Finish the setup checklist: first customer, first job, first technician, first invoice

When your account is new, the Dashboard shows a "Get Started with Dispatch Bros" checklist with four steps: add your first customer, create your first job, add a technician, and send your first invoice. Each step is a link that takes you straight to the right screen, and each one checks itself off automatically as soon as the real thing exists in your account — the checklist disappears on its own when all four are done.

Before you start

• Sign in on a desktop browser and open Dashboard from the sidebar.
• Any signed-in user can see the checklist; some steps (like adding a technician) need an owner or admin login to complete.

The four checklist steps

Click Show on the checklist to expand it, then take the steps in order — each row has a Start link:

1. "Add your first customer" — "Go to Customers and create a contact". Full walkthrough: Add your first customer.
2. "Create your first job" — "Head to Jobs and dispatch your first service call". Full walkthrough: Create and dispatch your first job.
3. "Add a technician" — "Set up your team in the Technicians page". Full walkthrough: Add a technician.
4. "Send your first invoice" — "Close a job and generate an invoice". Full walkthrough: Create an invoice.

Completed steps show a check mark and a strikethrough. The progress bar at the top counts steps complete, and the whole card disappears once every step is done.

The Activation Center — the deeper tracker

Above or beside the checklist, the Activation Center tracks full account activation as a percentage across three sections:

• Business Setup — time zone, first customer, technician, job, and invoice.
• Communications — your phone account, a phone number, text (SMS) readiness, and voice readiness.
• Automations — your starter automation workflows.

Click Details to expand every item; each row links to the exact screen that completes it. The highlighted card in the middle is always the suggested next best action — when in doubt, just click that.

When everything is done the card switches to "Your workspace is fully activated" with quick links — Dispatch a job, View calendar, Open messages, and Check finances — and a Dismiss button that hides the banner for your whole company.

Troubleshooting

• The Activation Center shows "Could not load activation status." — a temporary loading problem. Click Retry, or refresh the page.
• A step stays unchecked after I did it — the widgets re-check when the Dashboard loads. Refresh the page. The invoice step needs a real invoice to exist (closing a job alone is not enough — generate the invoice too).
• An item in the Communications section shows red — it is blocked on something else, usually text verification. Open the item to see what it needs, and see 10DLC verification.
• The checklist is gone but I never finished it — it hides once all four items exist in your account, even if a teammate created them. That counts as done.