How to use FuturnFlow

◈ What is FuturnFlow

FuturnFlow is a work-management system. It replaces scattered spreadsheets, chat threads, and email chains with one place where you can see what needs to get done, who's doing it, what stage it's at, and what's waiting on you.

Everything in FuturnFlow is built around a simple chain: a client needs something → it becomes a project → the project is broken into tasks → tasks move across a board as work happens → some work needs approval → and reports tell you how it's all going. Access to projects follows teams.

→ Signing in

There are two ways to get an account. A new company creates its own workspace on the Create your workspace page (workspace name, your name, work email, password) — that person becomes the Owner. Everyone else is invited by an Owner or Admin and receives a welcome email with their role, what they can do, a starter password, and a link to the manual for their role.

How to sign in

1. Open the app address your admin shared.
2. Enter your work email and password (the starter password from your welcome email the first time), then sign in.
3. Change your password right away. Click your avatar (top-right) → Profile & preferences → Change password. Starter passwords are sent by email, so replace yours on first login.

Forgot your password

Self-service reset is not available yet. Ask an Owner or Admin. They open Settings → People and use the key icon on your row, which emails you a fresh starter password.

Why can't I create my own account in someone else's workspace?

Access is deliberately controlled by the workspace. Your administrator decides each person's role (and therefore what they can see and do) when they invite them. If a colleague needs access, point them to an Owner or Admin.

▦ The screen, explained

Once you're signed in, every page uses the same frame: a sidebar on the left, a bar across the top, and your content in the middle. Learn this once and it applies everywhere.

The left sidebar

The sidebar shows your company name at the top, then the places you can go. What you see depends on your role and on which modules your workspace has switched on. A staff member can see:

A Client account has a shorter sidebar: Home, Projects and Calendar. The sidebar can be collapsed to a narrow icon strip.

The top bar

Recurring visual language

• Colored pill badges show a status or priority. The color is the same everywhere.
• Round colored initials are a person's avatar.
• A right-hand drawer opens when you click a task card on a board. Use its link to the full task page for everything.
• Toast messages are small confirmation notes (bottom-right) that disappear on their own.
• Empty states explain what would appear in an empty list and how to add the first item.

◎ Roles & permissions

What you see and can change depends on your role, set by an Owner or Admin. There are four system roles:

Company roles (what you pick when you invite someone)

When an Owner or Admin invites someone, they pick one company role. The role has a rank (a number) and a set of ticked permissions. The system role is worked out from the rank: 90 and above is Owner, 70 and above is Admin, 10 and above is Member, below 10 is Client.

A new company starts with these roles. They are ordinary roles: an Admin can rename, re-rank, or delete them under Settings → People → Roles & permissions.

The permissions you can tick on a role are: create tasks, edit work, assign work, delete and archive tasks, create and edit projects, manage projects, create clients, create campaigns, create sprints, manage users, manage the workspace, view internal items, and view activity logs. A role grants exactly the permissions ticked on it. Its name never grants anything.

Team and project roles

Being a manager is something you are on a team or a project, not across the whole company. On a team you are a Manager (team lead) or a Member. On a project you can be a Manager, Member, or Viewer.

⚑ First-run setup (for the admin)

A new workspace starts with one account — the person who created it — and no other data. This chapter takes the admin from first login to a workspace that's ready for the team.

1 · Create the workspace and answer the setup questions

After you create the workspace, a short setup page asks how your team works (this picks which optional modules start switched on), the name of your first project, your company's teams, and, optionally, email addresses of people to invite. Invited people get a starter password by email.

2 · Name your organization

Go to Settings → General and confirm the organization name. It appears across the app and in the emails your teammates receive.

3 · Choose your modules

Go to Settings → Modules and switch on only what your team uses: Clients, Campaigns, Intake forms, Approvals, Sprints, Docs, Time tracking, Automation, Custom fields, and the AI assistant. Switching a module off hides it everywhere.

4 · Set up teams

1. Open Teams in the sidebar and use New team. Give it a name (for example Design).
2. Add people to the team. Each person gets an invitation they must accept. See Teams, invitations and who can see what.
3. Make a lead for each team: on a person's row, use Make lead. Leads can add and remove people on their team.

