# Get started with Piste > Sign up for Piste, connect your Shopify store, choose Slack or iMessage, and ask your first question. Setup is three short screens on the web. Source: https://www.usepiste.com/docs/quickstart To start with Piste, create an account at https://app.usepiste.com/sign-up, connect your Shopify store, and choose whether Piste reaches you in Slack, over iMessage or only on the web. Setup is three short screens. Piste then reads your store live, so it can answer from your first question, with nothing to import. ## What do I need before I start? - **Your Shopify store's address.** It's in your Shopify admin's address bar: `admin.shopify.com/store/your-store`. You approve Piste's access on Shopify's own screen. - **Slack or iMessage, if you want them.** To add Slack you pick a Slack workspace and approve the app. To use iMessage you send Piste one text from your phone. The person who signs up becomes the workspace's [owner](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/team): the one person who signs in on the web, connects accounts and sets up automations. ## How do I set up Piste? ### 1. Create your account Go to https://app.usepiste.com/sign-up and sign up. The page reads "First 30 days free, with no contract". You land on the first setup screen, Welcome. ### 2. Tell Piste who you are Fill in `Your name` and `Store name`. `Website` is optional: Piste reads it to get to know your brand, and uses it to guess your store's address. Press `Continue`. ![The Welcome screen of Piste's setup, step 1 of 3, with Your name, an optional Website and Store name](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/images/onboarding-welcome-light.png) ### 3. Connect your Shopify store On "Connect your Shopify store", type your `Store address`: the part before `.myshopify.com`. Press `Connect Shopify`. Shopify's own screen asks you to let Piste read your orders, products, inventory, discounts, locations and marketing events. That access only reads, and covers the last 60 days of orders. Sales reports, older orders and any change to your store are separate permissions, granted later from Piste's page in your Shopify admin. Approve, and you come straight back to the card marked `Connected`. Press `Continue`. ### 4. Choose where Piste reaches you On "Where should Piste reach you?", Piste on the web is always on. Press `Add to Slack` to pick a Slack workspace and approve the app, or `Connect iMessage` to send Piste one text that's already written for you. You can add both. Press `Continue`, or `Skip, just the web`. ### 5. Go to where Piste is waiting The last screen, "Piste is ready" under a small "All set", sends you on with `Open Slack`, `Open Messages` or `Open the web chat`. If you added Slack during setup, Piste's first message arrives in your Slack direct messages in about a minute. > **Installed Piste from the Shopify App Store?** > Open Piste from your Shopify admin and press `Connect to your Piste workspace`. In the new tab, sign in or sign up, then press `Connect store`. The link works for 30 minutes. See [Shopify](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/shopify) for more. ## Can I skip part of setup? Yes. Every screen after Welcome can be skipped: - `Skip for now` on the store screen, while no store is connected. - `Skip, just the web` on the screen that asks where Piste reaches you. - `Skip setup`, at the top right from the store screen onwards, ends setup and takes you to [Home](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/web-app). Whatever you skip waits on Home's "Get Piste up to speed" list, and on the Connections page, which is in the links at the foot of the sidebar. ## What happens after setup? **Slack** Within about a minute, Piste opens a direct message with you and starts its onboarding conversation, the Kickoff: 1. It reads your store and tells you the two or three largest things it found, each with its numbers and where they came from. It may propose one fix as a card. 2. It offers to watch something for you, such as Change follow-ups, and starts the one you pick in its own Slack channel. 3. It ends with a plan for your first week. Reply in that thread. A new message at the top of the DM starts a conversation that doesn't know the Kickoff. For the next week, Piste sends at most one message a day in that thread, at 9am on weekdays in your workspace's time zone, and only when there's something to say. Around day 7 it sums up the week and stops. To stop it sooner, press `Stop the daily messages`. The Kickoff follows only a workspace's first Slack install, made during setup or within 24 hours of finishing it. See [Slack](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/slack). **iMessage** As soon as your text arrives, your phone gets "You're connected to" your workspace, then Piste's contact card. Save it so the number is easy to find. Piste then sends its first message: something it found in your store, and an offer of a short brief by text each morning. iMessage has no buttons, so when something needs your approval, Piste sends a link to approve it on the web. See [iMessage](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/imessage). **Web** `Open the web chat` takes you to Home at https://app.usepiste.com/chat. Type a question in the box, or pick a quick action under it. A quick action fills the box and never sends on its own. See [Web app](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/web-app). ## What should I ask Piste first? Piste answers from your live store data. These questions work with the access Shopify gives Piste when you install it: | Ask | What Piste reads | |---|---| | "How did yesterday go?" | Yesterday's sales, net sales, refunds, orders and average order value, against the day before | | "Find order #1042 and tell me what's in it." | One order's items, discount codes, totals, refunds and status | | "Which orders from the last week haven't been fulfilled?" | Your orders, searched by date and fulfilment status | | "How many of each size of the Linen Shirt are left?" | One product's variants, with each one's price and stock | | "Which products have short descriptions or no SEO title?" | Each product's description length, and whether it has an SEO title and meta description | The install doesn't give Piste your customers' details, so start with sales, orders and products. Without sales reports, Piste reports your sales one day at a time, over the last 30 days. To add them, open Piste from your Shopify admin and choose `Allow Piste to read your sales reports`. Then you can ask about any period, such as "How did last week go?", "What sold best over the last seven days?" or "What's about to sell out?". For orders from more than 60 days ago, choose `Allow access to older orders`. See [Shopify](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/shopify) for every permission and what it's for. ## What should I set up next? Home's "Get Piste up to speed" list shows what's left, and goes once all six steps are done: 1. "Connect your Shopify store" 2. "Reach Piste in Slack or iMessage" 3. "Connect an ad account" (early access) 4. "Install a playbook" 5. "Set up your first automation" 6. "Try an automation now" A good first automation is the morning sales briefing, which works with the access the install gives. A stock watch needs sales reports. When you create an automation from a template on the Automations page, or ask Piste for one in a chat, its first run is a dry run: it reads your store and writes its report, but changes nothing and posts nothing. ## Related - [How Piste works](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/how-piste-works): what Piste reads, what it does on its own, and what waits for a person. - [Automations](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/automations): checks that run on a schedule and report back. - [Templates](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/automations/templates): the ready-made automations, filled in from your store. - [Team and roles](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/team): how your team uses Piste through Slack. ## Questions ### How long does it take to set up Piste? The setup screens say about three minutes. There are three of them (Welcome, your store, and where Piste reaches you), then a last screen that sends you to wherever Piste is waiting. ### Do I have to connect Shopify during setup? No. Choose "Skip for now" on the store screen, or "Skip setup" at the top right, and connect your store later on the Connections page in the web app. Piste can't answer questions about your store until it's connected. ### Do I need Slack to use Piste? No. Piste on the web always works, and you can text it over iMessage instead. Slack adds channels for your automations, and cards your team can decide on. ### I added Piste to Slack but it didn't message me. Why? Piste starts its onboarding conversation only after a workspace's first Slack install, made during setup or within 24 hours of finishing it. After any other install it sends one line, "Piste is connected. Message me here, or mention me in a channel I've been added to.", and waits for you to write first. ### Is there a free trial? The sign-up page says your first 30 days are free, with no contract. There's no billing screen in the app.