Once you've decided that sheepCRM is right for your organisation, our Sales team aligns your needs with sheepCRM and our expertise, confirms onboarding availability and completes the contract, then completes a detailed handover to the Onboarding team.

You'll complete the Onboarding Preparation Form, we will lock in our schedule and book your project kick-off.

Payments will be taken by sheepCRM when:

At sheepCRM we believe membership success is a journey, not a destination — a series of climbs, each with its own challenges. We picture it as three mountains: the Foundation of Success (systems and stability), the Peak of Insight (data-driven insight), and the Summit of Growth (engagement and growth).

Your onboarding project is how we conquer the first mountain together. It establishes the solid foundation — reliable systems, clean data, confident users, and well-mapped workflows — that everything else is built on. This is expert-led work, not simply switching on software, and the structure, guidance, and knowledge transfer delivered during onboarding is the single biggest factor in how quickly your organisation reaches stable, productive use of sheepCRM and begins climbing towards insight and growth.

Because we've guided this climb many times, that experience is built into every workshop, task list, and checkpoint. Across the journey, your onboarding covers a substantial body of expert work, including:

Just like a guided mountain ascent, we plan the route and prepare the equipment before we climb. That structure protects your timeline and budget — front-loading the right decisions, avoiding costly rework, and leaving your team genuinely capable of running sheepCRM rather than dependent on us for day-to-day use.

This is where foundations are laid. A dedicated Project Manager and Project Sponsor from sheepCRM connect with your Project Sponsor and Project Manager at a Kick-Off Meeting to confirm goals, scope, and roles. Through the Preparation Workshops we plan your migrations (data, content/website, payments, integrations), explore your workflows, jobs-to-be-done, segmentation and reporting needs, and carry out Solution Mapping to align the platform to your goals. We then build a draft project plan and introduce your Training & Adoption Success Plan. Exit: you have a draft project plan to guide training and decisions.

Your system stops being theoretical and becomes real. We complete the base set-up of your flock, bring everyone together in a Full Team Workshop (if required), and run sheepCRM Essentials and module-essentials training so your team builds hands-on confidence. A Solutions Review Meeting uses what we learned in training to refine the plan, before the Final Project Plan Briefing where you formally approve the locked plan. Exit: the plan is locked — set-up requirements, migration plan, and core workflows are agreed.

Your environment becomes tangible. Core Skills and Core Workflows training give your team the tools and best-practice understanding they need, while modules and settings are configured to your final plan. Through Set-Up Workshops 1 and 2 we progress configuration, content and data migration, and integrations. A Your Workflows training session turns standard workflows into your organisation-specific processes, and a Final Set-Up Check confirms readiness before a formal set-up sign-off. Exit: your system is ready to launch.

Final migrations are executed as defined by your plan, followed by a Pre-Launch Check 24–48 hours before launch (covering configuration, data, access, communications, and team readiness). Your organisation then leads the launch internally and externally, including rollout of the member-facing sheepApp where in scope, with our Launch Implementation support on hand. Exit: you've launched to your team and your members.

We review the launch together at a Post Launch Meeting, provide a Post Launch Training Session if needed, complete final checks and formal project closure, and transition you into ongoing Customer Success support (including check-ins). This is the end of setup — and the beginning of the climb towards insight and growth.

We break every phase into milestones, and each milestone into specific task lists, so both teams know exactly what work is needed to complete it. We run this on a PLAN → DO → CHECK approach: we plan what's needed, assign tasks to do it, then check it's complete. To move to the next step, the current step's actions must be completed and checked first.

We allocate project days in advance for meetings, workshops, and task completion by both teams — task completion is the primary purpose of these days. There will also be tasks to complete remotely between sessions, which your Project Manager coordinates. We'll agree a project window with built-in contingency, but your project needs to be a high priority for your team so we complete on time.

Please ensure you pre-allocate enough time, with the right people attending, and treat every session with a sheepCRM team member as a learning experience — arriving with clear responsibilities allocated for things like note-taking so the knowledge transferred is retained.

Throughout the process we provide detailed tasks and articles making clear who does what. At a high level:

The general approach. Our aim is to make sheepCRM simple and highly effective, operating in line with best practice across all our customers. A core principle is self-service: sheepCRM is designed for self-management, with expert services available when you need us to guide or complete the next leg of your journey. Many things you can configure yourself; some things we need to do for you. These are made clear throughout onboarding.

These can be the same people across several roles in smaller teams.

⚠️ Please do not send data samples or exports by email. We provide Google Sheets templates or a secure transfer mechanism.

Launch is a planned sequence — loading final data, activating integrations, switching on communications and automations, and rolling out sheepApp where in scope. With your system live, your data in place, and your team trained, your members can begin experiencing the benefits, and your organisation moves from project to platform — and on to the next mountain.

There's more detail to each of these areas, and others we'll cover during your project. Please let us know if you have any questions in the meantime.