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Signing in and getting oriented

Flow is job-management software for trade subcontractors. It carries a job from the first customer call through scoping, bidding, customer approval and deposit, and out the far end to close-out — with the money, the paperwork, and the audit trail tracked the whole way. You sign in with an emailed link or with Google, land on your home screen, and work each job forward from there.

Signing in

There are two ways in, and neither has a password:

  • Email me a link. Type your work email and click Send sign-in link. Flow emails you a link that works for 15 minutes; open it and you're in. This works with any email provider — Gmail, Yahoo, or your shop's own domain.
  • Sign in with Google, if your shop set you up with a Google address.

You can't create your own account. Flow is invite-only. Your account has to be provisioned for you before you can sign in — the shop owner is set up when the shop is created, and the owner (or an administrator) adds everyone else. If you try to sign in with a Google account that hasn't been provisioned, Flow turns you away with:

Your account is not provisioned. Contact your administrator to be added.

If you ask for a sign-in link for an address that hasn't been provisioned, Flow still says to check your email. What arrives is a short note saying there's no account for that address, not a link. (The sign-in page itself never reveals which addresses have accounts; only that mailbox learns it.) You'll get at most one such note a day, and it has a link to stop them. The fix is to ask your owner which address they set you up with, or to have them add yours.

If you ask for links many times in a few minutes, Flow stops sending for a little while. Wait 15 minutes and try again.

Owners get a welcome email. When a shop is created, each owner receives an email titled "Your Flow account for your shop is ready". It links to the sign-in page and names the exact address you were set up under, so you know which one to use. If it didn't arrive, check spam, then ask whoever set up your shop to send it again — they can resend it from the shop's admin page at any time.

If you open that link while you're already signed in with a different address, Flow says so: "You're signed in as … This sign-in is for …". Choose Sign out and continue as … to sign in with the address the email was for (it's filled in for you), or stay where you are.

Use the exact email you were added under. Flow matches you by email address, so a personal Gmail won't work if you were provisioned under a work address (or the other way around).

"You've been signed out"

If an owner removes your sign-in, or you were away so long your sign-in ran out, Flow signs you out on your next click and the sign-in page says so. Sign in again; if your email isn't accepted, ask your shop's owner whether your access changed. A change to what you're allowed to do (say, owner to estimator) takes effect on your next click — no need to sign out.

Which shop you sign in to

If your email belongs to more than one shop, an emailed link always signs you in to the same one: the shop you were added to first. Google sign-in takes you to the shop your Google account is connected to. To work in another shop, use Switch shop and pick it on the Choose-a-shop screen.

If you ever see No shop for this account after signing in, your email isn't a member of any shop any more — your owner may have removed you. Ask them to add you back, or sign out and sign in with the address they invited.

The "Choose a shop" screen

Most people never see this screen. You reach Choose a shop from Switch shop, which only appears if your email belongs to more than one shop on Flow — for example, if you estimate for two different businesses that both run Flow.

The screen lists every shop you have access to. Each row shows the shop's name, its trade, and your role there (like Electrical · OWNER). The shop you're currently signed into is tagged current. Pick a shop to switch to it.

Switching is instant: Flow takes you straight to the new shop's home screen, with no second sign-in, whether you signed in with an emailed link or with Google. Flow only lets you pick shops your own email belongs to, and from then on everything you do is recorded in the shop you picked.

There's also a Sign out button on this screen if you landed here and just want to leave.

If you have more than one tab open

Every tab in your browser shares one sign-in. So when you switch shops in one tab, every other tab is now signed in to the new shop too, even though those tabs still show the old one. The same happens on a shared office computer when someone else signs in.

Flow catches this. When you come back to a tab that's still showing the shop you switched away from, it's paused and a yellow banner says so:

You switched shops — You're now signed in to Bonneville Software, but this page still shows Go With the Flow. It's paused so nothing you do here lands in the wrong shop. Switch back to Go With the Flow in your other tab and this page picks up where you left off.

Nothing in that tab can be clicked or typed into while it's paused, including the menu, because anything you did there would be saved to the other shop. You have three choices:

  • Continue in Bonneville Software opens that shop's home screen.
  • Choose a shop takes you to the shop list.
  • Switch back to Go With the Flow in your other tab. The paused tab picks up where you left it, with anything you'd typed but not saved still there and your cursor back where it was.

If someone else signed in to the same shop on this computer, the banner says Signed in as someone else and names both people, so nothing you do is recorded under their name.

If Flow can't reach the server to check (a dropped connection, say), the banner says it couldn't confirm your shop and offers Reload. It keeps checking in the background, and the page un-pauses on its own once it can confirm nothing changed.

If a save is ever refused for this reason, Flow tells you: "You've switched shops since this page loaded, so this change wasn't saved." Nothing is lost from either shop. Make sure you're in the shop you meant, and make the change again. If it says "This page is out of date" instead, the page was open from before an update. Reload it and try again.

What you land on

After you sign in, Flow drops you on Today, your home screen. It groups your jobs by where they stand — Not sent yet, With the customer, Under contract and On the calendar — showing the most recently updated few in each, with a See all → link into the full list.

Around it you'll see:

  • Your shop's name beside your own, so you always know which shop you're working in. If you belong to more than one shop, a Switch shop link next to Sign out takes you to the Choose-a-shop screen.
  • Clients and Jobs in the sidebar, and — if you're an owner — Settings: Business, People, Terms & Conditions, Roles & burden, Work phases and Catalog. Out of the box settings are owner-only; someone else sees them only if an owner gives them View settings in People.
  • Your name and a Sign out button.

Jobs is the full list, one row per job, showing the customer, the job, its current status, and when it was last updated. Each row has a Continue → link that takes you back to wherever that job left off.

If you're brand new and haven't created anything yet, Today says so:

Your dashboard will fill in as you take jobs. Start with an intake — customer, site, scope — and the front door starts showing you what needs attention.

with a + Start a new job button. That's your starting point. If you're the owner setting up a new shop, read Your first job, start to finish first: it lists the settings to make yours before the first real bid.

Signing out

Sign out sits at the bottom of every screen once you're signed in (and on the Choose-a-shop screen). It returns you to the sign-in page.

What's not in v1 yet

Being straight with you about the current limits:

  • No passwords, and two ways in. An emailed link or Google. There's no email-and-password form, and no Microsoft or Apple sign-in.
  • No self-service sign-up. Every account is provisioned by an owner or administrator. There's no "invite yourself" or "request access" flow inside the product.
  • No password to reset. Because sign-in is an emailed link or your Google account, there's nothing to reset in Flow — if a link has expired, ask for a new one.