n8n is a workflow automation tool: it connects services together and runs sequences of steps on a trigger or a schedule. Your instance is yours alone — your workflows, your credentials, your data — rather than a shared account on someone else's platform.
Signing in
Your instance is at https://yourusername.oissite.net, using the username from your welcome email.
The owner account is created for you before the instance is handed over, and its credentials are in that same email. There is no window where the instance sits unclaimed and open to whoever finds it first.
Change the password on first sign-in. It travelled by email, which is not a secure channel.
Your first workflow
- Choose Add workflow.
- Every workflow starts with a trigger — a schedule, an incoming webhook, or an event in a connected app. Pick one and configure it.
- Add nodes after the trigger for each step you want to happen.
- Use Execute workflow to test with real data before activating.
- Toggle Active when you are satisfied. Until you do, only manual runs happen — scheduled and webhook triggers stay dormant.
That last point catches almost everyone: a saved workflow is not a running workflow.
Credentials
Credentials for the services you connect are stored encrypted in your instance, separately from the workflows that use them. Add them once under Credentials and reference them from as many workflows as you like.
They are encrypted with a key held by the instance, and that key is included in our backups — so a restore brings your credentials back along with your workflows. You do not have to re-enter them or reconnect every service afterwards.
Webhooks
A webhook node gives you two URLs: a test URL and a production URL. The test URL only listens while you have the editor open and are actively testing. The production URL works whenever the workflow is active.
Configuring an external service against the test URL and wondering why nothing arrives later is the most common support ticket on any n8n instance. Use the production URL for anything real.
Keeping workflows working
- Export what matters. Workflows can be downloaded as JSON from the workflow menu. Keep copies of anything you would not want to rebuild.
- Watch the executions list. It shows failures with the data that caused them, which is usually enough to diagnose the problem without touching the workflow.
- Add error handling to anything important. An error trigger workflow can notify you when a production workflow fails, rather than you finding out a week later.
Upgrades
You decide when to upgrade n8n. Nothing is applied to your instance without you asking, so a version change never arrives unannounced and never breaks a working automation overnight.
The other side of that is the responsibility: an instance left on an old version stays on it, including its security fixes. Watch n8n's release notes and plan upgrades deliberately.
If you would rather not do it yourself, open a ticket — we will help with the upgrade at no charge.
Resource limits
Each plan comes with a fixed allocation of memory and CPU. Workflows that run for a long time, or that process large volumes, use more of both — and this is the audience most likely to build exactly those.
If your usage consistently exceeds your plan, you will need to move to a larger one, which costs more. That is worth knowing before you build something heavy rather than after. If you are planning high-volume work, ask us first and we will tell you which plan fits.
Getting help
For n8n usage questions — how to build a particular workflow, which node to use — the n8n community forum and documentation are considerably faster than we are, because that is where the people building similar workflows are.
For anything about the instance itself — it is unreachable, slow, needs a restart, needs restoring — open a ticket from the client area and include the instance URL and the time the problem started.
