Let the assistant set up your workspace

1Open a workspace from the home page

On diract.io, describe your business in the box, then click Open my workspace. It opens straight away, with no sign up. A trade we have a setup for is built in seconds. For any other business, Scout plans the workspace from what you wrote, then builds it.

While Scout works, the top of Quick Glance shows what it is doing: the questions it is looking into, then each table, screen and card as it is made, which then joins the Made so far list. On any other screen the same card sits in the bottom right corner. Click its arrow to fold it into a small pill, and click the pill to open it again. When it finishes, the card reads Your workspace is ready. Click Look round to close it.

Until you claim it, a bar across the top reads This workspace is unclaimed. Click Claim this workspace, type your name, your business name and your email, then click Send link. Open the link in the email, and the workspace is yours.

The bar then asks for a password. Type one and click Save password, or click Later and use Forgot password on the sign in page next time.

An email that already has an account is refused with That email already has an account. Sign in to it instead.

2Describe your business

At sign up, pick Something else as the business type. Answer where you work, then what your company is called. The next step asks Do you go out to the work?

Click Yes, we work at our customers' sites if your day is a run of addresses. Click No, we work from one place if your customers come to you.

Answering yes puts a trade box on the next step. Type your trade in it, for example plumber. If we have a workspace for that trade, a green note reads We have a plumber and gasfitter setup ready. The next step asks how you want to start. While you are still typing, a trade we have a workspace for shows as a button under the box: click it to choose it. A misspelling still finds it: type electricuan and Electrician shows as a button.

Answering no puts a box on the next step asking your kind of business instead, for example accountant, travel agent or recruiter. If we have a workspace for it, the same green note says so, and Not my business drops it. If we do not, your workspace is planned from what you write about the business.

Your workspace arrives ready for more than fifty trades, from builders, carpenters and painters to cleaners, gardeners, locksmiths, mechanics and pest controllers, and newer ones such as auto electricians, skip bin businesses, asbestos removalists and chimney sweeps. Each one starts with jobs, the lines on each job and what is owed, set up for that trade's own kinds of work.

Offices have their own: travel agencies, accountants, bookkeepers, insurance and mortgage brokers, financial planners, recruitment agencies, architects, engineers, town planners, quantity surveyors, marketing agencies, design studios, software agencies, business and HR consultants, event planners, translators, and customs brokers. Each starts with its own work under its own name, such as Bookings for a travel agency or Engagements for an accountant. Each piece of work moves through that business's stages, has its lines and its value, and has a date it runs to. Some also keep a list that falls due: an insurance broker's Policies and when each renews, or a mortgage broker's Settled Loans and when each fixed rate ends.

An electrician's also starts with Test and Tag: each appliance or lead tested at a site, its tag number, the result and when it is next due. On Quick Glance, Failed tests sits under Needs attention, and Test and tag under Others shows Due soon, the retests due in the next 30 days, and Tested this month. A plumber's starts with Appliances: each hot water system or other appliance you installed, with its site, make, model and serial number. It also holds when the warranty ends and when the next service is due. Services due and Warranties ending under Others count the next 30 days.

A builder's also comes with the property developer setup: each build as a project with its stages, a Finance Model of its budget against what is spent, feasibility, and Loans. It starts with Variations as well: each change to a job after signing, its amount, and whether the client has agreed. On Quick Glance, Variations pending sits under Needs attention with what the waiting variations are worth, and Project completion under Today counts jobs In progress, At handover and Completed. A builder pays on the property developer plans.

Some trades also get their own home screen. An electrician's adds Quotes expiring, Equipment, Today's runs, Recurring jobs and Quotes to its cards. A landscaper's opens on Quotes, adds a Jobs by type card, and ends with Today's runs and Recurring jobs. A tool your company has switched off, or your plan does not include, is left off, and Today's runs needs a jobs table.

If you type a kind of business we already have a whole setup for, such as a lawyer, a restaurant or a real estate agency, the note offers Use the law firm setup (or the cafe or restaurant, or property, setup). Click it to switch to that setup.

If it matched the wrong trade, click Not my trade. What you typed is kept, and your workspace is planned from what you write instead.

On trade.diract.io a sign up box opens over the page. It asks one thing at a time: your email, your name, your company and its country, your phone number and your trade. Type your trade, or click one of the trades under the box. Click Next after each answer, then Start my free trial on the last one. Your workspace opens straight away, with no password and no email to confirm. To sign in later, click Forgot password on the sign in page and choose a password from the email we send. If your email already has an account, the first step says so, with a Sign in link.

Closing the box leaves you on the page. Set up your trade's workspace, Sign up and the buttons under the prices open it again and keep the answers you already gave.

With no matched trade, click Continue. The next step, Describe your business, says we do not have a setup for the trade you typed yet. Write as much as you can: what you sell or make, who your customers are, how a job reaches you and what you track. A single line gives the assistant very little to build from. Finish signing up as normal.

3Tell us anything specific a trade needs

A matched trade gets one more step, Anything specific you need?. It lists what your trade's setup holds: the tables, a board to work each from, and the tools under Tools. We build that workspace the moment your company exists, with nothing to confirm.

Leave the box empty and click Continue for the setup alone.

To get more, write what the setup leaves out in the box: something you keep track of, a kind of job, a step in how work reaches you. Once the setup is built, you land in Ask Scout. Its first message says your workspace is being set up and what you asked for is added after it. You can look round your workspace while that runs. The assistant builds what you asked for on top. It then lists what the setup built and what it did about each request, including anything it could not do.

The phone asks the same question on its own step after your trade.

4Confirm your email

On Create your account, type your name, your email and a password, tick the Terms, then click Create workspace. The page refuses an email that already has an account, before it creates anything. It reads An account with this email already exists, so you sign in instead.

