Book an onboarding kickoff for every new account
A finished onboarding questionnaire books the kickoff call, with the account name and first-30-day goals in the booking description.
New Submission on your "Welcome onboarding" form
Create a booking on the CSM's "Onboarding kickoff" event type with the account name and goals in the booking description
One-directional. A submission triggers the action — nothing is written back into your form.
Kickoff calls run late because someone has to notice the account exists, find a CSM and start a thread. Sending the post-signup questionnaire straight into Cal.com removes all three steps — the questionnaire is the booking request.
Customer success teams with more signups than CSMs use it to guarantee a first call inside week one. What the account wants from its first thirty days sits in the booking description, so the CSM prepares from the calendar invite rather than hunting through a response list beforehand.
Setting it up
- 1
Copy the Customer Onboarding Survey template and link it from your welcome email, so the questionnaire is the first thing a new account fills in.
- 2
Decide the kickoff offset — three working days after submission is a common choice — and add a Zapier Formatter step that adds it to the submission timestamp.
- 3
In Cal.com, create the Onboarding kickoff event type on the CSM's calendar and turn on requires confirmation, so an automatically chosen slot arrives as pending rather than clashing silently.
- 4
Set that event type's availability to the hours your CSMs actually run kickoffs, so the offset can only land inside them.
- 5
Build the Zap on formformform's New Submission trigger and select the onboarding questionnaire.
- 6
Map Your Name and Email Address into the attendee, and pass the Formatter's date-time output in as the booking start.
- 7
Put Company Name in the booking title and the goals and use-case answers in the description, so the CSM has the account's own words in front of them.
- 8
Test with a real signup, confirm the pending kickoff appears on the right calendar, then turn the Zap on and let the CSM accept each one.
What maps where
Using the Customer Onboarding Survey as the starting point. These are its real fields — swap in your own and the mapping works the same way.
| Form field | Cal.com |
|---|---|
| Your Name | Attendee name on the kickoff booking |
| Email Address | Attendee email; Cal.com sends the kickoff invite here |
| Company Name | Booking title, so the calendar reads "Onboarding kickoff — Acme" |
| Primary Use Case | Booking description, first line |
| What are your main goals for the first 30 days? | Booking description — the CSM's prep note |
| Company Size | Booking description, used to decide how long the call should run |
Variations worth knowing
Filter on Company Size in Zapier. Accounts above your threshold book a 60-minute kickoff with a named CSM, smaller ones join a 30-minute session on a shared event type. Both paths read the same questionnaire, so the mapping is built once.
Replace the offset with a date question in the questionnaire and map that answer into the start. Accounts in a hurry get an earlier call and the Formatter step disappears. Keep requires confirmation on, since the form cannot see the CSM's diary.
If something isn't arriving
A plain "add 72 hours" calculation knows nothing about your working week. Use a Formatter step that adds working days rather than hours, and set the Onboarding kickoff event type's availability to weekdays only so Cal.com rejects anything that slips past.
Optional questions come through blank and Cal.com writes whatever it is given. Make the goals question required in the questionnaire, or set a fallback value in the Zapier field so the CSM still sees the company name and use case.
Frequently asked questions
What if a new customer never fills in the questionnaire?
Then no kickoff is booked, because the submission is the trigger. Chase the questionnaire the way you chase anything else, or make it the last step of signup so completing the account and scheduling the first call happen in the same sitting.
Can the CSM move the call after it is created?
Yes. Once the booking exists it belongs to Cal.com, and the CSM can move or cancel it there. The questionnaire response stays exactly as submitted, since nothing flows back from Cal.com into formformform.
Will the customer receive two confirmation emails?
Cal.com sends its own booking confirmation, and your form sends whatever you configured on submit. Keep the form's message short and let Cal.com's email carry the calendar detail, or switch one of the two off if the pair reads as duplication.
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Build the form first
The automation needs somewhere to fire from. Publish a form, connect it once, and every submission from then on runs this flow.
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