Whether you are migrating to OneSignal or just getting started, we're happy to have you! This checklist walks through getting set up as fast as possible. If you haven't done so already, head to onesignal.com to set up your account.

Create your organization

Your organization will be your operational base for managing your apps and message channels. If you upgrade to a paid account, this is how you manage your billing across your apps. You can have multiple organizations for free apps vs paid apps and/or different payment methods for different apps.

Add an app

After setting up your organization, the next step is to add an app. This involves naming your app and selecting the initial channel or platform you'd like to set up.

You can have as many apps as you need! We recommend setting up different apps for different environments, like a "Staging" app vs a "Production" app, etc.

Set up your channels

OneSignal supports a wide array of messaging channels across multiple platforms, allowing you to engage with your audience wherever they are. Setting up your app and channels is a crucial step to ensure your messages reach your audience effectively.

Pick your first channel and follow the setup guide. Don't forget to invite your developer if using push notifications, in-app messages or live activities!

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Channel setup

Visit the Channel Setup page to get started!

Users & subscriptions

As users interact with your app and subscribe to your messaging channels, they are assigned a OneSignal ID (OneSignal's user ID) and Subscription ID (OneSignal's unique channel/device ID). Each User can have multiple subscriptions depending on how many channels you setup and how they interact with your app. While a Subscription can refer to an email address or phone number, users are considered anonymous in OneSignal until identified via the External ID alias.

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Users & subscriptions

See Users for details on External ID and updating users.

Our Subscriptions page details everything about all subscription types.

Property & event tags

Tags are used to track events (e.g. cart update, last order, onboarding status, button_click:true, etc.) and specific user properties (e.g. name, location, preferences, first_name : George etc.) as a way to send personalized and timely messages to your audience. Tags are stored for the lifetime of the user record until updated or deleted.

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Data tags

See our Tags for details on setting up events & user properties.

Segments

When sending out message campaigns from the dashboard, you'll need to create an Audience. Your Audience is composed of users and subscriptions grouped by segments.

For example, you can use data tags to build a segment of users with this tag.

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Create your audience with segments

Visit our Segments page to learn all the ways to group users into audiences.

Send messages

Depending on which channels you setup, you can now start designing and sending messages.

If you are not ready to send yet, you can always setup Templates or Drafts to save for later when ready to send!

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Sending messages

See our Messages section for the different channel guides. You can also get your ideas saved for later with Templates or Drafts.

Set your users on a journey

To take full advantage of omni-channel marketing! You can house all your push, email, and sms subscriptions for a project in a single OneSignal App and set them on a Journey.

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Setup journeys

Create onboarding, re-engagement, event-based and so many more automations with Journeys.