> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.vortexiq.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Get started with Vortex IQ in five minutes

> Sign up, connect your first source, run your first query on Ask Viq, and review live findings on the Nerve Centre - no developer, no credit card required.

The promise on the signup page is "looking at audit findings on your own store inside a few minutes." This page is the end-to-end walkthrough for that promise. You will sign up, connect your commerce platform, watch the first audit run, and review your first findings on the Kanban board - all without writing a line of code or configuring a rule.

## Before you begin

Vortex IQ runs entirely in your browser. You do not need to install anything. Check that you have:

* A modern browser (Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari 16+, Brave, or Arc)
* Your store admin credentials for your commerce platform (Shopify, BigCommerce, or Adobe Commerce)
* A work email address

<Note>
  Pop-up blockers can interrupt the OAuth connector flow. Allow pop-ups for `app.vortexiq.ai` before you start to avoid a silent failure mid-step.
</Note>

## Step 1: Sign up

Choose the account type that matches how you work. Both types use the same six modules; the difference is workspace structure and billing.

<Tabs>
  <Tab title="Merchant signup">
    A merchant account is for brand owners and in-house ecommerce teams running one storefront.

    <Steps>
      <Step title="Go to the signup page">
        Navigate to `app.vortexiq.ai` and click **Get started**.
      </Step>

      <Step title="Choose your account type">
        Select **Merchant** when prompted. This creates one workspace scoped to a single storefront.
      </Step>

      <Step title="Sign in with Google or a magic link">
        You have two options:

        * **Continue with Google** — one click, your email is verified immediately by Google.
        * **Magic link** — enter your work email, receive a single-use link, click it to verify and enter your workspace.

        If the magic link does not arrive, check spam and promotional folders. The sender domain is `vortexiq.ai`.
      </Step>

      <Step title="Sign in with Google or a magic link">
        You have two options:

        * **Continue with Google** - one click, your email is verified immediately by Google.
        * **Magic link** - enter your work email, receive a single-use link, click it to verify and enter your workspace.

        If the magic link does not arrive, check spam and promotional folders. The sender domain is `vortexiq.ai`.
      </Step>

      <Step title="Enter your company name">
        This becomes your workspace name. It is editable later from Settings, Account.
      </Step>
    </Steps>
  </Tab>

  <Tab title="Agency signup">
    An agency account is for agencies and partners managing multiple client storefronts from one place.

    <Steps>
      <Step title="Go to the signup page">
        Navigate to `app.vortexiq.ai` and click **Get started**.
      </Step>

      <Step title="Choose your account type">
        Select **Agency** when prompted. This creates a parent agency workspace plus the ability to add client child workspaces.
      </Step>

      <Step title="Sign in with Google or a magic link">
        You have two options:

        * **Continue with Google** — one click, your email is verified immediately by Google.
        * **Magic link** — enter your work email, receive a single-use link, click it to verify and enter your workspace.
      </Step>

      <Step title="Sign in with Google or a magic link">
        You have two options:

        * **Continue with Google** - one click, your email is verified immediately by Google.
        * **Magic link** - enter your work email, receive a single-use link, click it to verify and enter your workspace.
      </Step>

      <Step title="Enter your agency name">
        This becomes your parent workspace name. Client workspaces are added separately after signup from the workspace switcher.
      </Step>
    </Steps>

    <Info>
      Once inside, use the workspace switcher in the top-right of the dashboard to jump between client workspaces without re-signing in. The switcher only appears for agency accounts with active client partnerships.
    </Info>
  </Tab>
</Tabs>

## Step 2: Tell Vortex IQ what you care about

The first onboarding screen is **Tell us your interests**. Tick the areas that match your role:

| Area               | What it surfaces                               |
| ------------------ | ---------------------------------------------- |
| Sales              | Revenue, order volume, AOV, conversion         |
| Marketing          | Ad spend, email performance, traffic sources   |
| Inventory          | Stockouts, overstocks, SKU health              |
| Customer behaviour | Cart abandonment, retention, LTV               |
| Operations         | Fulfilment, helpdesk, refund rates             |
| Analytics          | Core Web Vitals, GA4 metrics, site performance |

Select as many as you like, or click **Select all** to tick every box at once. This seeds which agents and reports get surfaced first on your Nerve Centre. You can change it later from Settings.

## Step 3: Connect your first source

This is the highest-value step - the moment you wire your store, Vortex IQ begins building the connector graph.

