New accounts start with a short starter setup on the Today dashboard. It proposes the first records your account needs, matched to what you make. Nothing is created until you confirm it. Only admins and owners see the starter setup.
- At signup, answer What do you make? It is optional. The choices are Fermented Vegetables, Fermented Hot Sauce, Jam / Preserves, Acidified Sauces, Salsas, and Pickles, Kombucha, Baked Goods, Fresh / Refrigerated, and Something else. If you skipped it, the Today dashboard asks again: pick an answer and click Stage my starter setup.
- The Your starter setup panel shows up to three cards, in order:
- Product type, named for what you make, with fermentation tracking on or off. Click Create the product type.
- Product. Name your first product and click Create this product. This card waits until the product type exists, because a product needs one.
- Food safety check: a pH Check that passes at or below pH 4.2. Click Add the pH check. Once it exists, recording a pH while packaging a batch logs the check automatically.
- Click Edit on a card to change it before you create it: the name, Track fermentation, and Tracks pH on the product type, the Product name, or the check's name and Passes at limit. Click Dismiss to skip a card. A dismissed card shows Undo if you change your mind.
- When every card is resolved, the panel collapses to a one-line summary with a link to Start your first batch.
Baked goods get no pH check, because they are not an acidified food. If you answered Something else, no cards are staged: open Catalog in the top navigation and add them from Product Types and Products, then add CCPs from the template library.
If you answered Acidified Sauces, Salsas, and Pickles, the product type you create also gets the seven 21 CFR Part 114 SOP steps on its page. See Set up products and product types.
Admins and owners also see Already have your records in a spreadsheet? Import them on the dashboard, to bring in batch history instead of starting empty.
The getting-started checklist
The Your first packaged batch checklist sits on the same dashboard, for every role: Account created, Create your first batch, Package a batch, and Log your first CCP check. Items tick themselves from your records, so there is nothing to mark by hand. Open items link to the page that does them. Admins and owners can click Hide this to put it away, then Undo to bring it back. When all four are done it reads: You're live. Your first batch is packaged and its check is on record.
A sample account from the Explore the sample setup choice shows neither panel. It shows a Try it: package this batch and log its pH tip instead.
Instruments for calibration are added later, from Food Safety, then Instruments.
Everything the starter setup creates is a normal record you can edit afterward: product types and products under Catalog, the pH check under Food Safety.
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