---
title: "Step by step"
description: "Step by step is Fincanva's strategy walk-through: one chapter at a time, with explanations beside the choices, ending in the Summary and the backtest."
canonical_url: "https://fincanva.com/glossary/step-by-step"
last_updated: "2026-10-03"
md_url: "https://fincanva.com/glossary/step-by-step.md"
---

# Step by step

**Step by step** is Fincanva's strategy walk-through: a map of chapters on the left, one chapter open at a time, and an explanation beside the choices that need one. It runs from choosing how you pick holdings to the **Summary**, where you name the strategy and run its first [backtest](/glossary/backtest). Step by step and [All at once](/glossary/all-at-once) edit exactly the same [strategy](/glossary/strategy) and differ only in how much of it they show you at once and how much they explain. A per-user preference decides which of the two a strategy opens in, and either can be opened for a single visit.

**Also seen as:** the walk-through

## What are the chapters of Step by step?

A single strategy's walk has six chapters, in this order, and each one holds the same controls All at once has for that part of the strategy.

| # | Chapter | What it holds |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | **Strategy type** | the [strategy type](/glossary/strategy-type), with its four official names and their one-line descriptions |
| 2 | **Asset selection** | the instruments, or the [screener](/glossary/screener), the strategy will trade |
| 3 | **Allocation** | how capital is split across them: **Goal** · **Method** · **Settings** |
| 4 | **Rebalance** | how often the strategy [rebalances](/glossary/rebalance), and nothing else |
| 5 | **Risk and exits** | **When** the strategy changes allocation, **Then: Risk-Off** the allocation it changes to, and **Exits** — the [take-profit](/glossary/take-profit) and [stop-loss](/glossary/stop-loss) rules applied to each position |
| 6 | **Summary** | **Backtest settings** — the strategy's name, [benchmark](/glossary/benchmark), [starting year](/glossary/simulation-start-year) and description — and the button that runs the backtest |

Three details of the chapters are worth knowing before you open them:

- **Asset selection** puts the screener's [universe](/glossary/universe), filters and [maximum positions](/glossary/max-positions) on one page, or, for chosen instruments, a search box and **Your selection** — a table of what you picked with a total. **Browse lists** opens a side sheet of ready-made lists, where you add their instruments one at a time or all together and press **Done**. On a single [instrument](/glossary/instrument) the chapter shows one row with **Change**, and a note says the other chapters are optional.
- **Allocation** asks what matters most to you, then which method splits the capital, then shows that method's settings already on their defaults. When a [risk condition](/glossary/risk-condition) exists, a quiet row on the chapter leads to **Then: Risk-Off**, because the Risk-Off allocation is set right after the condition that triggers it. The **Settings** page is never skipped: it also holds the settings every method shares. On a **Single instrument** strategy, **Allocation** is that one page alone, titled "How much leverage do you use?": one instrument takes all of the invested capital, so there is no goal or method to choose and the page holds only the sizing — see [Single-asset simplification](/glossary/single-asset-simplification).
- **Risk and exits** sets the condition first (**When**), then what the strategy does when it triggers (**Then: Risk-Off**), then the exits. Until a condition exists, **Then: Risk-Off** says there is none yet, so the Risk-Off never comes into play.

## Which chapters does each strategy type require?

Each [strategy type](/glossary/strategy-type) has its own required chapters; the others are optional, can be skipped with **Skip this chapter**, and never block you. The map lists the required chapters first, numbered in the order you do them, and the optional ones below them under a divider labelled **Optional**.

| Strategy type | Required chapters | Optional chapters |
|---|---|---|
| **Single instrument** | Asset selection · Summary | Allocation, Rebalance, Risk and exits |
| **Multiple instruments** | Asset selection · Allocation · Rebalance · Summary | Risk and exits |
| **Screener** | Asset selection · Allocation · Rebalance · Summary | Risk and exits |
| **Full setup** | Asset selection · Allocation · Rebalance · Risk and exits · Summary | none |

**Strategy type** is not in the table: it is in every walk and is already confirmed when the strategy is created from the **Create new** popup, where you chose the type. Reopening it and choosing another type runs the same switch All at once's **Type** control runs, which first says what the later chapters would lose — see [Strategy type](/glossary/strategy-type#can-you-change-a-strategys-type-later).