<Tabs>
  <Tab title="Shopify">
    <Steps>
      <Step title="Click the Shopify tile">
        On the onboarding connector screen, click **Shopify**.
      </Step>

      <Step title="Enter your store URL">
        Type your `.myshopify.com` store URL — for example, `acmeoutdoors.myshopify.com`.
      </Step>

      <Step title="Enter your store URL">
        Type your `.myshopify.com` store URL - for example, `acmeoutdoors.myshopify.com`.
      </Step>

      <Step title="Click Connect">
        A pop-up opens at your Shopify admin. Sign in with your Shopify credentials, or your existing Shopify session takes you straight to the consent screen.
      </Step>

      <Step title="Review and approve the read scopes">
        Vortex IQ requests read access to: products, orders, customers, inventory, and analytics. No write scopes are requested at the connector step — write scopes are only requested when you deploy an Action that needs them.
      </Step>

      <Step title="Review and approve the read scopes">
        Vortex IQ requests read access to: products, orders, customers, inventory, and analytics. No write scopes are requested at the connector step - write scopes are only requested when you deploy an Action that needs them.
      </Step>

      <Step title="Click Install app">
        Shopify uses "install app" language for OAuth grants. Click it. The pop-up closes and you land back in Vortex IQ with a green **Connected** badge on the Shopify tile.
      </Step>
    </Steps>
  </Tab>

  <Tab title="BigCommerce">
    <Steps>
      <Step title="Click the BigCommerce tile">
        On the onboarding connector screen, click **BigCommerce**.
      </Step>

      <Step title="Enter your store hash">
        Enter the alphanumeric string from your BigCommerce admin URL — for example, `stores/abc123def`.
      </Step>

      <Step title="Enter your store hash">
        Enter the alphanumeric string from your BigCommerce admin URL - for example, `stores/abc123def`.
      </Step>

      <Step title="Click Connect">
        The BigCommerce OAuth flow runs. If you are already signed into your BigCommerce admin, it takes you straight to the consent screen.
      </Step>

      <Step title="Approve the read scopes">
        Approve read access to: products, orders, customers, and inventory. Then land back in Vortex IQ with the green Connected badge.
      </Step>
    </Steps>
  </Tab>

  <Tab title="Adobe Commerce">
    Adobe Commerce uses a credentials form rather than an OAuth pop-up.

    <Steps>
      <Step title="Click the Adobe Commerce tile">
        On the onboarding connector screen, click **Adobe Commerce**.
      </Step>

      <Step title="Enter your API base URL">
        Enter the REST API base URL for your store — for example, `https://shop.acmeoutdoors.com/rest/V1/`.
      </Step>

      <Step title="Enter your API base URL">
        Enter the REST API base URL for your store - for example, `https://shop.acmeoutdoors.com/rest/V1/`.
      </Step>

      <Step title="Enter your admin token">
        Generate a token in your Magento admin under System, Integrations, then paste it into the form.
      </Step>

      <Step title="Click Connect">
        Vortex IQ verifies the credentials and saves them encrypted. You land back on the connector screen with the Connected badge.
      </Step>
    </Steps>
  </Tab>

  <Tab title="Other platforms">
    Shopify, BigCommerce, and Adobe Commerce cover roughly 80% of merchant signups, but Vortex IQ connects to 215 integrations in total.

    <Steps>
      <Step title="Click More or use the search field">
        On the onboarding connector screen, click the **More** tile or use the **Find a connector** search field.
      </Step>

      <Step title="Find your platform">
        Search for your platform — NetSuite, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, WooCommerce, and many more are available — and select it.
      </Step>

      <Step title="Find your platform">
        Search for your platform - NetSuite, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, WooCommerce, and many more are available - and select it.
      </Step>

      <Step title="Follow the connector-specific flow">
        Each connector has its own OAuth or credentials form. Follow the prompts shown on screen.
      </Step>
    </Steps>
  </Tab>
</Tabs>

<Warning>
  If the OAuth pop-up does not open, your browser's pop-up blocker is likely blocking it. Allow pop-ups for `app.vortexiq.ai`, then click **Connect** again.
</Warning>

## Step 4: Watch the first data pull

The moment your connector lands in the connected state, Vortex IQ starts pulling data. You can see the pull progress on the Settings, Connected Sources page: products imported, orders imported, customers imported, inventory snapshotted.

For Shopify and BigCommerce, the initial pull typically takes 5 to 15 minutes for a mid-size store. You do not need to wait - the Nerve Centre tab for your connected platform appears immediately and starts populating cards as data arrives, and the Store Audit kicks off automatically in parallel.

