Statuses and steps

Your process lives on one canvas in the editor. The Stages, Rules and Automations steps are the same picture, built up in three layers: first the stages and who gets each step's tickets, then what each step needs, then the work the stack does on its own. Every step card shows a band for each layer you've done so far: Assign, Needs and Runs.

Stages are the big buckets everyone understands at a glance: New, In progress, Done. They're the columns on the board and in reports.

Steps are the real jobs inside each stage: Waiting for quote, Vendor scheduled, Waiting for parts. They're where the work, and the automation, happens.

Why two layers? Managers want a simple picture; the person doing the work needs the detail. You get both.

Working on the canvas

• Drag the background to move around, scroll to pan, and hold Ctrl (Cmd on a Mac) while scrolling to zoom. Fit brings the whole flow back into view.
• Click a step to open its panel on the right. What the panel shows follows the layer you're on: who it goes to on Stages, what it needs on Rules, what it does on Automations.
• Add step (the slim strip at the end of a stage) adds a step. The round + on a stage's right edge adds a stage after it.
• Click a stage's name to rename it, pick its color, turn on Closes the ticket, or change Where it goes next.
• Templates starts over from a common setup like Simple, Approval, Orders or Repairs. A new stack starts there, or with Start blank.
• Stack settings holds archiving, field visits, giving tickets to whoever is on shift, time tracking and due-date reminders.
• Made a mistake? Undo and Redo are next to Back (or Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Shift+Z).

Who gets each step's tickets

On the Stages layer, each step says where its tickets go (on the first step it's New tickets go to):

• Stays with whoever has it: the person who moved it here keeps it.
• Nobody yet (someone picks it up): it waits unassigned until someone takes it.
• A team queue: it lands in a team's queue, and anyone on the team picks it up. Company Admins can make a team right there with + New queue.
• A specific person: it always goes to the same person.

Branches

A stage can go to more than one place. Under Where it goes next, + Add a path adds another way out, and "Only if" says when a ticket takes it, like Cost is more than 500. When a ticket finishes the stage on its own (an automatic move or an approval), it follows the first path whose condition matches. People can still drag a card to any stage on the board.

Closed stages

Turn on Closes the ticket for a stage (like Done or Cancelled) and tickets that reach it count as finished: they leave people's open lists and count in "closed" reports.

How a ticket moves

Each step says how tickets arrive in it (in the editor's Automations step, under Moves here):

• Moved by a person: someone picks the next step on the ticket or drags the card. The most common.
• ⚡ Previous step's requirements met: the ticket moves on by itself as soon as the last step's rules are satisfied.
• ⚡ Scheduled tickets start here: where scheduled tickets begin, so they can skip intake steps.

The first step needs no trigger: every new ticket starts there, however it comes in. Pick who it goes to with New tickets go to.

What a step can do

• Show instructions on the ticket, so whoever's working it knows what "done" means for this step.
• Require information before moving on. See Step rules.
• Assign an owner, fill in a field or call another system. See Automatic actions.
• Email the requester, owner, watchers or a location. See Step emails.
• Nudge people when a ticket sits too long. See Reminders.

Tip: start with three or four steps. You can always split a step later once you see where tickets pile up.