A **Combined** is not in this table because it has no strategy type: strategy type belongs to each [member strategy](/glossary/strategy-in-a-combined), never to the Combined that blends them. Its chapters are in the next section.

## Which chapters does a Combined walk?

A [Combined](/glossary/combined) walks five chapters, and every one of them acts on the Combined itself rather than on any one member: **Strategies** · **Allocation** · **Rebalance** · **Risk** · **Summary**. **Strategies**, **Allocation**, **Rebalance** and **Summary** are required; **Risk** is optional. The [Combined level](/glossary/combined-level) has no exits — each member strategy keeps its own — so **Risk** holds **When** and **Then: Risk-Off** and no **Exits**, and there is no chapter for choosing a strategy type.

**Allocation** has the same three pages as **Allocation**, applied to the Combined's own capital, and its first page says how the layers fit: "The Combined's allocation and risk sit above each strategy's own: the backtest applies both."

**Strategies** lists the Combined's strategies, each with its progress ("3 of 5", or "3 of 5 · to finish" while a required chapter is open — the count is of required chapters only), the title of its most serious alert, and one action: **Open** when nothing is pending, **Fix ›** and a chapter's name when that chapter holds a blocking alert, **Continue ›** and a chapter's name when the strategy is unfinished. A strategy kept aside is tagged **Kept aside**. **Add a strategy** opens a side panel — "Pick one of your strategies to copy in, or start a blank one." — with **Create a blank strategy** and your strategies, each marked **Add**, or **In use** when it is already in the Combined; adding one asks "Add a copy of" followed by its name, and copies a snapshot, so the original is untouched.

**Each member strategy has its own Step by step**, a walk of its own with **Back to the Combined** at the top of its chapter map. In the strategy tabs above, a member carries a mark: **Blocks the backtest**, **To evaluate**, or **To finish**, the last only in Step by step. An unfinished member does not stop the Combined's backtest; a blocking alert on a member does, as the run gate states. An [Incomplete Combined](/glossary/incomplete-combined) — one still holding fewer than two strategies — opens this same walk, and its **Strategies** chapter is where that is fixed.

## How do you move between chapters?

You move with the chapter map or with the buttons under the chapter, and going back is always free:

- **The map** lists the required chapters first, numbered 1, 2, 3 … in the order you do them, each with its answer under its title. A divider labelled **Optional** follows, and under it the optional chapters, with their answer but no number and no check — they are never a step you owe. A walk with no optional chapter, such as **Full setup**, has no divider. Press any chapter you can reach to open it; a chapter that cannot be opened yet is dimmed, and hovering says why — for example "Confirm “Capital” first".
- **Forward** reaches up to the first required chapter you have not confirmed, that one included. Optional chapters are always reachable.
- **The buttons** read **Back**, **Next: …** with the name of the next page or chapter, and, on a chapter's last page, **Confirm …** with the chapter's name; **Next** and **Confirm** follow the required path: on a **Single instrument** strategy, **Asset selection** leads to **Summary**, not to **Allocation**. An optional chapter offers **Skip this chapter**, and leaving it, either way, returns you to the required path; **Back** goes to the chapter before it in the walk's order. The chapter counter reads "Chapter 2 of 5" on a required chapter, counting required chapters only, and "Optional" on an optional one. **Next** is off only while a required answer is missing, such as no instrument yet.

A chapter that holds an alert shows it on the map, with its title under the answer, and shows it again in its own footer — see [Where do alerts show in Step by step?](#where-do-alerts-show-in-step-by-step).

