First steps

The instance is installed, you are logged in, and the screen is empty. This page proposes an order of setup that avoids having to redo things: each step builds on the previous one, and nothing in it is irreversible. Allow an hour for a small organisation.

The order matters

Create the organisation before the members: attaching forty people afterwards is done one at a time. The rest can wait.

1. The name and the look#

Administration → Appearance. The company name appears in the interface, the emails, the PDFs and the exports. The palette changes the interface colours for everyone; it is purely visual.

2. The organisation#

Administration → Organisation. Two levels, and only two:

A department — engineering, sales.
A team, which belongs to a department.

A team carries its department: attaching someone to a team attaches them to the department, whichever field you fill in. Appoint the managers while you are there — that is what opens the manager space; there is no checkbox for it.

Two levels, no more

A five-level org chart is an org chart nobody keeps up to date. If your structure is deeper, make your divisions departments and their units teams: the directory, the schedule and the approvals cope with that, whereas a stale tree does not.

3. The members#

Administration → Staff → Add a member. Only administration can do it — there is no public sign-up and no open invitation link.

Field	What it determines
Email address	The login identifier. Afterwards, only administration can change it.
Grade	Shown in the directory and the lists.
Contract type	"Freelance" opens time tracking and the daily rate; the others open leave.
Contract end	Optional. On that date, the account closes by itself.
Daily rate	Freelancers: feeds the cost of projects.
Department / team	The reporting line. Filling in the team is enough.

A temporary password is shown once, on screen. It is written down nowhere and cannot be retrieved: pass it on, and the member will have to choose another one at their first login.

Forty people at once#

Import accepts a CSV. Run the preview first: it says, row by row, what will be created and what will be refused, without writing anything. Fix the file, start again, and only confirm once the preview is clean.

4. The rights#

Administration → Rights: four cross-cutting rights to grant to a named person — HR, finance, IT, whistleblowing officer. Each block shows its scope before you click.

Grant them sparingly. A right opens whole screens, and the page that details them says exactly which.

5. The modules#

Administration → Modules. Seven optional modules, all switched off to begin with: accounting, payroll, electronic invoicing, stock and purchasing, treasury, fixed assets, CRM.

A module that is off does not exist: its space answers 404, it appears in no menu, and its tables stay empty. Switch one on when you have a use for it, not "just in case": a menu nobody reads any more is a menu in which nothing can be found. Switching a module off destroys nothing — the data stays, hidden, and comes back if you switch it on again.

6. The request types#

Requests → Types. A request type is a form and an approval path: remote work, equipment purchase, training, an exceptional expense claim. Start with two or three. The ones you do not define will be handled by email, which is to say nowhere.

7. The backups#

Backups. Make one right away, while the database is still small: you will know the mechanism works, and you will see what the archive contains.

Then configure the off-site destination (FTPS or Google Drive) and the interval. An archive that stays on the server it protects protects nothing. In the PHP edition nothing fires without the cron: check that it is running.

8. Two-factor authentication#

Security. You can require it of everyone, or of administrators only. Turn it on at least for your own account before opening the instance to colleagues, and keep the recovery codes: they are the only way back in if you lose the phone.

9. The announcements#

Administration → Announcements. Publish a first welcome message, company-wide. It is what your colleagues will see when they log in, and it beats an empty dashboard that suggests the tool is of no use.

10. Opening up#

Before sending out the credentials, check these six points:

Check	Where
The instance answers over `https`, not in the clear	Address bar
A backup exists and its off-site destination answers	Backups
The periodic sweep is running	PHP edition: the cron logs
A non-administrator sees what they should, and nothing else	Log in with a test account
The default language is the right one	Administration
The audit log records what you do	Security

The fourth point is the most important, and the most often skipped: create a test account with no rights at all, log in with it, and wander around. It is the only way to see the tool the way your colleagues will.

The three weeks after#

When	What
Week 1	Directory, announcements, requests. The base everybody touches.
Week 2	Leave and schedule: you can see who is around.
Week 3	The rest, as you need it — projects, finance, support, quality.

Opening everything on day one produces a tool nobody takes ownership of. Three spaces in use beat thirty switched on.