5 · Review roles, vocabulary and templates (optional)

Under Settings → People → Roles & permissions you can adjust the company roles. Under Settings → Workflows you can see your statuses and task types; changing them is an Enterprise-edition feature. The defaults are sensible, so skip this on day one.

✉ Inviting a teammate

Only people who can manage users (Owners, Admins, and roles with that permission) can invite. Each new person is emailed their credentials and a guide for their role.

How to invite someone

1. Go to Settings → People and click Invite teammate. You can also use Create → Invite teammate from the top bar.
2. Fill in their full name and work email. Both are required. The email must be real — it's where their credentials are sent.
3. Choose their role. This decides what they can see and do from their first login. Roles ranked above your own are not listed. You can change the role later.
4. Pick their teams (optional). They are invited to each team and must accept. Team membership is what gives them access to projects.
5. Add a job title, phone, and reporting manager (all optional). The reporting manager matters: approvals go up the reporting line.
6. Click Send invite. FuturnFlow creates the account and sends the welcome email.

There is no separate department or designation to choose. Teams replace departments, and a person's title is simply their job title.

What the new user receives

• The address of the app.
• Their email and starter password, with instructions to change it on first login.
• Their role, in plain language — what they're responsible for and where to start.
• A link to the manual for their role.

Managing users after they're in

• Change a role, job title, phone, reporting manager, or status: Settings → People → the pencil icon on their row.
• Disable someone who's left: edit their row and set the status to disabled. They can no longer sign in, but their history stays.
• Reset a forgotten password: the key icon on their row emails a fresh starter password.
• Delete a user: the delete icon on their row. You can only act on people who rank below you.

If the welcome email did not arrive

If sending fails, FuturnFlow still creates the account and tells you the email failed. Once email is working, use the key icon on their row to send a fresh starter password. Also check the email address on their row is spelled correctly.

✎ Worked example: your first client

The fastest way to learn FuturnFlow is to enter one real engagement end to end. This walkthrough uses a fictional client, Velvaere Animedica, a pet-wellness brand that needs a product brochure. Substitute your own client and the steps are the same. It assumes the Clients module is on.

Step 1 — Create the client record

1. Sidebar → Clients → New client.
2. Fill in the essentials: client name, company, email, phone, and industry.
3. Pick the contact person (our side) and the account manager — the teammates who own this relationship.
4. Open the client afterwards to add Notes that the whole team should know.

Step 2 — Create the project

1. Sidebar → Projects → New project. Name it Velvaere Product Brochure.
2. Give it a key like VEL, or leave the field empty and FuturnFlow generates one. Every task carries this prefix.
3. Set the type, link the client, pick a project manager, and set start and due dates.
4. Choose the teams that should work on it. Every accepted member of those teams can then see the project.
5. Write one clear sentence in the description.

Step 3 — Break the work into tasks

Open the project's Board tab and use Add task at the bottom of the To Do column to enter work one line at a time. Then open each task to set what matters:

• Type: Task, Subtask, Bug, or Milestone.
• Assignees: one or more people, and/or whole teams.
• Priority: Critical, High, Medium, or Low.
• Due date (it appears on the Calendar automatically) and a checklist where useful.

Step 4 — Run the work on the board

• People drag their card from To Do → In Progress when they start.
• Questions and updates go in the task's comments. Type @Name to pull someone in.
• When the work is ready, the assignee clicks Submit for review (the card moves to In Review). A manager then accepts it to Done or sends it back with a note. See Tasks.
• Need a formal sign-off? Use the task's Approvals panel. See Approvals.

Step 5 — Check the pulse

With real data in, the rest of the app comes alive. Home shows due and overdue counts, Calendar plots deadlines, and Reports tracks workload. None of these need setup; they are all worked out from your tasks.

⚑ Teams, invitations and who can see what

Access follows teams, not individuals, so nobody has to maintain a per-person list on every project. Teams replace the old departments and designations: there is one flat list of teams, and a person can be on as many as they like.

The Teams page

Click Teams in the sidebar (or My teams in the avatar menu). It lists each team, who is on it, who leads it, and how to reach them. It has a search box. Most people see only the teams they have accepted, read-only. Owners and Admins see every team and can create and delete teams (New team). A team's Manager can add people to that team, make or unset a team lead (Make lead / Unset lead), and remove people.