## Does the Backtest wait for Step by step?

No — the Backtest does not wait for any chapter. You can run it from the **Summary**, or with the **Backtest** button in the strategy's header, from wherever you are in the walk, as soon as the strategy can run. Two things can stop it: the run gate every view has, whose blocking reason is stated beside the button, and a check of the strategy against its type — if the selection does not match the type, for example two instruments on a **Single instrument** strategy, a dialog states the fix ("Pick exactly 1 instrument.") with **OK** and **Change strategy type**, and nothing runs. No chapter you have not been through and no mark you have not earned ever stops it. On a Combined, an unfinished member strategy does not stop it either.

The **Summary** holds the large button, which reads **Run the backtest**, or **Run the backtest again** once fresh results exist. It wears the same two faces as the header's primary button: while there are unsaved changes it reads **Save**, and once they are saved it runs the backtest. While the run works, a neutral alert reads **Backtest running** with the percentage once it is known and "You can stay here or keep working."; when it ends with fresh results, an alert reads **Results ready** with **View results**. Nothing navigates by itself: the walk leaves you where you are, and **View results** is the way to the strategy's **Analysis** section. If the backtest doesn't start, Fincanva shows "Couldn't start the run" and leaves you on the page.

## Where do you land when you reopen a strategy in Step by step?

You land on the first required chapter that is not complete, so the walk points at what still needs you. A chapter is **complete** when you have confirmed it and nothing the run gate refuses points at it. If every required chapter is complete, you land on the first optional chapter that holds a refusal, and otherwise on the **Summary**.

## What does the explanation pane show?

The explanation pane, on the right of a chapter, explains the choice in front of you and never holds a control or a selection. It appears only where a choice needs explaining — the **Goal** and **Method** pages of **Allocation** — and shows, under **What it means** for a goal or a heading naming the method it explains, one plain sentence, a schematic marked "A sketch, not a calculation on your holdings", and **Read the guide**, which opens the page of the concept being explained — in a panel inside the app, or on the docs site. Pages with nothing to explain — **Rebalance**, **Settings**, **Asset selection** — use the full width. The pane reads written explanations, never your strategy's numbers: Fincanva's computed figures come only from the backtest.

## Where do alerts show in Step by step?

An alert shows in the chapter whose control resolves it. The chapter's key on the map takes a coloured base — one colour for a [blocking alert](/glossary/strategy-alerts), another for one to review — and a line with the alert's title, with "+N" when there are more; the same alert shows again as a footer above the chapter's buttons, with its fix where one exists (for a missing Risk-Off, **Choose the Risk-Off**) and **Leave as is** on an alert to review. The missing-Risk-Off alert belongs to **Risk and exits**, not to **Allocation**. The Summary has no list of alerts of its own: the [section strip](/glossary/strategy-alerts#what-does-the-section-strip-show) in the strategy's header, present in every chapter, totals them and opens the **Strategy controls** popover.

## How does Fincanva handle it?

- **A preference decides which view a strategy opens in.** **Profile › Preferences** has a row **How you build strategies**, with **Step by step** and **All at once**; until you choose, a strategy opens in All at once. A Live strategy opens on **Positions** either way. The full account is in [Which view does a strategy open in?](#which-view-does-a-strategy-open-in).
- **One popup creates for both views.** **Create new** offers the four strategy types to everyone; the first time, it also asks "How do you prefer to work?" and stores the answer once a strategy is created. A new strategy opens in Step by step on **Asset selection** when the answer is **Step by step**, and in All at once otherwise. A Combined keeps its own gate: it needs strategies to combine.
- **Two doors, both for this visit only.** From All at once, the **⋯** menu's first item, **Open step by step**, opens the strategy here; the item is offered only to someone who can edit the strategy, and not on a Combined member's own page in All at once. From Step by step, **See all at once** at the right end of the section band, beside the label **Step by step**, opens it in All at once — on a member's walk, that member's own advanced page. Neither changes the preference, and both views share one working copy, so what you entered is not lost and what was unsaved stays unsaved.
- **Every chapter carries All at once's own controls.** Nothing in Step by step is a copy of a setting; it is the same control on a page of its own.
- **The marks stay, and they no longer gate anything.** A chapter you confirm is remembered, per walk, and the map and the landing read it; it never switches the Backtest on or off.
- A public strategy opens in Step by step but cannot be saved from it — see [Mine / Public](/glossary/mine-public).

