Quick Start

This guide walks you through the essentials: creating your account, deploying your first app, connecting an integration, and having your first conversation with an AI agent. By the end, you’ll have a working Horizon setup you can build on.

Note

This guide assumes you’re starting fresh. If your organization already has a Horizon workspace, ask your admin to invite you and skip to Step 3.

Prerequisites

• A business email address (free trials are available)
• Access to at least one service you want to connect (Slack, QuickBooks, Salesforce, etc.)
• A modern web browser (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Edge)

Setup

1. Create your account

   Go to app.horizonplatform.ai and click Sign Up. Horizon uses Clerk for authentication, so you can sign up with your email address or use Google or Microsoft single sign-on.

   After verifying your email, you’ll be prompted to create your organization. Enter your company name and select your industry. This information helps Horizon recommend relevant apps and skills later.

   Once your organization is created, you’ll land on the Dashboard, your home base for everything in Horizon.

2. Explore the dashboard

   Take a moment to orient yourself. The main navigation includes:

   • Dashboard – your overview page. It sits on its own at the top of the rail rather than inside a group.
   • Company – Profile, Goals, Boards, Altitude Checks, Navigator, Notifications, and Core Offering.
   • Workspace – Apps, Agents, Connections, Services, Departments, Forms, and Document Templates.
   • CRM – contacts, companies, prospects, deals, and your pipeline.
   • Store – Apps, Agents, Skills, and Community.
   • System – Wallets, Billing, Settings, Modules, and Legal Entities.

   Note

   Settings and Billing live under System, not at the top level. An earlier version of this page listed both as their own navigation items, so if you have been hunting for a Settings entry in the rail, that is why you could not find one.

   You may see more groups than these. Finance, HR, Projects, Intelligence, Marketing, Operations, Construction and Portal each appear only once your organization has been granted that module – the six above are the ones every organization starts with.

   Don’t worry about configuring everything right now. The goal is to get something working quickly.

3. Deploy your first app from the Store

   Navigate to Store > Apps in the sidebar. You’ll see the apps published to your organization, each bundling one or more agents with their skills.

   Open one and read what it includes – the agents it deploys, the skills those agents get, and the connections they expect. Pick the one whose connections you can actually satisfy today; an app whose service you have not connected will deploy, but its agents will not be able to do much.

   Click Deploy. Horizon adds the app to your workspace and configures its agents with sensible defaults.

   Caution

   An earlier version of this page told you to start with General Assistant, Accounting Assistant or Sales Copilot. No app has ever carried any of those three names – they were not renamed or retired. If you went looking for them and concluded the store was broken or your account was missing something, it was not.

   The catalog differs per environment and changes as apps are published, which is why this page no longer names any of them. Browse Store > Apps to see yours.

   After deployment, go to Workspace > Apps to confirm your app appears in the list. The page itself is titled Deployed Apps.

4. Connect an integration

   Agents become much more useful when they can access your real business data. Let’s connect your first external service.

   Go to Workspace > Connections and click Add Connection. Choose the service you want to connect:

   • Slack – Click Connect, and you’ll be redirected to Slack’s OAuth flow. Select the workspace you want to connect, review the permissions, and click Allow. Once redirected back to Horizon, your Slack connection will appear as active.
   • QuickBooks – Click Connect and sign in with your Intuit credentials. Select the company file you want to use and authorize the connection.
   • Salesforce – Click Connect and sign in to your Salesforce org. Authorize Horizon’s connected app to access your data.

   Tip

   You only need to connect one service to get started. You can always add more connections later from the Connections page.

   After connecting, Horizon will verify the connection and display its status as Active. If the connection requires additional configuration (like selecting a default Slack channel), you’ll be prompted to complete that setup.

5. Send your first message to an agent

   Now for the fun part. Navigate to Workspace > Agents and click on one of the agents that was deployed with your app. This opens the conversation view.

   Type a message in the chat input and press Enter. Here are some ideas depending on what you connected:

   • With Slack connected: “Send a message to the #general channel saying hello from Horizon.”
   • With QuickBooks connected: “Show me a summary of last month’s revenue.”
   • With Salesforce connected: “List my open opportunities closing this quarter.”
   • No integration yet: “What can you help me with?” – the agent will explain its capabilities.

   The agent will process your request, call the appropriate skills, and respond with results. You can continue the conversation naturally – ask follow-up questions, request changes, or give new instructions.

What you’ve accomplished

You now have:

• A Horizon account and organization
• At least one deployed app with configured agents
• A live connection to an external service
• A working conversation with an AI agent

Next steps

• Add more connections in Workspace > Connections to unlock additional skills for your agents.
• Follow the Industry Setup guide to configure Horizon for your specific team’s workflows.
• Explore the Store for more apps and skills to install.
• Invite your team in Settings > Users so colleagues can interact with agents too.
• Read the Full Configuration guide when you’re ready to set up your entire organization.