---
title: Quickstart
description: Get from a new account to a working board, a moving ticket, a wiki page, and an invited colleague in about five minutes.
section: Start here
order: 2
---

# Quickstart

This takes about five minutes and leaves you with a real board: a ticket that
has an owner and has moved through the workflow, one wiki page, and a colleague
on their way in.

Every step says what you should see, so you can tell it worked before moving on.

## Before you start

You need:

- **A Laver account.** Sign up at the login page. If you signed up from an
  invitation you joined someone else's workspace; if you signed up on your own,
  Laver created a workspace for you called _Your name's workspace_, already
  holding a board named **General** and a wiki.
- **A workspace with a live subscription.** A new workspace is locked until its
  owner starts one. See step 2 — if the workspace you were invited to is already
  running, skip it.

Which role each step needs:

| Step                             | Role required                                     |
| -------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------- |
| Create a workspace               | any signed-in user (you become its owner)         |
| Start the subscription           | owner only                                        |
| Create a board                   | owner, admin, or member                           |
| Create, assign, and move tickets | owner, admin, or member, on a board you can reach |
| Add a wiki page                  | owner, admin, or member                           |
| Invite a colleague               | owner or admin                                    |

Viewers can read everything they have access to and change nothing.
[Roles and permissions](/docs/workspaces-and-access/roles-and-permissions) has
the full table.

## 1. Sign in and pick a workspace

Sign in. You land on the dashboard, which is the board view.

At the top of the left sidebar is the **Workspace** switcher showing the current
workspace name. Click it to list the workspaces you belong to, or to create a
new one with **New workspace**.

If someone has invited you, a banner appears across the top of the dashboard
reading _"… invited you to … as member"_, with **Join** and **Decline**. Click
**Join** to accept.

**You should see:** the workspace name in the switcher, and under **Boards** in
the sidebar, the boards you can reach in this workspace.

## 2. Start the subscription (owner only)

New workspaces have no subscription, and a workspace without one is locked —
opening it bounces you straight to the Billing page with a banner saying the
workspace has not started yet.

In the sidebar, open **Billing** and click **Start 14-day free trial**. You are
sent to Stripe to enter a card and returned to Laver. A card is required to
start the trial; nothing is charged for fourteen days, and the trial is
available once per workspace.

Only the owner sees this button. Everyone else sees _"Only the workspace owner
can change the plan."_ — if that is you, ask the owner and wait here.

**You should see:** the red banner replaced by a _Trial_ notice with the end
date, and **Plan** reading **Pro (trial)**. Click **Back to boards**.

## 3. Open the starter board, or create one

Every new workspace comes with a board called **General**, so you can simply
click it under **Boards**.

To create another, click **New board** at the bottom of the boards list, type a
name, and click **Create board**.

**You should see:** the board open with three columns across the main area, and
its name in the sidebar. A brand-new board has no tickets and each column reads
_"Drop a task here or add the first one."_

## 4. Read the three starting columns

Every new board starts with the same three columns, in this order:

1. **Backlog** — everything accepted but not started.
2. **In progress** — the small set of tickets someone is actively working on.
3. **Done** — finished work. This is the board's completion column: it is what
   "finished" means for sprint carry-over and for the tick shortcut on a card.

You can rename any column (the pencil next to its name), drag columns into a
different order, and add more with **Add column** on the right of the board.
There is no way to delete a column or to change which one counts as complete —
see [Statuses and workflow](/docs/concepts/statuses-and-workflow).

**You should see:** the three column headings, each with a count of `0` beside it.

## 5. Create a ticket

Click **Add task** at the bottom of the **Backlog** column (or **New task** in
the board header, or press `C`). Type a title — the box asks _"What needs
doing?"_ — and click **Add task**.

**You should see:** a card with your title at the bottom of Backlog, and the
count in the Backlog heading go from `0` to `1`.

## 6. Assign it

Click the card to open the ticket. In the top-left of the panel, click the
avatar area labelled **Manage assignees** and pick yourself, or any active
workspace member. A ticket can have several assignees.

While the ticket is open you can also set **Priority**, a **Due date**,
**Labels**, and a description. Close it with **Close**.

**You should see:** your initials or avatar on the card on the board. (If you
don't, check **Card display** in the board header — _Show assignees_ is on by
default.)

## 7. Move it through the workflow

Any of these moves the ticket, and all three do the same thing:

- Drag the card into another column.
- Open the ticket and change the **Status** dropdown.
- Hover the card and click the tick shortcut, which sends it straight to the
  completion column.

Move your ticket to **In progress**, then to **Done**.

**You should see:** the card in its new column, the two column counts change,
and — if a colleague has the same board open — the card move on their screen
within a second or two, without a refresh.

## 8. Add a wiki page

Under **Workspace tools** in the sidebar, click **Wiki**. The workspace's wiki
opens with an empty page tree.

Click the **+** beside **Pages**, give the page a name in the _Give this page a
name_ dialog, and click **Create page**. Type into the body; the page saves as
you write.

The wiki belongs to the workspace, not to a board, so every member and viewer of
the workspace can read it regardless of which boards they have. More in
[Wiki pages](/docs/wiki/wiki-pages).

**You should see:** the page listed under **Pages** in the left rail, with its
title at the top of the editor and the page under **Recent**.

## 9. Invite a colleague (owner or admin)

Go back to the boards, then open **User access** in the sidebar. This link only
appears for owners and admins.

On the **People** tab click **Invite user**, then:

1. Enter their email address.
2. Choose a role — **Viewer (read only)**, **Member**, or **Admin**. Owner is
   not in the list; ownership moves through a separate transfer.
3. For a viewer or member, tick the boards they should get under **Board
   access**. Admins reach every board and the checkboxes are disabled for them.
4. Click **Send invitation**.

They get an emailed link that expires in seven days. If they already have a
Laver account, nothing happens to it until they act: the invitation waits for
them as a banner on their dashboard with **Join** and **Decline**.

Note before you invite: owners, admins, and members each take a billable seat,
and viewers are free. [Invitations](/docs/workspaces-and-access/invitations) has
the details, including resending and revoking.

**You should see:** the invitation listed under the **Invitations** tab with its
expiry, and the recipient's name appear on the **People** tab once they join.

## Where next

- **Sprints.** Turn a board into a repeating series and let Laver open the next
  one on schedule, carrying unfinished tickets across —
  [Sprints](/docs/boards-and-tickets/sprints).
- **The API.** Everything above is an API call, and workspace-scoped API keys
  are issued on the **API keys** tab of **User access**. Start at the
  [API quickstart](/docs/agents-and-api/quickstart), then
  [tickets by API](/docs/agents-and-api/tickets-by-api).
- **Bringing existing work in.** Laver has no import screen. To move work from
  another tool, create the tickets through the API — column names can be used
  instead of uuids, so a script can post straight into "To Do".
- **When something refuses.** Most refusals are a role, a lapsed subscription,
  or a version conflict — [Common errors](/docs/troubleshooting/errors).