## What does it look like in practice?

You want a two-instrument strategy that rebalances monthly. In the **Create new** popup you choose **Multiple instruments**, and, as it is your first strategy, you leave **Step by step** selected; the strategy opens on **Asset selection**, with **Strategy type** already confirmed. You add two tickers and confirm. On **Allocation** you leave the goal and method as offered and confirm; on **Rebalance** you set one month. **Risk and exits** is optional, so you press **Skip this chapter**, and on **Summary** you name the strategy and press **Run the backtest**. You never had to open a risk or exits page, and you could have pressed **Backtest** in the header from **Asset selection** on.

Now blend that strategy with two others. The [Combined](/glossary/combined) walks its own five chapters: **Strategies** picks the three, **Allocation** decides how much each receives, **Rebalance** sets how often the Combined rebalances, and **Summary** runs it. **Risk** waits as an optional chapter if you want a risk layer over the whole thing, and each of the three strategies keeps its own exits, which you reach by opening it and using **Back to the Combined** to return.

## What are Step by step and All at once?

**Step by step** and **All at once** are Fincanva's two views of one and the same strategy. Step by step walks you through the strategy one chapter at a time, with an explanation beside the choices that need one; [All at once](/glossary/all-at-once) puts every setting on a single page. They are two views, not two strategies: neither can set something the other cannot, and the view you used never changes what the strategy does or what its [backtest](/glossary/backtest) computes. "Advanced" here names a view — it has nothing to do with the Advanced plan.

## Which view does a strategy open in?

A strategy opens in the view you chose under **How you build strategies** in **Profile › Preferences**: **Step by step** (one chapter at a time, with explanations) or **All at once** (every setting on one page). Until you have chosen, a strategy opens in All at once, exactly as it did before the choice existed.

- **A Live strategy opens on Positions whatever the preference says**, because someone following a strategy with real money wants the positions first. Its **Settings** tab still follows the preference.
- **The preference is yours, not the strategy's.** It decides the view for every strategy you open, including a [Public](/glossary/mine-public) one, which opens read-only in either view.
- **The Settings tab follows it too**, so a link to a strategy's settings and the strategy itself land in the same place.

## How do you choose the view the first time?

You choose it the first time you create a strategy: the **Create new** popup then asks "How do you prefer to work?" above its tiles, with **Step by step** preselected. The answer is stored when a strategy (or a Combined) is actually created from the popup; opening and closing the popup answers nothing, and creating a screener does not count. From then on the popup stops asking, and the preference changes only in **Profile › Preferences**.

The popup is the same for both views. Everyone picks the strategy type there, from the four [strategy types](/glossary/strategy-type); the preference decides only where the new strategy lands — Step by step on its **Asset selection** chapter, or All at once.

## How do you switch view for one visit?

You switch with one control on each side, and it changes the view for this visit only — the preference stays as it was, and the next time you open the strategy it follows the preference again:

- **All at once → Step by step** — open the **⋯** menu in the strategy's header and choose **Open step by step**, the menu's first item. It is offered only to someone who can edit the strategy, and not on a Combined member's own page.
- **Step by step → All at once** — press **See all at once** at the right end of the section band (the row of **Settings**, **Analysis** and **Positions**), next to the label **Step by step**. On a member of a Combined, it opens that member's own advanced page.

