHub.

Organization › Settings › GitHub
Workflow templates

Starting points for new projects. Every project gets its own copy when it's created, so a template never changes an existing project. Here you can add a template (New template) or delete one — an existing template's stages aren't edited. The built-in templates are ready to use, so this is optional.

Organization › Settings › Workflow templates
Require two-factor for everyone

The Owner can switch on Require two-factor for all members, so every person must set up two-factor authentication to keep using the workspace.

Organization › Settings › Security