These docs are a work in progress and may not be fully up to date. Some pages may contain internal notes for our team.
Skip to Content
Getting StartedCreate your account

Create your account

This walkthrough takes you from “no account” to “first finder published” in about ten minutes. It assumes you have a list of locations ready (an address spreadsheet works fine; we’ll cover other ways in the next step).

Step 1 — Sign up

Open the DropAFinder sign-up page and enter your email and a password. If you received an invite link from a teammate, the URL will end in /register/{token} — that token enrolls you into the inviting workspace automatically.

🟡 [SCREENSHOT: Sign-up form showing email + password fields with the “Create account” button. Annotate the field labels and the link to the Terms of Service.]

After submitting, you’re signed in and redirected to the dashboard.

💡 Tip: Account passwords are hashed with bcrypt at the standard Laravel cost factor. You can change your password later from the Account page.

Step 2 — Land in the dashboard

You arrive at /app/dashboard. The left sidebar is your main navigation:

  • Dashboard — overview
  • Finders — list and editor
  • Locations — your data
  • Maps, Sets, Tags, Custom Fields — organization tools
  • Account, Billing — administration
  • Changelog — what’s new

🟡 [SCREENSHOT: Dashboard immediately after login, with the empty state visible and the sidebar fully expanded. Annotate the “Locations” and “Finders” entries.]

If your account was just created and you’re on the Free tier, multi-workspace controls are hidden — you have one implicit workspace and don’t need to think about workspace switching yet.

Step 3 — Add your first location

Open Locations from the sidebar. There’s no data yet, so you’ll see an empty state with options to add manually or import.

For this walkthrough, click Add location and fill in at minimum:

  • Title (e.g., Downtown Store)
  • Street address
  • City, state, postal code, country

The address fields drive geocoding — DropAFinder will pick the autocomplete provider configured on the workspace (Google Places by default if no other is selected) and resolve the address to a latitude/longitude on save.

🟡 [SCREENSHOT: Add Location form with the address fields populated and the autocomplete suggestions dropdown visible.]

Save. You should see the location appear in the list with a coordinate pair populated.

💡 Tip: For more than a handful of locations, skip manual entry and use CSV import or AI Location Import instead.

Step 4 — Build your first finder

Open Finders in the sidebar, then click Create finder.

You’ll be dropped into the Finder Builder. The left rail shows sections grouped by purpose:

  • Setup — basic info, attached Maps/Sets
  • Look & Feel — Theme, Typography, Shape, Layout, Map style, Language
  • How it Behaves — runtime toggles
  • Launch — embed snippet, authorized URLs

The right rail shows a Live Preview that updates as you change settings.

🟡 [SCREENSHOT: Finder Builder split view: left rail (Setup section selected), center configuration form, right rail Live Preview with one location showing.]

For a first finder, the only required action is to:

  1. Give it a title (e.g., Store Locator).
  2. Attach the Map containing your locations (or the workspace’s default map if locations aren’t grouped yet).
  3. Save.

Don’t customize the theme or layout yet — defaults are intentional and pass WCAG 2.1 AA out of the box. You can iterate later.

Step 5 — Get the embed snippet

Back on the Finders list, find your new finder and click the snippet icon. A modal shows a one-line <script> tag with a data-finder attribute holding your finder’s public token.

🟡 [SCREENSHOT: Embed snippet modal with the script tag visible and the “Copy” action highlighted.]

Copy that snippet. The full embedding details — how to paste it, where to put the mount div, what the host page CSS shouldn’t do — are in the Embedding guide. For now, paste the snippet into a blank HTML file alongside an empty <div id="finder-app">…</div> and open it in a browser.

⚠️ Warning: The snippet only renders if the host page’s origin is on your finder’s Authorized URLs list. Localhost is typically allowed by default, but if you’re testing on a production domain you’ll need to add it under the finder’s Launch → Authorized URLs section first.

Step 6 — Verify and iterate

If the widget loaded successfully, you should see your search bar, your map, and your one location pinned.

🟡 [SCREENSHOT: The visitor-facing widget rendered on a plain HTML test page, showing the search input, list of one location, and a map with one marker.]

From here, the typical next steps are:

If something didn’t work, jump to Embedding troubleshooting.

What’s next

Most teams’ next move is to bulk-import the rest of their locations. Add locations covers the three import options and when to use each.

Add locationsPublish and embed