Getting Started
Guided Tours
How guided tours work in Work Planner, which ones are available, and how to start, pause, or run one again.
A guided tour walks you through a real job in Work Planner, one step at a time, on your own account. Nothing is a demo or a sandbox: the customer and the job you create, a job you move and a visit you record during a tour are all real, and stay that way afterwards.
How a Tour Behaves
- It waits for you: On a step that asks you to do something, such as opening the job form, the rest of the screen is dimmed and only the highlighted part can be used. The tour moves on once you have actually done it, so it can never get ahead of you.
- It explains before it asks: Steps that are only explaining something show a Next button instead. Those are safe to read and move past.
- You are still in control: You type your own values. The tour never fills fields in or saves anything for you.
- It steps aside: If you open something part-way through a step, such as Find Address or the list of services to pick from, the tour gets out of the way until you close it, then carries on.
- It takes you where you need to be: When the next step is on another screen, the tour says where to find it in the menus and offers a button to go straight there. The screen behind is dimmed so the tour stands out, but the menus still work if you would rather find your own way.
- Back and Skip: Back returns to the previous step. Skip tour, or pressing Esc while a step is showing, closes the tour straight away and leaves whatever you have already entered exactly as it is.
- It remembers where you were: Progress is saved as you go. If you leave part-way through, open the tour list from the help menu and choose Resume to carry on. A form you had open does not survive leaving the page, so a tour that stopped inside one picks up again from the button that opens it. Progress follows you rather than the business, so switching business does not restart a tour you have already done.
Starting a Tour
- The welcome popup: New accounts are offered a choice the first time they sign in - one tour for people moving from another system, and one for people starting from scratch. Choosing I'll explore on my own closes it and points out the question mark in the top bar, where the tours stay available whenever you want one.
- The help menu: Click the question mark in the top bar and choose Guided tours. This lists every tour you can run, grouped by area, with how many steps each one has and roughly how long it takes, and it opens from wherever you are in the app. The search box at the top finds a tour by its name or by what it covers.
- When you have no jobs yet: The popup that appears after you add a customer from Work > Customers has a Show me how button, and so does the note at the top of an empty planner. Both start Adding your first job on the Jobs screen, where it begins. If you have just added the customer, find them with the magnifying glass rather than adding them again.
- In the template editor: The first time you open a template's design in the drag and drop editor, a note at the top offers Take the tour. Closing the note means it is not offered again, and Discover the editor in the editor's menu starts it whenever you like.
- From another tour: Some tours end by offering the next one - the job tour leads into the planner, each planner tour into the one after it, and the last of those into worksheets. Choose Finish instead if you would rather stop there. Marking a job as done also offers worksheets as soon as it starts, since they are the other way to record visits; choosing them there marks the planner tour as skipped, and you can run it again any time.
The Tours Available
- Importing your data: Takes you to the import screens, explains the difference between a Cleaner Planner backup, a Squeegee backup and a CSV, and stays with you while the import runs so you know what the summary at the end is telling you. Use this one if you already have a round somewhere else.
- Adding your first job: Starts with who the job is for. Find a customer you already have with the magnifying glass and the tour goes straight on to the job, or press the plus to create one from inside the job form - their name, then their address, which is the one thing every customer must have. It then walks the job form section by section: the service and round on Essential, what you charge on Pricing, and the due date and repeat pattern on Scheduling. It finishes once you have saved a real job, so closing the form with Cancel does not count. Saving early - pressing Enter in a field saves the job - takes you straight to the last step. See Creating a Job from the Dashboard for the same ground in writing.
- Finding your way around the planner: Points out the date button, the four views, where each job sits, the Overdue column and planner settings. It only explains, so nothing changes as you go. If a job or the Overdue column is not on screen, the step explains it without the highlight. See Planner Screen for the same ground in writing.
- Moving a job to another day: You tick a job, press Update Date and choose its new date. It works the same on a phone, where dragging is not available. The tour waits for the move to be saved, so the job really does move - move it back the same way if you were only practising. See Update-Date Flow.
- Marking a job as done: Starts by explaining that recording a visit works the same wherever you do it - the tick opens the same form on the planner, the jobs list and a job's details - and points out worksheets, which keep a day's work together in the order you will do it, offering that tour instead. Carry on, and it opens the form for recording a visit from the tick on a job, then walks through Complete or Missed, what you charge, and the dates the job moves on to. Recording the visit is up to you, because it puts the charge on the customer's account: Next carries on without recording anything, and Cancel then closes the form. See Job Completion Popup.
- Working through a worksheet: Starts on the planner: you tick a job and use Add to Worksheet to make a new worksheet from it - or add it to one you already have - then open the worksheet. There it shows where to add more jobs, then you open a stop and record the visit as Complete or Missed, along with how it was paid. Saving a visit does not touch the customer's account - only submitting the worksheet does - so the tour waits for the save, while Submit Worksheet is up to you: Next carries on without it. See Worksheet Detail Screen.
- Discover the editor: A walk round the drag and drop editor for document templates: adding blocks and sections, changing what is on the page, styling the whole design, adding variables, then Preview & test and saving. Started from Settings > Document Templates, it first asks you to open a template's design with Edit design; started from inside the editor, it begins there. It only explains, so nothing changes as you go. See Drag and Drop Editor for the same ground in writing.
- On a phone: The sections of the job and customer forms are a dropdown at the top of the form rather than a row of tabs, and the tour points at that dropdown instead. On the planner, Update Date and Add to Worksheet sit above the days in the Detailed and Day views, and on a worksheet, Submit Worksheet and Add Jobs are in the three-dot menu. In the template editor, the tour asks you to open the editor's panel with Blocks at the bottom of the screen when the step it is on is about the panel.
Running One Again
A finished tour stays in the list and can be run as many times as you like, which is useful when someone new joins your team. Each run creates real records again, so if you are only refreshing your memory rather than adding genuine work, use Skip tour before the final save.
If You Cannot See Tours
- Permissions: A tour is only offered when your account can do everything it covers. Someone without permission to create jobs will not be offered the job tour, the planner tours that move or record jobs need permission to update them, and the worksheet tour needs the planner as well as permission to create and update worksheets. Discover the editor is offered to people who can manage document templates.
- Older iPhones and iPads: Tours need iOS 17 or later. On an older device the tour options are hidden rather than shown broken, and everything else in Work Planner works as normal.
Related articles
- Creating a Job from the Dashboard: Every field on the job form, including the ones the tour moves past.
- Creating a Customer: The customer popup the job tour opens, field by field.
- Import Data Home: Where the import tour starts, and how to choose between the sources.
- CSV Import Flow: The spreadsheet template and matching options in detail.
- Planner Screen: Everything on the planner, including the views the planner tours point out.
- Worksheet Detail Screen: Everything on a worksheet, including the actions the worksheet tour only mentions.
- Drag and Drop Editor: Everything in the template editor the editor tour walks round.