Guide

Getting started with Formline

Everything you need to go from account to active coaching, for you and your clients.

Your first 30 minutes

Follow this sequence and you'll have a client logging their first session before the end of today.

1

Complete your profile

Go to Settings and fill in your bio, specialisms, and photo. This is what your clients see when they tap "About [your name]" so make it feel like you. While you're there, add your certifications so your contributions in the marketplace carry a verified badge.

2

Invite your first client

Go to Clients, then Invite client. Enter their email and an optional personal message. They'll receive a link to create their account and see their programme. If you want to build their programme first, tap "Set up profile, invite later" — you only need their name. The invite link lives on their profile whenever you're ready to share it.

Get everything ready first. Use "Set up profile, invite later" to build the programme, assign habits, and complete the profile before your client ever opens the app. Send the invite when everything is in place.

3

Build their programme

Go to Programmes, then Create programme. Add sessions, add exercises to each session, set your sets, reps, weights, and rest periods. When you're done, assign it to your client from their profile. It appears immediately on their home screen.

4

Watch your dashboard

Your dashboard shows everything happening across your client list: sessions logged, compliance scores, and any alerts that need your attention. When your client logs their first session, you'll see it in the activity feed within seconds.

5

Review and adjust

After your client completes a session, you'll see a post-session review with their performance data and any progressive overload suggestions. Accept, modify, or dismiss these suggestions. The changes only take effect once you confirm them.

Tip: You can log sessions on behalf of clients too. Useful when you're coaching in person and want to record the session yourself. Find this on the client's profile page.

Guide

Add to your home screen

Formline is a progressive web app. Add it to your home screen and it opens like a native app: full screen, no browser bar, direct from your home screen.

iPhone and iPad (Safari)

1

Open app.formline.fit in Safari

Must be Safari. Chrome and other browsers on iOS do not support adding to the home screen.

2

Tap the Share button

The box with the arrow pointing up, in the toolbar at the bottom of the screen.

3

Tap "Add to Home Screen"

Scroll down in the share sheet if you do not see it immediately. Tap Add to confirm.

Android (Chrome)

1

Open app.formline.fit in Chrome

Chrome may show an install banner automatically at the bottom of the screen. Tap it to install.

2

Or use the browser menu

Tap the three-dot menu in the top right corner and select "Add to Home Screen".

3

Tap Add to confirm

The Formline icon appears on your home screen. Tap it to open directly.

Worth sharing with clients. Send them the steps above or point them to www.formline.fit/client-guide. Clients who add the app to their home screen are more likely to log sessions consistently.

Trainers

Client management

Your Clients page is your coaching command centre. Every client's compliance, activity, and status is visible at a glance.

The dashboard alert strip

At the top of your dashboard, four alert types surface automatically: unanswered messages, client inactivity, low compliance, and programmes nearing their end. Each alert has a dismiss and pause option. Pausing stops alerts for that client for a set period without dismissing them permanently.

Inactivity alerts are frequency-aware. A client who trains 4 times a week triggers an alert after 5 days without activity. A client who trains once a week triggers after 10 days. Formline adjusts thresholds to each client's normal cadence.

Client detail page

Tap any client to open their detail page. Seven tabs give you the full picture:

Overview: compliance scores, active programme, habits, health screening status, and forms
Progress: photos, personal records, body measurements, and charts
History: full session log with performance data
Programme: current and past programme assignments
Schedule: calendar view of their sessions
Notes: your private coaching notes on this client
Check-ins: weekly check-in responses and habit compliance

Pending Actions

The Actions item in your sidebar is your to-do list. It surfaces things that need your response: post-session reviews with overload suggestions, PAR-Q responses to acknowledge, and any other items requiring a decision. The badge count updates in real time.

Trainers

Programme builder

Build structured training programmes and assign them to clients. Programmes contain sessions; sessions contain exercises.

Building a programme

1

Create the programme

Go to Programmes, then Create. Give it a name and optionally a description. You can set a weekly schedule (which days sessions are planned) or leave it flexible.

2

Add sessions

Each programme has one or more sessions (e.g. "Upper A", "Lower A", "Upper B"). Add sessions and give them names that make sense to your client.