Check your inbox says where the confirmation link went. Open it and your workspace is ready.

Nothing in your inbox after a minute or two? Look in your spam folder first, then click Resend it under Haven't received your email?. The link it sends goes to the same place as the first one. Still nothing? Send it again stays under it, so you can ask more than once.

Closed the page before the link arrived? Sign in as normal. An account you have not confirmed yet reads Please confirm your email first, with the same Resend it under it.

5Wait while it is built

A business with no matched trade gets a workspace planned and built from what it wrote. After you sign in, Quick Glance holds a progress bar reading Working out how to set this up for you. The assistant searches the web for how businesses like yours run, then plans your tables, screens and cards from what it finds.

Planning starts the moment you click Create workspace, while you open the confirmation email. By the time you confirm, the plan is usually ready or nearly ready.

Once the plan is made, the bar reads Building your workspace, counts what is made against what the plan names, and the build starts on its own. You do not confirm anything first. Quick Glance opens on the finished board, with every card in place, when the build is done. It usually takes a few minutes, and you can leave the page and come back.

A matched trade waits the same way, on Building your workspace alone, because its workspace is built the moment your company exists.

6What the build makes

Where your business keeps projects, clients or sites, the build uses the product's own Projects, Entities and Properties lists, named in your words. Each project then gets its document folder, email filing and client update page.

The build makes the other tables your business keeps, each with its fields and its links to the others. It adds a dashboard for each way of working with them, and the cards at the top of Quick Glance. On the phone, the tabs along the bottom follow the same plan.

Tools the product already has, such as Quotes and Invoices, are added to the sidebar under Tools. A business that needs something a table cannot do on its own, such as a quoting calculator, also gets a tool written for it under Apps. A business with something worth showing customers gets a public page: anybody with the link can open it, with no PIN and no account.

Before it finishes, it tests what it built, and the progress bar reads Testing your workspace. Each new table gets a test record that is added, changed, moved through its statuses, archived and restored. Then all of it is undone, so nothing is left in your lists and no reference number is used up. Every dashboard and card is checked to read fields that exist.

When it finishes, Quick Glance opens with the new cards, and the lists are in the sidebar, ready to type into.

Recurring jobs and Equipment stay in Tools only when the plan names them. Recurring jobs is only suggested for a trade. An admin can show either again under Admin, Features.

7Find what was built

Our suggestions stays at the top of Quick Glance and reads Your workspace is built, with how many tables, dashboards and cards the build made.

Click See what it made to open the setup conversation in Ask Scout, with each thing previewed beside it. Only whoever started setup sees that link, because conversations are personal.

In the phone app, tap the card to open Our suggestions. Switch between Stages (each part and what it made), Chat (the setup conversation, which you can carry on) and Preview (everything the build made) at the top. Chat opens only for whoever started setup.

8Change your workspace

Type what to change in Tell us what to change, under Your workspace is built. Name a field to add, a card you do not need or a list that is missing, then click Change it.

The assistant makes the change straight away, without asking you to confirm it. The banner reads Making your change. You can leave this page while it runs. Click Watch it work to follow it in Ask Scout.

When it finishes, the page reloads onto the changed workspace and reads Finished. Click Read the reply for what the assistant changed.

In the phone app, the same box sits on the Our suggestions card. Type the change and tap Change it. When it finishes, the card reads Finished. The reply is in your Ask Scout chats.

9Ask for more later

Click Build your process in the sidebar, or the sparkle icon at the bottom left, to open the assistant.

On a wide screen Ask Scout is three columns: your conversations, the chat, and What this conversation made. Click the panel icon at the left of the header to hide or show your conversations, and the one at the right to hide or show the preview. Drag the left edge of the preview to make it wider or narrower, and double click that edge to go back to an even split. Ask Scout remembers which you left open and how wide. Narrower, click the panel icon beside Ask Scout for your conversations and switch between Chat and Preview. On a phone, switch between Chats, Chat and Preview at the top.

The dot beside each conversation says where it stands. Green and pulsing: Scout is working on it. Amber: it is waiting for you, because Scout asked you a question, needs you to sign in to something, or the last reply did not finish. Purple: it is finished. Point at the dot to read which.

Under the message box, Memory used shows how much of Scout's memory its last reply took. Click it for the detail: how many earlier messages it read, how many older search results it shortened, and how many rounds it worked. Near 80%, it turns amber. Start a new chat for an unrelated job, because a new chat starts with an empty memory.

Ask for a job across many records, such as filling in every matter's estimate, and Scout works through them one at a time without stopping to ask. It marks each record as it goes, so asking it to keep going picks up at the first one not done.

Files you attach and files Scout makes are listed in What this conversation made beside the things it built. Click one to read it there: a PDF shows its pages, a Word document its text and tables, a spreadsheet each sheet, and a picture or text file as it is. Click Download to keep a copy. A kind of file the column cannot show says so, with a button to download it.

Type what you want, such as a new table or a field on an existing one. It replies with a plan: each table, its fields and the dashboard it will add. Read it before you agree to it.

10Correct the plan

There is no button to accept a plan. Type what to change in the same chat, such as a field to add or rename, and press Enter. It replies with the plan again, changed.

When the plan is right, reply yes. It starts building, and a line for each step appears above its reply, such as Creating table "Van services".

11Check what it made

Everything the conversation makes is listed under What this conversation made, with the newest selected. On a phone, it switches to Preview when something new is made.

Click a name to see it. A table shows its columns and first rows. A dashboard, a Quick Glance card, an app or a public page shows the thing itself. Click Open to go to it.

12Open your tools from the sidebar

The tools your trade uses are listed in the sidebar under Tools, below Workspaces. For every trade that is Quotes, Invoices, Routes, Recurring jobs and Equipment. Click one to open it.