v0.1.126: Fixing the Permanent Onboarding Checklist Dismissal

Release: v0.1.126 | Category: UI/UX — Usability

---

The Problem

Onboarding checklists exist to help new users — and new team members — get up and running quickly. Ours has a dismiss button. That's fine; not everyone needs hand-holding through every step. The problem is what happens after you click it: the checklist disappears permanently.

There is no "Getting Started" link in the sidebar. There is no entry in the user menu. The dismiss is irreversible — the component simply returns nothing. If you were an admin who dismissed the checklist on day one and later hired three new people, none of them ever saw it.

This is the issue tracked in v0.1.126.

Why It Matters

Organisations using a platform like ours are not static. Teams grow. People join mid-rollout. Roles change. A dismiss action taken by one person on one day should not silently block everyone else from ever accessing onboarding guidance.

The real failure here isn't the dismiss button — it's the assumption that the person who dismisses it has finished with it forever, on behalf of the whole organisation.

What We're Changing

We're making three targeted changes, each solving a different part of the problem.

Dismiss Collapses, Not Hides

The dismiss button will no longer remove the checklist from the page. Instead, it will collapse it to a compact progress ribbon:

[ Getting Started: 4/5 complete → ]

Clicking the ribbon reopens the full checklist in a slide-over panel. The checklist is never gone — it is just out of the way. Users who are done with it barely notice it. Users who need it can find it immediately.

A Persistent Entry Point in the Sidebar

A Getting Started link will live in the sidebar footer or user menu. It opens the checklist as a slide-over panel. This link is always present, regardless of dismissal state. New team members joining after go-live will have exactly the same access as the first person who signed up.

Setup Progress in Organisation Settings

The checklist state will be mirrored in Settings → Organisation → Setup Progress. This is the admin-facing source of truth for how far through setup an organisation has gotten. It also acts as a permanent fallback: even if someone collapses the ribbon and ignores the sidebar link, the setup progress is one navigation away.

Immediate Workarounds

If you've already dismissed the checklist and need to revisit onboarding steps before the fix ships:

• Use the documentation on this site — all setup steps are documented here.
• Share documentation links directly with new team members.
• Contact support to request a checklist reset for your organisation.

Looking Ahead

This fix is a small but meaningful change to how the platform treats onboarding state. The underlying principle is simple: a dismissal should mean "I don't want this front and centre right now", not "I and everyone who works with me is done with this forever". The ribbon, the sidebar link, and the settings section each reflect that distinction.

Full technical details and workaround steps are in the Known Issue page.