Both views read and write the same working copy, so nothing you have entered is discarded when you switch. What was unsaved before the switch is still unsaved after it — the switch is not a save. The old icon that toggled between the two views has gone from both of them.

## Which view should you use: Step by step or All at once?

Use Step by step when you would rather be walked past every decision and have the choices explained, and All at once when you already know which setting you want to change. The two differ in how much of the strategy is on screen at once and in how much explanation comes with it — nothing else.

|  | Step by step | All at once |
|---|---|---|
| **What it shows** | A map of chapters on the left and one chapter open at a time — **Asset selection**, **Allocation**, **Rebalance**, **Risk and exits**, **Summary** — each page with the same controls All at once has, and an explanation pane beside a goal or a method. | The strategy's settings together on one page, each edited in place, in any order. |
| **Good for** | A first build, or a change where the order of the decisions is itself the help. | Changing settings you can already name, especially two or three unrelated ones: you edit them on one page, save once and re-run once. |
| **Where you get there from** | The **Step by step** preference, **Open step by step** in the **⋯** menu, or a new strategy created with **Step by step** chosen. | The **All at once** preference (or no preference yet), **See all at once** in Step by step, or a new strategy created with **All at once** chosen. |

The chapters are described in [What are the chapters of Step by step?](#what-are-the-chapters-of-step-by-step); what All at once holds is described in [All at once](/glossary/all-at-once) and in [Editing a strategy: the settings cards](/docs/strategies/editing-a-strategy-the-settings-cards).

## What are the limits and edge cases of the two views?

- **The Backtest does not wait for Step by step.** You can run it from any chapter as soon as the strategy can run: only the run gate's blocking reasons, or a selection that does not match the strategy type (a dialog with **OK** and **Change strategy type**), stop it — never a chapter you have not been through. See [Step by step](#does-the-backtest-wait-for-step-by-step).
- **All at once is a view, not a plan.** It has nothing to do with the Advanced plan: a view changes how much of one strategy you see at once, a plan changes what your account includes.
- **A strategy inside a Combined has its own Step by step.** Each member of a [Combined](/glossary/combined) opens in its own walk, with **Back to the Combined** at the top of its chapter map, and the Combined's own walk has its own chapters. See [Which chapters does a Combined walk?](#which-chapters-does-a-combined-walk). Its **Strategies** chapter lists each member with an action, and an unfinished member does not stop the backtest while a blocking alert does.
- **A setting that is optional for the strategy type is not shown unconditionally.** In Step by step an optional chapter sits under the **Optional** divider of the map, below the required chapters, and can be skipped; **Next** follows the required path; in All at once the same setting is an **Add** row until you set it up, and then a full card.
- **A strategy that doesn't match its strategy type is refused.** The refusal states the fix: "Pick exactly 1 instrument." on a **Single instrument** strategy, "Pick 2 or more instruments." on **Multiple instruments**, "Add at least 1 screener." on **Screener**. Fix the selection, or take **Change strategy type**.
- **A Public strategy opens in either view but cannot be saved from it.** Save is disabled, and its tooltip reads:

  > Public strategies can't be saved. Use "Copy to Mine" to make an editable version.

  Make your own copy first and edit that — see [Mine / Public](/glossary/mine-public).

## Which pages go further on the two views?

To build a strategy from scratch, follow [Create a strategy](/docs/strategies/create-a-strategy-and-choose-its-instruments). To change one you already have, see [Editing a strategy: the settings cards](/docs/strategies/editing-a-strategy-the-settings-cards). To pick the shape that fits your idea, see [Strategy type](/glossary/strategy-type). To save and re-run after an edit, see [Saving, running, and copying a strategy](/docs/strategies/saving-running-and-copying-a-strategy).

Fincanva is for education and illustration only. It is not personalised financial advice, and past or simulated results do not predict future ones. [Read the Terms Addendum](https://fincanva.com/terms/addendum#section-3)