Getting started

Start from pipemetry.com — “Start free” opens the sign-up form and creates your workspace. Everything below happens after that, inside the app.

Setup lives at Manage → Onboarding. If your workspace has no opportunities yet and its setup checklist is incomplete, your first landing after sign-in hands you straight there instead of an empty dashboard.

You need to be an org admin

Every onboarding read and write is org-admin-gated on the server. A workspace member who opens Onboarding sees a short “Your admin is setting up Pipemetry” page rather than a checklist that would only return permission errors. Once an admin finishes, everyone’s Dashboard, Forecast and Opportunities fill in automatically — members have nothing to do.

The three milestones

A progress panel at the top of Onboarding tracks the path to your first number:

1. Connect CRM
2. Import history
3. View your first forecast

Each milestone shows done/elapsed state, and the panel’s primary button adapts to whichever step is next — including a one-click Import history button once a CRM is connected.

Getting data in: pick one

Connect a CRM

Two connectors sit side by side on the Onboarding screen and write into the same canonical event log, so point-in-time reconstruction behaves identically whichever you use:

• Salesforce — a six-step guided checklist (below). See Connect Salesforce.
• HubSpot — a self-contained card with its own connect / verify / backfill actions. See Connect HubSpot.

Upload a spreadsheet

No supported CRM? An Import from a spreadsheet card accepts a CSV of your open deals and turns it into the same kind of events a CRM backfill writes. It is refused (with a plain-English message) if a CRM is already connected — mixing the two sources in one event log would corrupt your history. See Import a spreadsheet.

Explore with sample data first

Before connecting anything, an admin can click Explore with sample data to seed a fictional pipeline — 48 deals across 6 reps — so every screen has something in it. The app labels it as fiction while it is active, one click removes it, and it clears itself when you connect a real source. It can only be added to an empty workspace with no CRM connected.

The Salesforce checklist, step by step

The Salesforce card renders a six-step accordion. It opens the first step that is not yet complete and advances as each one succeeds; you can also click any step header to reopen it.

1. Connect Salesforce

A form for your login URL, your app credentials and the auth mode (Client Credentials, or username + password). Secret fields are always blank when the form loads — the server never returns a stored secret. Once the connection is verified this step also grows a “Sync data” section with a re-import button, because the backfill is idempotent and safe to re-run.

2. Verify connection

Runs a live check against Salesforce. On success it reports your org facts (instance, timezone, fiscal start) and a per-object/per-field permission checklist, so you learn whether the credentials have enough access — not merely that authentication worked. Missing objects, missing fields, a missing OpportunityFieldHistory read, and the Change Data Capture advisory each render as a failed row with a remediation hint.

3. Confirm fiscal calendar

Read-only confirmation of the org timezone and fiscal-start month learned during Verify. For a custom (4-4-5 / 13-period) fiscal org, the explicit quarter boundaries are pulled from Salesforce during Verify; if that pull failed, this step exposes a Sync fiscal periods action to retry it on its own. A standard fiscal org simply reports that it has no custom periods.

4. Map fields

Review which Salesforce field is your amount, stage, close date and so on, plus the derive-from-stage value map. Each canonical field shows a three-state history audit: history-tracked, current-only, or unavailable.

Saving validates activation server-side. A required field with no readable value source is rejected, and so is a value map that does not cover every historical stage value — the offending entries are listed inline and the step does not advance. A current-only field does not block activation: Salesforce history is forward-only, so it accrues later.

5. Backfill history

Starts a durable background job and then polls its state, so “you can safely leave this page” is literally true — closing the tab does not stop it. You will see queued / running, then either the imported-event count or the (non-secret) failure reason with a retry button. The step is disabled until the connection is verified.

6. Validate numbers

The final milestone. Pipemetry compares its reconstructed open-pipeline total (built from the event log, as of now) against a live Salesforce aggregate — SELECT SUM(Amount) FROM Opportunity WHERE IsClosed = false — and passes when the signed difference is within 0.5%. You get the verdict, both totals, the signed percentage delta, and a per-bucket breakdown.

If it cannot run yet (no verified connection, no backfill, or Salesforce unreachable) it says so plainly rather than reporting a failure.

After setup completes

• A Proof: backtest your history card appears, linking to the Accuracy page’s backtest — what Pipemetry would have forecast at the start, middle and end of your past quarters, scored against what actually closed. See Accuracy and backtesting.
• An Invite your reps card lists CRM deal owners who have no Pipemetry login yet and opens the member-invite drawer pre-filled for each. It hides itself when there is nobody to invite.