The shape of the journey
Launching on Klarefi is one journey with two parts. First you build: pick a starting point, shape the intake, run a test, publish. Then you clear the launch gates: the short list of requirements that must be green before live applicants can submit. The dashboard tracks both in a single getting-started checklist, so you always know the next step. This guide is that checklist, with the reasoning attached.
1. Pick a starting point
Import the form you use today, from a link or a file, or start from a blank intake. An import is the fastest route: the agent rebuilds your questions and sections and suggests the facts to take from documents, so you start from your own process instead of an empty page.
A blank intake starts with a name question and a document upload. Add the questions and facts your team needs in the builder.
2. Build your intake
Adapt the intake to your reality. Rename fields to your vocabulary, drop the ones you do not need, add the ones you do. Then walk the fact list. Every fact should be one unambiguous question, and every fact needs a source: the form, the documents, or both. The source is the decision that matters, because a fact sourced from documents has to be backed by a real quote before it resolves. Put your decision-critical facts on documents and give them extraction guidance. The facts and verify rules guide covers the craft.
The builder runs diagnostics as you go. Errors block the next step, warnings point at weak spots. Fix the errors, take the warnings seriously.
3. Run a test intake
Before anything goes live, submit a case yourself. The builder gives you a test run, and your published workflow gets a shareable intake link with a QR code, so you can fill it out from your phone the way an applicant would. Test sessions go through the real pipeline, real extraction, real validation, real verification, but they are kept separate from live work and are never billed.
Use real documents, including a poor one such as a photographed page or a low-quality scan. The test shows you how the agent handles the material your applicants actually send.
4. Review the resulting case
Your test submission lands in the operator queue as a case file. Open it and read it the way your team will: facts with quotes and page numbers, needs-input cards where the agent wants judgment, verification results from your connector. If a fact came back vague or wrong, the fix is almost always in the fact definition. Edit, run another test, and iterate until the case file reads clean. Build, test, review is the loop where launch quality gets made.
5. Publish your intake
Publishing makes the workflow the active version applicants will get. Diagnostics must be clear, and from here on, changes go through the same draft-and-publish cycle, so your live intake never changes under you mid-case.
The launch gates
Publishing alone does not put you live. Self-serve workspaces have a short list of gates that must all be green before live intake works. They exist so that nobody discovers a missing prerequisite from an applicant-facing error. In order:
- Verify your email. Confirms you control the address on the account. Done from your profile settings in a minute.
- Accept legal terms. The current self-serve terms must be accepted before live work. You review and accept them in billing settings.
- Activate billing. Add a card. Pricing is per processed intake, and your onboarding credit covers your first cases, so activating billing does not mean paying before you see value. Test sessions remain free either way.
- Create a live API key. The last gate, and it unlocks only after the others are green: email verified, terms accepted, billing active, workflow published. The live key is what separates live traffic from test traffic, which is why it comes last.
None of these gates is a surprise at the end; the checklist shows them from day one, with the blocked ones pointing at exactly what to resolve. Clear them in order and the whole list is done in one sitting.
Recommended before real volume
- Connect verification. A connector to your loan system, customer records, or business register turns extraction into confirmation. You can launch without one, but verified facts are the difference between a fast review and a confident one.
- Invite your team. Cases will start arriving in the queue; make sure you are not the only person who can review them.
- Customize branding. Your logo and brand color on the hosted intake, so applicants see your brand.
Go live
Share the intake link, embed it, or send traffic through the API with your live key. The first live case lands in the same queue as your test did, reviewed the same way, this time with the meter running and an audit trail behind every decision. From here the loop is the one your team already knows: cases arrive with cited facts and check results, and operators decide.