Your first afternoon: from spreadsheets to a working system

A new plumbing firm goes from sign up to a published system in one afternoon: business type, customer and equipment spreadsheets, two engineers with logins, and publishing.

What's in this video

1. It's Monday afternoon. Nadia Cole has just started Cole Plumbing. Her customers are still in a spreadsheet, and two engineers, Callum Reed and Leah Brooks, need logins before tomorrow. She doesn't need to know how software is built. We'll set the system up with her.
2. She's signed in, and OmniSchema asks a few questions so it can set up the right pages. First, what the business does. Cole Plumbing is a plumbing firm, so choose Trades. Plumbing, Electrical and Building.
3. Next, how big the team is, and what they use today. Three people, so one to five, and they use spreadsheets. Click Continue.
4. Give the system a name. This is what the team will see. You can rename it any time.
5. It suggests Cole Plumbing Workspace. We'll call it Cole Plumbing, and click Create system.
6. OmniSchema recommends ready made sets of pages, called kits. For this firm that's a customer directory, work orders for the jobs, a sales ledger for quotes and invoices, and a home page. Each kit has a tick. Untick anything you don't need. We'll keep them all.
7. Click Install recommended kit. This takes a few seconds while the lists and pages are built.
8. The lists are linked, so a job knows its customer, its equipment, and who it's assigned to. Nothing to change. Click Continue.
9. Now the spreadsheets. Each new list is here. Next to Customer Directory, click Import a spreadsheet.
10. Click Import CSV or Excel, and choose the file. This is the customer list from Cole Plumbing's spreadsheet.
11. OmniSchema matches the column headings. If one looks wrong, change it before you import. Then click Import rows.
12. The customers are in. Now the equipment they look after. Open Assets, and choose that spreadsheet too.
13. Check the columns, then click Import rows. The boilers, tanks and pipework are in the Assets list, so a job can point at the right equipment.
14. You can bring the other lists in the same way, now or later. Click Continue.
15. This is Owner Home, the page the team lands on. The numbers here are example rows that come with the kits. They drop away as you add your own. Your customers are in the menu.
16. Open Customer Directory. Here are the customers from the spreadsheet. Larkfield Estate, Elm Park Centre and Northgate House, ready to use.
17. Next, the engineers. Open the Governance workspace, then User roles. A role decides what someone can do.
18. A new company starts with Owner, Manager and Staff. We'll add Engineer. Tick Has a job queue, so they can pick up work. Leave costs, settings and Studio unticked, and click Add role.
19. Engineer is in the list. They won't see cost figures, and they can't change company settings. Open Team members.
20. Add Callum Reed. His work email, the Engineer role, and his site, Larkfield Estate. Then click Create account.
21. The password is made for him and shown only this once. Copy the login details and send them to Callum. He can change the password after he signs in.
22. Now Leah Brooks, the same way. Her site is Elm Park Centre. Create the account, and copy her details too.
23. Both engineers are on the team. Open Studio, then Publish, and you can see the live version.
24. Version 1 went out when setup finished, and it says Live now. That is the copy Callum and Leah open. Add a short note and click Publish. That sends the version the team is using.
25. Callum opens OmniSchema on his phone and signs in with the details Nadia sent him.
26. Skip the short tour. He lands on Owner Home, with the menu along the bottom.
27. The cost tile is a dash, because an engineer cannot see cost figures.
28. Scroll down. Assigned to me is zero, so none of these jobs are his. He can still see every job.
29. He sees every job because Work Orders is open to everyone in this system. Open Database Hub, and you can change who sees which rows.
30. Row visibility is Everyone in this system. Change it to Assigned to me, and an engineer sees only the jobs assigned to them. We'll leave this list as it is.
31. The page can be changed as well. In Studio, pick any block, and you can edit the words, the numbers, and where it sits.
32. It does not have to look the same on every screen. Show on lists Desktop, Tablet and Mobile. Untick one, and that block is hidden on that size of screen. Here is the tablet, and here is the phone.
33. If you want each step on its own, the Operations lessons under Getting started, Building your system, and People and access cover setting up, publishing, user roles and team members.