Joining a team: invitations you accept or decline

• An Admin, or a Manager of that team, adds you to it.
• Being added does not put you on the team yet. A banner appears at the top of the page you land on: you've been invited to join the team, with Accept and Decline. You also get a notification.
• Nothing is shared with you until you Accept. If you decline, you stay off the team; someone can invite you again later.
• You can be on as many teams as you like.

Who can see a project

You can open a project if any of these is true:

• You are an Owner or Admin (or hold a role with Manage projects ticked, such as the default Project Manager role) — you see the whole workspace.
• You own the project.
• You were added to it individually as a project member (useful for a contractor or a client on one project). Individual members are invited too, and can accept or decline.
• You are an accepted member of a team assigned to it — the normal case.

A pending or declined invitation grants nothing.

Giving a project to a team

Open the project and go to its Team tab. Under Teams on this project, click a team to add or remove it. Under Individual members, add specific people. Only the project's manager, its owner, or a workspace admin can change this.

Assigning work

The assignee list on a task offers only people who can actually see that project, so you cannot assign work to someone who couldn't open it. A task can have several assignees and can be assigned to whole teams.

Files and privacy

• Attachments are stored privately and served only to people who can see the parent project. A forwarded link is useless to anyone else.
• Files download rather than opening in the browser tab.
• Uploads are capped at 25 MB per file.

☺ How each role uses FuturnFlow

The same app, different daily routines. Find your role below. Each role also has its own short guide, linked from the role manuals page.

If you're an Owner or Admin

• Weekly: check Reports for overloaded teammates and overdue work.
• When someone joins or leaves: Settings → People to invite or disable. Use Teams to put people on teams.
• When process changes: adjust Modules, Roles, Templates, Custom fields, and Automation. Only the Owner sees Plan & billing.
• The Audit log (Settings → Advanced) answers "who changed this?".

If you're a Project Manager

• Project Manager is a company role, rank 60 by default. Your system role is Member, and your powers are the permissions ticked on your role.
• Start of engagement: create the client and project, add the teams on the project's Team tab, and break the work into tasks.
• Daily: run stand-up from the project Board, chase the In Review column, and decide reviews (accept to Done, or send back with a note).
• Client-facing: move campaigns through their stages and watch Approvals.

If you manage a team

• Team Lead is a company role (rank 40 by default). Being a team Manager on the Teams page lets you add and remove people on your team.
• Morning: open Tasks (the board) and filter by assignee to see your people's work.
• Assign new work and set priorities and due dates, if your role has Assign work.
• Review before it goes further: approval requests reach you in your bell and under Approvals → Waiting on me.

If you're a Team Member

• Start on Home. Open My Work (the "My open tasks" card or "My assigned tasks" list) for your personal to-do list.
• Accept or reject new assignments on the task page.
• Move your own cards across the board, and use Submit for review when finished.
• Update the task, not the group chat: comments and checklist items belong on the task.
• Accept your team invitations so you can see your projects.

If you're a Client

• You see a simplified, read-only view: Home, Projects, and Calendar, limited to what was shared with you.
• Your one job: when something is waiting, open Approvals (from the Home card) and either approve or request changes with a note.
• You only see comments marked client-visible. Internal team discussion is hidden from you.

⌂ Home (Dashboard)

Home is the first page after signing in — a snapshot of everything relevant to you right now.

A Client sees a shorter Home: a welcome, cards for Shared projects, Awaiting your approval, and Work completed, and a list of their projects.

✓ My Work

My Work is a focused list of just your tasks. Open it from the Home cards or the "My assigned tasks" panel. It has a search box (Search my tasks, not case-sensitive) and four tabs:

• Assigned to me — open tasks assigned to you (directly, among several people, or through a team you are on), grouped by status.
• Reported by me — open tasks you created or requested.
• Watching — tasks you follow.
• Recently done — your finished work.

The Due today, Overdue, and High priority cards on Home open My Work already filtered. Use Clear filter to go back.