## Step 5: Review your first findings

Open **Actions** in the sidebar, then go to **Store Audit**, then **Latest Findings**. The Store Audit runs a 50+ check sweep across SEO, AI search readiness, Core Web Vitals performance, checkout conversion, inventory, and catalogue health. Findings begin landing on the Kanban board in real time while the audit is still running.

A typical first-run findings list looks like this:

| Severity | Example finding                                   | Source                           |
| -------- | ------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------- |
| Critical | 14 product pages missing meta descriptions        | Audit, SEO                       |
| Critical | Largest Contentful Paint 4.6s on cart page        | Audit, Performance               |
| High     | 23 SKUs out of stock with active Google Ads spend | Cross-platform                   |
| High     | Cart abandonment up 18% week-on-week              | Vortex Mind, Checkout Conversion |
| Medium   | 42 underused 301 redirects                        | Audit, SEO                       |
| Medium   | 8 product images larger than 500KB                | Audit, Performance               |

Click any finding to open the detail panel: what it is, why it matters, the recommended fix, and the **Run Action** button to ship the fix.

## Step 6: Run your first query on Ask Viq

Ask Viq is the conversational layer of Vortex IQ. Open **Ask Viq** in the sidebar.

<Steps>
  <Step title="Select a Profile">
    Use the **Profile** dropdown at the top of the Ask Viq panel. A Profile is a saved set of connectors (for example, *Marketing profile* = GA4 + Google Ads + Klaviyo + Shopify). If you have just connected your first source, a default profile is available. Select it.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Type your first question">
    Ask something grounded in your connected data — for example:

    * *"How did revenue compare last week versus the week before?"*
    * *"Which products had the biggest drop in conversion this month?"*
    * *"What is the top reason customers are abandoning checkout right now?"*

    Ask Viq reads the live connector graph — the same data the Nerve Centre and Vortex Mind use — so answers are specific to your store, not generic LLM responses.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Type your first question">
    Ask something grounded in your connected data - for example:

    * *"How did revenue compare last week versus the week before?"*
    * *"Which products had the biggest drop in conversion this month?"*
    * *"What is the top reason customers are abandoning checkout right now?"*

    Ask Viq reads the live connector graph - the same data the Nerve Centre and Vortex Mind use - so answers are specific to your store, not generic LLM responses.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Review the charted answer">
    Ask Viq returns a charted answer with the data source cited. If the answer references a Vortex Mind finding or a Vortex Memory document, those citations appear inline.
  </Step>
</Steps>

## Step 7: Ship your first fix

Go back to **Actions**, Kanban. Pick the easiest Critical finding - typically a missing meta description or a redirect cleanup - and click **Run Action**.

Depending on the finding type, the Action either:

* Generates the fix automatically and queues it for your approval (for example, AI-generated meta descriptions).
* Fires through Vortex Apps to apply the fix on your store (for example, a redirect cleanup).
* Opens a Bulk Content Edit grid where you review and confirm dozens of changes at once.

Approve the fix. Within seconds it ships to your store. You have closed the agentic loop: **signal → diagnosis → action → shipped**.

## Before your second session

<Tip>
  A few minutes of setup now makes every future session faster.
</Tip>

* **Invite a teammate.** Go to Settings, Account, Team Members, then **Invite**. They receive a magic link by email.
* **Set up an alert channel.** Go to Settings, Alerts, Notification Channels. Add Slack or Microsoft Teams if your team lives there; the default is your work email.
* **Create a Profile in Ask Viq.** Go to Settings, Profiles, Create Profile. Group the connectors that match your role so every Ask Viq session is pre-scoped.
* **Bookmark the workspace.** Most merchants check the Nerve Centre daily. Bookmark `app.vortexiq.ai` for fast access.

## Common questions

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="The audit returned no findings. What happened?">
    Either the data pull is still in progress (wait a few minutes and refresh the Latest Findings view) or your store is genuinely in good shape, which is rare - most stores have at least 5 to 10 SEO findings. Check Settings, Connected Sources for the data pull status.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="My connector did not connect. What now?">
    Check that the OAuth pop-up was not blocked by your browser. Re-run the connect flow. If it fails a second time, see the connector-specific troubleshooting on the connector's documentation page or contact support.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Can I run the audit before the data pull finishes?">
    Yes. The audit runs against whatever data is currently loaded. If the pull is still in progress, the audit re-runs automatically against the full dataset once the pull completes.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="What happens after the first session?">
    You move into the day-to-day operating rhythm: check the Nerve Centre in the morning, read the daily briefing in your inbox, and ship Actions through the day. The first session is the only one that feels like setup; from session two onward you are operating, not configuring.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>