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Client Onboarding

Onboarding begins after the required Order and payment steps are complete. Your project contact will provide an engagement-specific checklist; use this page to prepare the common items in advance.

Before Kickoff​

Confirm the People​

  • An authorized decision-maker who can approve scope, budget, and launch decisions
  • A day-to-day contact who can consolidate questions and feedback
  • Billing and legal contacts, if different
  • Technical, marketing, creative, privacy, or security stakeholders who must review the work

Gather the Context​

  • Business objective and measurable definition of success
  • Current problems, known risks, and hard deadlines
  • Existing documentation, previous audits, designs, brand standards, or campaign plans
  • Relevant analytics or historical performance data
  • Known platform, vendor, procurement, compliance, or approval constraints

Prepare Access​

Create individual user access wherever the platform supports it. Use the least privilege that still allows the agreed work, retain an internal administrator, and enable multi-factor authentication.

Do not email passwords, recovery codes, private keys, customer exports, or API secrets. Wait for the secure sharing instructions from the project contact. If a vendor only supports shared credentials, identify that limitation before kickoff so a safe process can be agreed.

Prepare Assets and Data​

Provide only the files and data needed for the engagement. Label current and approved versions clearly. Before transferring personal data, confirm that the transfer is necessary, permitted, and covered by the applicable agreement and Data Processing Addendum.

During Kickoff​

The parties should confirm:

  1. the outcome, scope, exclusions, assumptions, and acceptance criteria;
  2. roles, decision authority, and escalation contacts;
  3. the working system, communication channels, and meeting cadence;
  4. required access, content, data, and third-party dependencies;
  5. milestones, customer review windows, and launch approvals;
  6. change-control and incident-reporting procedures; and
  7. handoff, support, maintenance, hosting, backup, or monitoring responsibilities.

Immediately After Kickoff​

  • Resolve missing or failed access
  • Record the first milestone and decisions required from each party
  • Confirm where feedback and approvals must be submitted
  • Verify the next review date and responsible attendees
  • Document any open assumption that could affect fees or timing

Access at the End of an Engagement​

The customer should review users, tokens, keys, vendor access, forwarding rules, and shared credentials during handoff. Panther & Cub will return or remove access as required by the Order and applicable terms, but the customer remains responsible for controlling its accounts and rotating credentials when appropriate.

Questions before kickoff should go to the contact named in your Order or [email protected].

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