Getting Started With Ahoy
Setting up Ahoy takes about five minutes. You'll connect your Google or Microsoft 365 account, confirm a few settings, and by the time you're finished Ahoy will have imported your contacts, meetings, and email history and built you a working pipeline.
This guide covers:
- Connecting your Google or Microsoft 365 account
- The setup steps
- Finding your way around Home
- What to expect in your first week
Before you begin, you'll need:
- A work Google or Microsoft 365 account. Ahoy connects to your email and calendar to build your CRM.
- Your invitation email from Ahoy.
- About five minutes. Ahoy keeps importing in the background after you're done, so you don't need to wait around.
Connect your Google or Microsoft 365 account
Open your invitation and sign in with your work account – Google or Microsoft 365. You'll be asked to grant Ahoy access to your email and calendar. On Google, that also covers Google Meet and the related Google Drive files; on Microsoft 365, it also covers your Outlook contacts. A normal user account is fine – you don't need to be an admin to connect.
Those permissions are what let Ahoy build your CRM for you. Instead of logging activity after the fact, Ahoy reads what’s already happening in your inbox and calendar and turns it into contacts, companies, and deals.
Importing starts immediately in the background. You can carry on with setup while it runs.
Complete the setup steps
Once you're connected, you'll land on Home, where the four setup steps appear together in the AI Actions section. Work through them one at a time.
- Invite your team
What you see here depends on how you came to Ahoy. If you're the first person setting Ahoy up for your company, Ahoy identifies colleagues from your company domain, ranks them by how often you interact, and lets you choose who to invite – or add anyone it missed manually. You can skip this and invite people later from Settings.
If you're joining a team that's already on Ahoy, you'll see a short “Welcome to [your company]” step instead, with no one to invite – your admin handles that.
- Review your permissions
Choose whether your emails and calendar events appear on shared contact records, so teammates can see the context behind an account. Both are on by default, and you can change either one at any time in Settings. These settings apply to your connected account as a whole rather than to individual emails or events.
- Set up your deal pipeline
Ahoy starts you off with a deal pipeline based on the SPICED sales methodology. Rename, reorder, add, or remove stages – you can have anywhere from two to seven – until they match the way you actually sell. Admins can change stages later in Settings > Pipelines.
- Review your import
Ahoy shows you what it has learned about your role, your focus areas, and how you work. Check it over and correct anything that’s off. Your timezone is editable here too – and your currency, if you’re an admin.
Find your way around Home
Home is where you’ll start most days. A line at the top tells you how many meetings you have left and how many recommended actions you have to review. Below that, Home is built from a handful of sections – some always present, some that appear only when they’re relevant.
The input bar sits in the header at the top. Type a request in plain language – “Draft an email to Sarah about the proposal,” or “What deals are at risk this week?” – and Ahoy either handles it or prepares an action for you to review. For anything longer or more back-and-forth, go to Chat.
Your meetings come from your connected calendar, under a heading that reads “Today’s meetings” (or “What’s happening today” when you have reminders). Click a meeting to expand it in place and see the prep and attendees Ahoy has pulled together.
AI Actions shows a preview of what Ahoy has prepared. View opens the detail, Not now dismisses it, and See all actions takes you to the full queue.
Pipeline at a glance is a snapshot of your pipelines. Toggle between Summary, which groups deals into Early stage, Moving, and About to close, and Stages, which shows individual stages with values and deal counts. Click any stage to jump to a filtered view in Deals. The heading reads “Pipeline” once you have more than one.
While Ahoy is still importing, you’ll also see an import-status area at the top of Home; it clears once your history is in.
What to expect in your first week
Your records will keep filling in as Ahoy works through your history and picks up new activity. A few things worth doing early:
- Spend time in AI Actions. When Ahoy prepares something there – a follow-up email, a CRM update – it waits for you to approve before anything goes ahead.
- Try Chat for something real. Drafting a follow-up or asking about your pipeline gives you a much better feel for it than a test question will.
- Connect your recording tool so Ahoy can capture meeting summaries. See [Connecting your integrations].
- Import your deal history if you’re coming from another CRM. Ahoy is already building records from your email and calendar, but importing your pipeline means it can work with that sooner. See [Importing your contacts and accounts].
FAQs
How long does setup take?
About five minutes. Importing continues in the background afterwards, so you can start looking around straight away.
Do I need to get my pipeline right before I start?
No. During setup you can rename, reorder, add, or remove stages freely. Afterwards, stage changes live in Settings > Pipelines, which is an admin setting – so if you’re not an admin, ask one to make the change.
Can I set Ahoy up on my own before inviting my team?
Yes. If you're the one setting up Ahoy for your company, skip the invite step and add people later from Settings. Everything you've set up carries over.
What can my teammates see?
Whatever you allow in the permissions step, which you can revisit at any time in Settings. Those settings apply to your connected account as a whole rather than to individual emails or events.
Nothing is showing up in my contacts. What's wrong?
Give the import a little time to finish first. If it’s still empty after that, see [Why isn’t [X] showing up?].
Need help?
We’re hands-on. Reach out anytime:
- Email – help@ahoy.ai
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