Your first week at Nexus Black
The Training portal is a short guided tour: nine modules on People, Projects, Process, Product and Technology, then the tools and logins you will need. This guide explains how you get in, why the sign-in page says what it says, and what each module is for.
- 1. Your invitation
- 2. The sign-in page, explained
- 3. The two gates
- 4. The nine modules
- 5. Downloads
- 6. Marking modules complete
- 7. Who to ask
1. Your invitation
You cannot sign up to this portal on your own. Your account is created from an invitation: an email from Clerk (the sign-in service both Nexus Black portals use) with the subject "You've been invited to join Nexus Black". It is sent when your onboarding operator runs the last part of your onboarding in Ignition, the team's joiner tool, usually on or just before your start date.
What to do with the email
- Open the link. It brings you to this portal's sign-up page with your IFS email already confirmed.
- Choose a password if the form asks for one. That is the whole sign-up.
- You land on the Welcome page, or on a page saying when your onboarding opens (see the two gates).
@ifs.com addresses only. A personal address, even with a valid invitation, will be refused after sign-in.2. The sign-in page, explained
Once you have an account, sign in at the portal address with your IFS email. Two things on that page can look odd the first time:
- "Access is by invitation". If you reach the sign-up page without an invitation link, the form shows a card with these words instead of a form. It means exactly that: there is no self sign-up, and your invitation comes from your onboarding operator. The "Ask Charlie Toprak" button on the card opens an email to the team's support address.
- "No account for that address. Accounts are created by invitation from your onboarding operator; ask your manager or Charlie Toprak." You typed an address that has no account yet. Either the invitation has not been sent, or you used a different address from the one it was sent to.
There is no "Sign up" link on the sign-in page, on purpose. The only door is the invitation.
3. The two gates
Having an account is not the same as being let in. After you sign in, the portal checks two things, in this order.
| Gate | What it checks | What you see if it holds |
|---|---|---|
| The roster | Your IFS email must be on the Nexus Black roster, the team's single list of people, with the status Active or Incoming. The roster is kept in Ignition by the people who run onboarding. | "Nexus Black staff only", with the reason: not on the roster yet, not an IFS address, or recorded as having left. Ask your manager or Charlie Toprak to correct the roster; the portal opens as soon as it is right. |
| Your start date | If your roster status is Incoming, the modules open on your start date and not before. | "Your onboarding opens on day". Nothing to prepare; come back on the day. Your operator can bring the date forward in the roster if you are starting sooner. |
Once both gates are open you see the module list on the left and Welcome in the middle.
4. The nine modules
Work through them in order during your first week, at your own pace. Each has a Mark complete and continue button at the bottom.
| # | Module | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Welcome | What the tour covers, and the Downloads card (below). |
| 2 | People | The live roster: everyone at Nexus Black, filterable by function and status, with columns you choose. Then the customer notes: Eight Group and its operating companies, the active customers, demos and prospects. |
| 3 | Projects | The Portfolio Plan: one row per customer engagement, grouped by product, with a bar for its delivery window, ticks for milestones and a marker for its go-live. Click a row to open its workstreams and detail. The line under the heading says when the plan was built from the team's own project records. |
| 4 | Process | The ways-of-working flowchart: how new work arrives, how an AI coding agent and a human review handle it, how feedback and bugs flow back, and when to write something up. |
| 5 | Product | What Nexus Black builds and sells. |
| 6 | Technology | The technology register: the tools and platforms the team uses, as a radar. |
| 7 | Tools and Logins | A checklist built from your own onboarding run: one line per tool with where it stands and what you do next. Below it, the things Ignition does not do for you (multi-factor authentication, VPN, Cursor, Slack channels) and who to ask. |
| 8 | Useful Links | The addresses you will keep coming back to. |
| 9 | Finish | That is the tour. Say hello in #nxb-announcements. |
5. Downloads
The Welcome page has a Downloads card with three decks to keep: the Nexus Black Onboarding deck (who we are, what we build, how we work), the IFS HR Induction deck of May 2026 (policies, benefits, learning, expenses) and the IFS IT Introduction for APJME and EU (your device, MFA, VPN, Citrix, support contacts). They download only while you are signed in.
6. Marking modules complete
Pressing Mark complete and continue records that you finished the module and moves you to the next one. A tick appears beside it in the list, and the count at the bottom of the list goes up. Your manager can see which modules you have completed and nothing else; nobody else sees anything. You can reopen any module at any time.
7. Who to ask
- No invitation, or an expired link: your onboarding operator (the person who ran your onboarding in Ignition), otherwise your manager or Charlie Toprak.
- "Nexus Black staff only" after signing in: your manager or Charlie Toprak, to correct the roster.
- "Your onboarding opens on" a date that is wrong: your operator can change the start date in the roster.
- A tool on Tools and Logins that has not arrived: the operator named at the top of that page, or your manager.
- Anything about the content of a module: Charlie Toprak, who owns the module text with the function leads.