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Getting started

Welcome to HelpStack! HelpStack is a single, shared inbox for your whole support team. It pulls customer messages from email, Facebook Messenger, Instagram DMs, WhatsApp, and your website chat widget into one place, so you never have to bounce between apps to answer people. It can also translate messages automatically and draft AI-powered replies, so you can help customers in any language, faster.

This guide walks you through creating your account, the short onboarding flow, and the very first things to do once you're in. By the end you'll have a channel connected and know where everything lives.

Sections#

What HelpStack does#

HelpStack gives your team one unified inbox. Every customer conversation, no matter which platform it came from, shows up in the same list at /conversations. From there you (and your teammates) can read the full history, reply, organize conversations by status, and hand them off to each other.

Two features make HelpStack stand out:

  • Auto-translation. Incoming messages are translated into your language so you can read them, and your replies are translated back into the customer's language when they're sent. You can chat with someone in Japanese while typing in English.
  • AI replies. With the click of a button, HelpStack can draft a reply for you using your knowledge base and your channel's instructions. You stay in control and approve before anything is sent (unless you choose to let it send automatically).

Creating your account#

To create a brand-new organization, go to the registration page (at helpstack.eu) and fill in:

  • Email — your work email; this becomes your login.
  • Password — choose a strong password.
  • Name — your full name, shown to teammates.
  • Organization name — the name of your company or team. This creates your workspace, and everything you do lives inside it.

When you submit the form, HelpStack creates your organization, makes you its owner, and logs you in automatically. You don't need to confirm anything by email to get started.

Already have an account? Use the login page instead. If a teammate invited you, you'll sign in to their existing organization rather than creating a new one.

The 2-step onboarding#

The first time you log in, HelpStack gets you set up in two screens. You can go Back at any time, and nothing you answered is lost.

First: Instagram and Facebook. The very first screen offers to connect them in one tap. Facebook asks which Pages and accounts HelpStack may use, then you pick your Page and HelpStack connects it together with the Instagram account linked to it. Your messages from the last 30 days appear in your inbox, and new ones arrive with a reply already drafted. Instagram not linked to a Facebook Page? Use My Instagram is not linked to a Facebook Page to connect it on its own. Not now? Choose Skip for now: the next morning we send you one email with the same one-tap link, and only that one.

  1. Learn your business. Enter your website's address. If you signed up with a company email, it is already filled in. HelpStack starts reading your site straight away, and you watch it happen: the pages it reads appear one by one, it points out what it found (your shipping info, your returns policy, your products), and your chat widget appears in your own colours. Within a few seconds your AI answers questions your customers would ask, using your own pages, with the sources underneath. You can ask it anything yourself too. This is a practice run, so nothing is sent to anyone.
    • No website? Choose Describe your business instead and write two or three sentences about what you sell, where you deliver and how people reach you. Your AI answers from that.
    • If we can't read your site, we tell you why (for example, it is password protected, or a firewall blocks our reader, HelpStackBot) and you can try again or describe your business instead.
    • Where you sell. We usually recognise your platform and ask you to confirm it with one tap ("Looks like Shopify. Is that right?"). This is required, because it decides how you are billed: a Shopify store is billed through Shopify, never twice.
    • Your language, the one you want to read and write in (see below for why it matters).
  2. Go live. One step, chosen for you:
    • On Shopify? Connect your store in one click. That puts the chat on your storefront, lets your AI answer order questions from your Shopify orders, and moves your plan to Shopify billing. Open my theme editor then opens Shopify with HelpStack already turned on, and you press Save.
    • On WooCommerce or another website, the install steps open on your own platform, with the snippet to paste. If someone else looks after your website, Email these steps to your developer sends them everything they need. If the platform doesn't settle it, we first ask whether most customers write to you on your website or by email.
    • No website, or mostly email? Connect your support email, and you see a real recent customer email answered by your AI.

Click "I'll do this later" to skip. You land in your inbox, where an activation checklist keeps track of what's still unfinished (adding the widget, connecting other channels, turning on AI replies) until every step is done.

You can revisit this introduction any time. Open your Profile page and choose the option to restart onboarding.

Why your preferred language matters#

Your preferred language is the language HelpStack uses for you — the one you picked in the small language field on the first onboarding step. When a customer writes in another language and auto-translation is on, their message is translated into your preferred language so you can read it comfortably. When you reply, your words are translated into the customer's language before sending.

Pick the language you're most fluent in. You can fine-tune translation behavior per channel later — see the channels guide for the full picture.

Your first 10 minutes#

Here's a simple checklist to get from zero to handling real conversations:

  1. Connect a channel. Go to Settings → Channels and add your first channel (email, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, or a website chat widget). Each type has its own quick setup. See the channels guide for step-by-step instructions.
  2. See your conversations. Open /conversations. As messages arrive on your connected channel, they appear here in real time. New, unread previews are shown in bold.
  3. Reply to someone. Click a conversation to open it, type your reply, and press Enter to send. Read the conversations guide for everything the inbox can do.
  4. (Optional) Turn on AI. Once you've configured an AI provider and a knowledge base, you can let HelpStack draft replies for you. See the AI replies guide to get started.

That's the whole loop: connect, read, reply, and optionally let AI help.

Where settings live#

Everything you configure lives under Settings:

  • Settings → Organization — your workspace basics.
  • Settings → Channels — connect and manage your communication channels. To open a specific channel's AI configuration, go to Settings → Channels → (your channel) → AI & Knowledge.
  • Settings → AI Providers — connect OpenAI or Anthropic so the AI can write replies.

Managing channels and providers requires the right role. Owners and admins can change these settings; agents and viewers can see them but not edit. Learn more in the team and roles guide.

Where to go next#

Related#

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