Onboarding breaks when briefs, assets and access requests scatter across email. One auditable flow beats twelve polite threads.
The 48-hour onboarding sequence
- Hour 0: Send portal link + checklist (access, assets, stakeholders, goals).
- Day 1: Auto-remind missing items. Internal owner assigned in CRM.
- Day 2: Kickoff only if checklist threshold met (e.g. 80% complete).
- Week 1: Signed-off brief stored as version 1. No kickoff slides renegotiating scope.
Checklist items that actually matter
- Brand assets in correct formats.
- Platform access (with expiry on shared credentials).
- Single decision maker for approvals.
- Success metric agreed in writing.
Use this as a working checklist inside your team first. When the same steps repeat every week and spreadsheets start breaking, that is usually the moment to scope a secure portal for onboarding status, account actions, files, approvals and customer messages as an owned system. See the relevant Standen service · More guides · SaaS ops audit.