# Introduction and settings

The introduction after your first sign-in, the “Getting started” list and how to find what you need in Settings.

## The introduction

After creating an account, Flowplan walks you through the essentials once. Every step can be skipped, and everything can be changed later in the settings:

::: steps

1. **Welcome**: language and appearance (automatic, light or dark).
2. **Set up the instance** (admins only): a traffic light for address and HTTPS, e-mail delivery, backup, sign-in and AI, each with the way into the administration ([Set up the instance](/administration#set-up-the-instance)). (since 0.9.7)
3. **Where are you coming from?** **Notion**, **AFFiNE**, **Obsidian**, **Evernote**, **Confluence**, **Google Docs / Word** or **Start fresh**. When you pick a tool, Flowplan shows step by step where its export is and which file you need, and with **Choose file and import** imports it right into your first space – with progress and result ([Moving to Flowplan](/migrate)). (since 0.9.7)
4. **What it's called here** (only after picking a tool): what you know from the tool and what it is called in Flowplan – the same, similar or without a counterpart ([Terms when moving](/migrate-glossary)). (since 0.9.7)
5. **What would you like to start with?** Set the workspace's name (as its owner) and say **what you mainly use Flowplan for**: **Personal**, **Team & knowledge**, **Projects & tickets**, **Study & writing** or **Something else**. Flowplan then suggests matching pages – such as a task list, journal, habit tracker and reading list for yourself, or a team wiki, meeting log, decision log and project plan for a team – which you click and create as you go on (for example **Create 2 and continue**). **Create sample space** makes a private space with sample pages (a project, a wiki with a meeting note, a whiteboard); **Remove sample space** takes exactly these pages out again, pages of your own in it stay. If you have no [settings level](#settings-levels) of your own yet, the answer sets one: **Personal** Beginner, team, projects and study Normal; **Something else** keeps the instance's default. (since 0.9.7)
6. **What Flowplan does**: a short tour of pages and blocks, databases, whiteboards, the journal, collaboration, sharing, search and offline – each with a tip and a link into this documentation.
7. **Notifications**: e-mail summaries (when the instance sends e-mail) and push on this device.
8. **Work without a connection too?** offers [offline use](/offline-and-apps#turn-on-offline-use) on this device, with what gets stored for it: **Use offline**, **Later** or **Don't ask again**. Left out where offline cannot work, in the apps (they ask themselves) and when it is on already. (since 0.9.7)
9. **All set**: the created and imported pages to open and the most important shortcuts.

:::

Later, **Settings → Appearance & language → Show introduction** (or "introduction" in the search with ++⌘/Ctrl K++) opens it again. Accounts that existed before the introduction was added do not see it automatically.

> [!TIP]
> Moving from Notion, AFFiNE, Obsidian, Evernote, Confluence or Google Docs? You can do it in the introduction (step **Where are you coming from?**) and at any time under **Settings → Import & export**. What comes along and how best to go about it is in [Moving to Flowplan](/migrate).

### Getting started in the sidebar (since 0.9.7)

After the introduction, the **Getting started** list waits in the sidebar with its progress ("2 of 6"): **Write a first page**, **Create a task**, **Invite someone** (for owners), **Install the app**, **Try search and commands** and **Import content** – the last one not if you already imported in the introduction. Every item has a button that takes you there (such as **New page** or **Open import**). Page, task, invitation and import tick themselves once you have done them; the app and the search are reported by the browser, and you can tick any item by hand. The list can be folded (the browser remembers it) and hidden for good with **Hide the list**; **Show getting started** in the command palette (++⌘/Ctrl K++) brings it back. If there is a sample space, you can remove it here too. Only people who went through the introduction get the list.

## Settings: overview and search

You open **Settings** in the sidebar. The overview has one tile per section in the groups **Personal**, **Connections**, **Workspace** and **Help & info**; the search at the top (“Search settings …”) finds single settings, also those above your level (see below). Every section has its own link, e.g. `/#settings/notifications`. For admins, the instance's settings are under [Administration](/administration).

## Settings levels (since 0.9.7)

So that not everything is there at once at the start, every personal setting belongs to one of three **levels**: **Beginner** (the essentials to start with – such as language, appearance, name, password, passkeys, the basics of notifications and capturing), **Normal** (most settings) and **Expert** (all of them, also those for developers and advanced use – such as API tokens, webhooks, block extensions or customizing the formatting toolbar). You see the settings up to your level; higher ones are hidden.

- **Switch level:** at the very top of Settings under **Settings level**. The choice applies to your account on all devices.
- **Marks:** settings with a level of their own carry a sign – a green circle for Beginner, a yellow diamond for Normal, a red triangle for Expert (the tooltip says "Level: …").
- **What is missing:** below a section it says how many settings belong to higher levels ("3 more settings belong to higher levels."); **Show anyway** shows them for now. Sections that lie entirely above your level are left out of the overview and the navigation.
- **The search finds everything:** settings above your level also appear in the search, with their sign and, for example, "Expert level". When you open one, Flowplan says "This setting belongs to the Expert level." and offers **Switch level: Expert** and **Show anyway**.

New accounts start with the instance's default – **Normal**, unless the administration sets another one ([Settings level for new accounts](/administration#instance)); the answer in the [introduction](#the-introduction) can adjust it. Accounts that existed before the levels are on **Expert** and so see everything as before. Admins can set a person's level under [Users](/user-management#users). The **Administration** itself has no levels: admins always see everything there.