How does the Setup Guide work?
Overview
The Setup Guide is a guided walkthrough of setting your organization up on Vome. It replaces the old setup checklist.
Rather than listing modules and leaving you to work out the order, it asks what your organization actually does, then tells you what to build and in what order. This article is for administrators opening it for the first time.
1. Where do I find it?
Two places, and both open the same page.
- The left navigation rail, under Setup guide.
- The Help menu in the top navigation, under "Need help?".
There is nothing to install and nothing to switch on.
2. Why use it instead of setting things up on my own?
Because the order matters, and it is not obvious.
Vome's modules depend on each other. A form with no opportunity behind it collects applications nobody can act on. An onboarding sequence that leads nowhere onboards people into nothing. Shifts that nobody can see are shifts nobody reserves.
The guide's job is to make those dependencies visible before you hit them rather than after. It also explains each decision before asking you to make it, so you are choosing rather than guessing.
3. Which of the two paths should I choose?
The first time you open it, the guide asks how you would like to set Vome up. There are two ways in, you can switch between them at any time, and anything you enter in one is kept for the other.
- Build a journey. The shortest complete path a person can take through your organization, built once, end to end. This is the one we recommend starting with.
- Go module by module. The full guide. Every module explained, with the questions that decide how you should use each one.
Not sure? Start with a journey. You can open the full guide the moment you want the detail behind a decision, and you can return to this choice at any point from Setup options in either guide's header.
4. What does "Build a journey" do?
It builds one working line through your account, in order: a form, an onboarding sequence, an opportunity, and its shifts.
- You skip whatever you do not need. A journey with no screening simply has no sequence in it.
- It shows you the gaps. If the opportunity behind your form does not exist yet, you see that in place, rather than discovering it when the first application arrives.
- It ends by handing you the link to walk the journey yourself, the way an applicant would, so you see what you built from the other side before anyone real does.
You can build more than one journey. A second journey starts from what you have already answered rather than from a blank page.
5. What does "Go module by module" do?
It is the long version, arranged in seven stages: Orientation, Recruit, Onboard, Operate, Engage, Manage and Test.
Each stage holds a set of sections, and each section teaches the concept first, then asks the questions that decide how you should use it. A rail on the left lists the sections in the stage. Nothing is locked, so you can read ahead or skip.
6. Do the questions actually change anything?
Yes. They are not a survey.
Your answers change what the guide shows you. Tell it you are not multi-site and the Sites section disappears. Tell it how you screen applicants and its onboarding recommendations change to match. Anything your answers rule out is collapsed rather than deleted, so "Show what your answers ruled out" opens it back up.
The progress readout counts only the questions you were actually shown, so it reflects your setup rather than a generic one. At the end of Orientation, the guide turns your answers into a recommended build order, which is the sequence we would build your account in.
7. Can I build things from inside the guide?
Yes, and that is the point.
Where a section calls for something to be created, the section carries the action. Clicking it takes you to where the work happens and opens the right screen, already prepared wherever the guide knows enough to prepare it. You are not sent into a module to hunt for a button.
8. What is the Setup tasks list?
Everything the guide has worked out that you still have to do, collected into one list that follows you around the admin area.
It sits as a small tab against the right edge of every admin screen, showing how many things are outstanding, and clicking it expands the full list. There are two tabs inside it.
- To build. Things to go and make. Each one opens where the work happens.
- Decisions. Questions the guide has not been answered. Each one jumps to where the question is asked, so the explanation is still in front of you when you answer it.
Drag it up or down if it covers something, and it stays where you put it. Hide it and it is gone until you ask for it back from the guide. It does not appear at all when there is nothing outstanding.
9. Can I stop half way and come back?
Yes. Setting an organization up is rarely one sitting, and rarely one person's decision.
The guide remembers which path you chose, the stage and section you were last on, and every answer you have given, so reopening it puts you back where you were rather than at the beginning.
10. How do notes and bookmarks work?
Every section carries two icons.
- Bookmark flags a section to come back to. Add a line saying why, which is the part that turns out to be useful three days later.
- Note opens a rich text note against that section. Use it for the things the guide cannot know: the categories you intend to create, the DNS ticket number, the one thing your director insisted on. Notes save when you press Save rather than as you type, so a half-written sentence is never stored as your note. A green dot on the icon means that section already has one.
Both collect in the Notes and bookmarks panel, reachable from the bottom of every stage, where they can be filtered down to a single section. Clicking a bookmark takes you straight back to it.
11. What if I answer something wrong?
Change it. Answers are not final and nothing is submitted anywhere.
You can refresh a single section's questionnaire, or reset a whole stage's answers and start that questionnaire over. Either way your notes and your bookmarks are untouched. Only the answers clear, and your recommended route empties out until you answer again.
12. How do I find something specific?
Use Search the guide in the header. It searches the guide's own content and takes you to the section, which is faster than reading forward to find the one paragraph you came back for.
13. What if I get stuck?
Stuck? Ask support at the bottom of the screen opens a support ticket without making you leave the guide. Sections also link out to the knowledge base article covering that topic in more depth, which is often the faster answer.
Summary
- Open it from the left navigation rail or the Help menu.
- Two paths: build one working journey end to end, or go module by module through the full guide. You can switch between them and lose nothing.
- The guiding questions change what you are shown, so you read your setup rather than a generic one.
- Orientation turns your answers into a recommended build order.
- Sections carry the action, so you build from inside the guide instead of hunting for buttons.
- The Setup tasks list rides along on every admin screen, split into things to build and decisions still open.
- Your answers, notes, bookmarks and your place are all remembered, so the guide is built to be left and returned to.