Signing up and the set-up questions

Sign up

1. On the Chalkedin home page, press Sign up free.
2. Type your name and email address (your business is optional), then press Email me my sign-up link.
3. Open the email from Chalkedin with the subject Finish signing up for Chalkedin and press Choose my password. The link is open for 48 hours. If it hasn’t arrived after a few minutes, look in your junk or spam folder.
4. Choose a password of at least 12 characters (a short sentence works well), tick that you agree to the beta terms and the privacy policy, and press Create my account.

You sign in with the address you signed up with. It can be changed later under Account.

The first three questions

Straight after signing up, Chalkedin asks three things. Everything here can be changed later in Settings.

1. About you: your name (the name your customers say yes to), and optionally your role, business and mobile.
2. Where replies go: the address your customers’ answers are emailed to (your sign-in address unless you change it), your time zone, and how dates read.
3. What you book: Meetings, Appointments, Inspections or a word of your own, and where you meet.

Press Finish and you can send your first link straight away.

The rest of the set-up

Ten more short questions make Chalkedin fit the way you work. They take about four minutes, and you can stop part way: choose Later: take me to Home and they wait for you on Home. Each has Skip, keep the usual if you’re not sure.

1. Where you meet your customers: you go to them, they come to you, or online. See Online meetings.
2. Your working week: your hours and working days. See Business hours, days and time zone.
3. How links go out: by email, text message or both, and whether unanswered links expire. See How long a link stays open (auto-expiry).
4. Links with no name, for addresses such as info@. See Writing to a general address (No name).
5. What you ask your customer: surname, company, address, email, and the PPE question. See What is kept about your customers, and for how long.
6. If the time doesn’t suit: whether they can suggest another. See When they ask for another time.
7. How long their details are kept. See What is kept about your customers, and for how long.
8. Your look: your chalk colour and how the link appears in an email. See Your chalk colour and how the link looks.
9. Your calendar: sharing it, and bringing in your busy times. See Show Chalkedin times in your own calendar.
10. Check your email: what your customer will receive, with your details in it.

Running it again

To go through the questions again, open Settings, choose the Your details tab, and press Run the set-up again at the foot. It shows your answers as they stand, and anything you change there is changed in Settings too.