Onboarding checklist
A tick-list to take your store from a fresh Enscale install to messaging customers safely and automatically.
Work through this in order. Each phase builds on the one before it, and you can stop at any point and come back — nothing half-finished will misbehave.
If you only do Phases 1–4, you already have a working shared inbox. Everything after that is upside.
Phase 1 — Get installed
- Install Enscale from the Shopify App Store.
- Approve the permissions Shopify asks for.
- Confirm the Enscale dashboard loads inside your Shopify admin.
- Finish the first-run setup wizard — timezone and business hours.
- Open Settings → Billing and check you can see your trial and usage.
Phase 2 — Connect your channels
Connect the ones you actually use. You don't need all four.
- WhatsApp — connect this if you'll use campaigns or automations at all.
- Instagram — if you get DMs or want to auto-reply to comments.
- Facebook — if you get Messenger enquiries.
- Webchat — if you want a chat bubble on your store.
- Message your store from your own phone, on each channel you connected.
- Confirm each test message lands in your inbox.
Don't skip the test message
This is the single most common cause of "Enscale isn't working". A channel can look connected in settings and still not deliver, usually because of a permission that wasn't granted on Meta's side. Two minutes now saves an afternoon later.
Phase 3 — Sort out consent
Boring, and the thing most likely to get your WhatsApp number restricted if you get it wrong.
- Decide how customers will opt in — a checkout checkbox, a popup, a "reply YES" keyword, or an existing list.
- If you're importing contacts, confirm they genuinely opted in already. Don't import a list you bought.
- Confirm unsubscribe handling is on for campaigns.
- Read how Enscale skips non-consenting contacts so a small send doesn't surprise you.
- If you're in the EU or UK, skim Data export and deletion so you know how to answer a customer request.
Phase 4 — Get your team in
- Invite whoever answers your messages: Team and roles.
- Decide who gets Shopify admin access and who only needs the standalone team inbox.
- Have someone other than you reply to a test conversation.
- Check the customer's Shopify orders show up beside the conversation.
- Agree who handles what — by tag, by channel, or by assignment.
At this point you have a working shared inbox. Everything below adds automation and revenue on top.
Phase 5 — Your first automation
Start small. One safe automation you understand beats five you don't.
Recommended first build — a post-purchase review request:
- Trigger: order delivered.
- Wait: 2 days.
- Check: does this customer have WhatsApp opt-in? If not, stop.
- Send: a review request template with a verified review link.
- Build it: Build your first workflow.
- Test it on a real order of your own before publishing.
- Set it Active.
- Come back in a week and check it actually ran.
Phase 6 — Before your first campaign
- Confirm you're on a paid plan (campaigns aren't on Free).
- Sync your Meta-approved templates: Message templates.
- Check your template's category — marketing and utility are priced differently by Meta.
- Build a small test audience of people you know. Send to them first.
- Look at the skipped-contacts count before you hit send, and understand why anyone was skipped.
- Check the estimated Meta charge. This is billed by Meta, not Enscale.
Your first campaign should go to under 20 people. A template that reads badly, or a broken link, is a lot cheaper to discover at 20 recipients than at 5,000.
Phase 7 — Before turning on AI
- Confirm you're on a paid plan.
- Fill in your knowledge base — shipping, returns, sizing, the questions you answer daily.
- Set the agent's tone and what it's allowed to talk about: AI agents.
- Set your handover rules — when it must fetch a human.
- Ask it five real questions yourself and read the answers critically.
- Confirm a handed-over conversation reaches your inbox with the AI's exchange visible.
- Set a spend cap: AI usage and spend.
You're ready when
- A customer message reaches your inbox, and your reply reaches them.
- The right Shopify customer and orders appear beside a conversation.
- Your opt-in collection is running.
- One automation has published and run successfully.
- Your team knows where to work.
- You know where to check your usage and what your plan includes.
Next steps
- Getting started — the guided version of Phases 1–5.
- Plans and limits — what happens when you hit a cap.
- Team inbox — the standalone app for your agents.
- Troubleshooting — when a step above doesn't work.