How to find your way around

The menu down the left, search, the Create new button, the Agent on the right, and where settings live.

Everything in Tideswell hangs off the menu down the left of every page: a column of area icons that opens into a list of pages. This page is the tour, and it is the page to send anybody you invite.

Three more things sit on every page: Search and the Create new (+) button at the top of the menu, and the Agent behind the sparkle on the right-hand edge. The Agent has its own section, What is the Agent?.

The menu starts as a narrow column of icons. Rest the mouse on it and it opens straight away with every area named, then closes again when you move off or pick a page.

To keep it open, press Keep menu open beside your workspace name. Press Collapse menu to go back to the icons. Tideswell remembers your choice in that browser.

Click an area's name to fold its pages open underneath, and click it again to fold them shut. One area is folded open at a time, so opening another folds the last one shut. Chat and Settings have no pages of their own, so clicking either goes straight there.

How do you search?

Press Search at the top of the menu, beside Create new (+), or press ⌘K from any page (Ctrl+K on Windows). A box opens reading "Search pages, tasks, documents, customers…".

Before you type, it lists every page in your menu. As you type it narrows the Pages, and from the second letter it also finds Tasks, Documents, Customers, Records, Editorials and Channels, each under its own heading. Typing an area's name, such as "Buying", lists that area's pages.

Use the up and down arrows and Enter, or click a row, to go there. Enter on a fresh search opens the top match. Search finds only things with a page in Tideswell, so people, products and collections are left out.

What is in each area?

From the top of the menu down:

Chat: your channels and direct messages. See What is chat?.
Work: Inbox, My tasks, Tasks, Roadmap, Calendar, Urgent and Documents, then a Departments group. See What are tasks?, What are projects and campaigns? and What are documents?.
Selling: Analytics, Inventory, Counts, Demand, Stock value, Reports and Special orders. See What is Store analytics?, What is Inventory?, How to count your stock and What are special orders?.
Buying: Purchase orders, Production orders, Bills of materials, Suppliers, Bills, Approvals, Buying calendar and Data feeds. See What are suppliers and purchase orders?. Production orders and Bills of materials show only where their modules are on.
Wholesale: Orders, Invoices and Accounts. See What is wholesale?.
Customers: Customers and Outreach, the shared list of everything the shop owes a customer. See What is the Customers area?.
Objects: one row for each Object your team has built and you can view, named in the singular, such as Repair or Sample request. See What is an Object?.
Brain: Decisions, Memory, Automations and Workflows. See What are decisions and track records?, What are automations? and What are workflows?. Memory holds your own preferences for the Agent, per How to ask the Agent a question.

What you see depends on which modules your workspace has switched on and which permissions you hold. An area with nothing in it you can open is left out of your menu altogether.

The Urgent row and the Mission-critical button on the Tasks page open the same list.

Point at a page inside an area, such as Selling › Inventory, and press the pin that appears at the end of its row (its tooltip reads Pin to the top). Pinned pages list under Chat and above Work, with a line below them, and show as icons while the menu is collapsed.

Press the pin on a pinned row to unpin it. Your pins are your own, for this workspace, and follow you to any computer you sign in on. You can pin up to 20 pages.

Where do you start your day?

On Work › Inbox, which is where Tideswell opens. It holds everything addressed to you: assignments, comments, mentions, replies, and stock and order alerts. Work › My tasks is everything assigned to you, from every team.

Both are covered in How to see what needs you.

Three icons carry a count so you can tell at a glance where something is waiting:

Work shows how many unread items are in your Inbox.
Chat shows your unread messages.
Customers shows how many open outreach items are assigned to you, or an amber dot when something is waiting for anyone to claim it.

How do you ask Tideswell a question?

Press the sparkle on the right-hand edge of any page (it reads Agent when you point at it). The Agent panel opens beside the page, and you type a question about your business in plain English.

It answers from your own live data, and your daily brief and updates are in the panel under History › Updates. Start with What is the Agent?.

How do you create something from anywhere?

Press Create new (+), the button beside Search under your workspace's initials at the top of the menu. Everyone sees Task, Outreach and Document.

The rest depend on your permissions:

Project, with Create projects.
Campaign and Cycle, with Create and edit campaigns and cycles.
Automation, with Build and edit workflows. It opens a new workflow ready to build.

To add a channel, go to Chat instead, per How to create and organise channels.

Three rows, one above the other:

Settings, for admins.
The light and dark switch. With the menu open it reads Dark mode or Light mode, naming the look you would change to. Tideswell starts in dark mode and remembers your choice in that browser.
Your avatar and your name, which open a menu with Account settings and Sign out. See What is on your account page?.

While the menu is collapsed, the Keep menu open button sits above them.

Settings is for admins. If you are not an admin you do not see a locked door; the section does not appear at all. See What is workspace admin?.

Where do departments fit?

Under Work, below the page rows. The Departments group lists your teams, and each department folds open to its projects. The group appears once your workspace has a department, per How to set up departments.

Departments matter more than they look. A department lead's extra rights apply only in the departments they lead, which is why the same person can change one team's work and not the next team's.

How to work out who can do what in your workspace explains it properly, and we recommend ten minutes on it early on.

How does it work in a phone browser?

The left menu folds away. Tap Open menu at the top left for a drawer listing every area and its pages, with a Create button beside your workspace name. Your avatar, the light and dark switch and Settings sit at the foot of the drawer.

A pill along the bottom of the screen jumps to Chat, Tasks and Store, which opens Selling › Analytics. The sparkle at the top right opens the Agent across the whole screen.

Tideswell also has an iPhone app of its own, covered in Using Tideswell on your phone.

Why can you not see something a colleague can?

Three possible reasons, and it helps to check them in this order.

The module may be switched off for the whole workspace, which takes its pages out of everyone's menu. You may not hold the permission. Or your colleague leads the department the record belongs to, and you do not.

Why a button or section is missing walks all three in order.

What should you learn first?

Three things, in this order, and then everything else can wait.

Work › Inbox and Work › My tasks, so you know what needs you. The @ menu in chat, which turns a message into something people can act on, per How to tag people, tasks, documents and products.

And the Agent on the right-hand edge, which answers questions no dashboard was built for.