> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.plastics.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Quickstart

> Create your account, answer three short questions, and get your first material answer from Herman AI in a few minutes.

plastics.com is a material discovery and sourcing platform. This page follows the path a new
account takes, in the order the product presents it.

**1. Create your account**

Go to the sign-in page and choose **Create one** to switch to sign-up. You can either fill in
first name, last name, work email and a password, or use **Continue with Google** or
**Continue with Microsoft**.

If you sign up with an email and password, plastics.com emails you a six-digit code and shows a
**Verify your email** screen. Enter the code to finish. Returning users sign in from the same
page with **Sign In**, and reset a password from **Forgot password?**.

> [!NOTE]
>
> Sign up with your work email where you can. plastics.com groups colleagues who share an email
> domain into one organization. A personal address cannot be attached to an organization, and
> anyone you invite from it is asked to create their own instead.

**2. Answer three short questions**

The first time you sign in, plastics.com asks three questions before it hands you the app:

1. **What best describes your work?** and **What industry are you in?** Pick your role, for
   example Materials Engineer, Procurement or Injection Molder, and your industry.
2. **What brings you to plastics.com?** Select any that apply, such as getting material
   recommendations, understanding tradeoffs, extracting data from datasheets, or getting
   samples and quotes.
3. **Set up your team.** Confirm your organization name and add colleagues by email address.
   Only an organization administrator can edit the name here; everyone else sees it read only.

Every field is optional. **Skip** in the top right goes straight into the product, and you can
invite people later from your organization page.

**3. Ask Herman AI**

When onboarding finishes you land in chat, which is where most work starts. The assistant is
called **Herman AI**.

Type a question in the box at the bottom, for example a material recommendation for a part or a
comparison between two grades.

Type `/` in the same box for focused commands: `/find`, `/compare`, `/alternatives`, `/datasheet`
and `/spec`. There is also a **Product Search** mode for when you already know the product or
manufacturer part number you are after.

Past chats are listed in the left sidebar, and **New Chat** starts a fresh one.

**4. Browse the catalog and ask about a product**

**Explore Materials** in the left sidebar opens the product catalog. Narrow it with the filter
panel, which has both **Quick Filters** and **Advanced Filters** views, and open any product to
see its details and datasheets. Product cards and detail pages carry a **Request Info** button,
which opens a short three-part form beside the product: material specs, fulfillment details,
then submit. Materials a supplier has marked as ready to ship show **Order Now** instead.

**5. Group your work into a project, and invite your team**

**New Project** in the left sidebar opens a short form. Project name is the only required
field; you can also add a description, applications, manufacturing location and a priority,
then choose **Create**. A project holds the materials you gathered and the chats about them
under **Overview**, **Materials**, **Chats** and **Team** tabs. **Invite Members** adds
teammates to it as Viewer, Editor or Admin, up to your own level on that project.

To add people to the organization itself, open **Organization Profile**, which has **Users** and
**Invites** tabs and an **Invite Users** button that takes a list of email addresses.

> [!NOTE]
>
> Organization administrators send invitations directly. If you are not an administrator, yours
> is created as pending and an administrator has to approve it before it is sent.

## A few things worth knowing

* **Tracking a request.** **Orders** in the sidebar opens **My Orders**, where each request moves
  through RFQ, Quote, Accepted, Placed and Done.
* **Units.** Your profile has a **Preferences** card with a **Unit System** setting, Metric (SI)
  or Imperial (US), controlling how property values are shown to you.
* **If you are a supplier.** Merchant-role accounts land on a merchant dashboard instead of chat,
  and get catalog, pricing, warehouse, order and customer tools in the sidebar.
* **Help.** The support page has an email address for our team.


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