3

Add exercises

Search the exercise library and add exercises to each session. Set sets, reps, target weight, RPE, tempo, and rest time per exercise. You can tag sets as Warmup, Working, Drop, or Failure. Drag to reorder exercises within a session.

4

Assign to a client

From the client's profile, go to the Programme tab and assign the programme. It appears on their home screen immediately. You can also save any programme as a reusable template and apply it to multiple clients.

Useful features

Supersets and circuits: group exercises together for paired or circuit training
Time-based exercises: set Hold (timed holds) or AMRAP (reps in a time window) modes
Session notes: add a note to a session that your client sees before they start
Previous performance: while building, you can see what a client lifted last time for each exercise
Video links: attach a YouTube demo link to any exercise

Templates save time. Build a programme once, save it as a template, and apply it to new clients with one tap. Templates are yours only and are not shared with other trainers.

Trainers

Messaging and auto-messages

1:1 messaging with every client, plus automated messages that send themselves.

1:1 messaging

Standard text messaging with a few additions worth knowing about:

Voice notes: record a voice note directly in the composer. Your client sees the waveform and can scrub, replay, and adjust playback speed. More efficient than typing for technique corrections.
Context cards: reference a specific session or PR in a message. The card shows the relevant data inline in the thread.
Templates: save messages you send often and send them with one tap.

Auto-messages

Set messages to send automatically based on client behaviour. Seven trigger types:

Trigger	When it sends
Session completed	After the client logs a session
Personal record	When the client sets a new PR
Inactivity	When a client goes quiet relative to their usual cadence
Programme ending	When a client's programme is nearing completion
Check-in submitted	When a client completes their weekly check-in
Intake form completed	When a client submits a form you assigned
Milestone	At session count milestones (10th session, 25th, etc.)

Auto-messages appear as regular messages from you. Clients cannot tell they were automated. You can customise the message content per client from their Overview tab.

Trainers

Check-ins and habits

Weekly check-ins

Every client receives a weekly check-in prompt on a day you choose (default: Sunday). The standard check-in captures mood and energy. You can add custom questions to ask about sleep, soreness, nutrition, or anything else relevant to how you coach. Responses appear in the client's Check-ins tab.

Habits

Assign daily or weekly habits to clients: "Drink 2L water", "Hit daily protein target", "Sleep before midnight". Clients log these from their Habits tab. You can see their compliance and streak from the client's Overview tab. Habits are a lightweight engagement layer between sessions and keep the coaching relationship active on rest days.

PAR-Q health screening is available from the client's Overview tab. You can assign the standard PAR-Q form for clients to complete, or record that you've already screened them outside the app. Any health conditions flagged are automatically mapped to the contraindication system, which warns you if you're building a programme with exercises that may conflict.

Trainers

Profile and certifications

Your profile

Your profile is what your clients see when they tap "About [your name]" in their settings. It shows your photo, bio, specialisms, and certifications. Keep it current. It's your professional face inside the product.

Add your social links (Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, X) in Settings, then Profile. These appear as icon links on your public profile. You can preview exactly what your clients see by tapping "Preview my profile" in your settings.

Certifications and verified badge

Submit your certifications in Settings, then Certifications. You'll need your certification body, certification name, and credential ID (the ID that appears on the body's public directory). Once submitted, it goes into a verification queue and is checked against the certification body's directory.

Once verified, you receive a Verified Trainer badge. This badge appears on your profile, your Q&A answers in the marketplace, and your peer review contributions, and gives your votes a 1.5x weighting in the peer review system.

If your certification body uses credential.net for digital badges, paste your credential.net URL when submitting. This speeds up verification significantly.

Expiry

Certifications expire automatically on their expiry date. You'll receive reminders at 30 days and 7 days before expiry. Submit your renewed credential early. Your verified status is retained while a renewal is pending review.

Trainers

Billing

Direct client billing

Charge your clients directly through Formline using Stripe. Go to the Billing item in your sidebar to set it up. Once your Stripe account is connected, you can configure billing per client from their Overview tab:

Monthly subscription: recurring charge on a set date each month
Session packages: charge for a block of sessions upfront

Payment links can be sent via Formline message, email, or copied to share however you prefer. You'll see payment status on the client's Overview tab.

Founding cohort

As a founding trainer, your Formline subscription is free for life in exchange for your honest feedback. The platform fee on client billing is also waived during the founding period.