+ Creating things

The Create button in the top bar, the Home quick actions, and a page's own "New…" button open the same window: a small form with tabs across the top for what you're making — Task, Project, Client, Campaign, Sprint, or Invite teammate. You only see the tabs your role allows.

1. Pick the type using the tabs.
2. Fill in the fields. A field marked with an asterisk is required. The rest can wait.
3. Click the Create button at the bottom. You get a confirmation message and are taken to the new item.

For a task, the fields are: title, project, type, parent task (for a subtask), assignees, priority, due date, team, and description. For a project: name, key, type, client, project manager, start and due dates, teams, and description.

◔ Notifications

Click the bell icon in the top bar to open your notifications. You are notified when someone assigns you a task, mentions you in a comment (@YourName), invites you to a team, requests your approval, or when a task you're on is due soon.

Due-date reminders

When a task assigned to you is due within about two days and isn't finished, FuturnFlow sends you one reminder email and a notification. It sends it once per task.

Reading and clearing notifications

Unread items have a dot. Click one to jump to what it is about. Opening the bell marks everything as read.

Notification settings

Open your avatar → Profile & preferences → Notification preferences. You can switch In-app notifications and Important only (critical priority, approvals and direct mentions) on or off. Email notifications and the daily digest switches are placeholders and can't be changed yet.

☺ Profile & preferences, and changing your password

Click your avatar → Profile & preferences. You can edit your full name, job title, phone, time zone, and avatar colour.

Change your password

On the same page, use Change password. Enter your current password, then the new password (8 or more characters) twice.

Take a quick tour

The avatar menu also has Take a quick tour, a short walkthrough of the main parts of the screen.

⚲ Search

Workspace search

Type in the search bar at the top of any page and press Enter. Results are grouped by type: tasks, projects, clients, campaigns, forms, comments, people, docs, and files. You only see things you are allowed to see.

Saved filters

The Search page also has saved filters for common views, such as My Open Tasks, Overdue Work, and Pending Approval.

Search boxes on individual pages

These pages have their own search box, which is not case-sensitive: Projects, Clients, Campaigns, Forms, Files, a project's Tasks, Teams, Docs, Sprints, and My Work. The board also has its own search box.

✦ AI assistant

If your workspace has the AI assistant module switched on, a round sparkle button appears at the bottom-right of every page. Click it to open the assistant.

What the assistant can do

• Answer questions about your work. It answers from the data you can see. It cannot see projects you cannot open.
• Explain how FuturnFlow works. "How do I…" questions are answered from these manuals.
• Suggest changes. You can ask it to create, assign, move, comment on, archive, or delete things.

The assistant never changes anything by itself

Every change it suggests appears as a card. Nothing happens until you click Confirm on the card (the button says Delete permanently for a delete). Click Decline to dismiss it. When you confirm, the change is made as you, with your permissions.

Stopping the assistant

While it is thinking, a Stop & undo button appears. Click it to halt the assistant and put back anything it already did.

Chats and files

Use the header buttons for Past chats and New chat. You can attach a file to the task or project you are looking at with the paperclip next to the message box. Answers come from an external AI provider, which is why the module is off until an admin switches it on.

▤ Projects

A project is a container for a body of work — a client deliverable, an internal initiative, a campaign. Every project has a short key like FUT that appears on all its tasks.

Projects list

Every project you can see appears as a card: name, key, client, type, progress, priority, due date, and team avatars. Use the search box (case-insensitive) or the filters for status, type, and client. Click a card to open it.

Inside a project

Every project has the same tabs across the top:

Project settings

Settings has the project's details (name, type, client, status, priority, owner, project manager, dates, tags, description). The Client visibility options choose what a client can see: overview and details, tasks and board, subtasks, sprints, and team members. The Danger zone has Archive project (restorable) and Delete project (permanent, with all its tasks).

☑ Tasks, explained

The task is the basic unit of work. Almost everything else in the app exists to organize, track, or report on tasks.

Task identity

Every task has a code like VEL-3: the project key plus a running number. The code appears wherever the task is referenced.

Task types

A task's Type is one of four: Task, Subtask (nested under a parent task), Bug (which adds a severity field), or Milestone. Anything more specific, such as design or content, is a label.

Task statuses

A task moves through the pipeline To Do → In Progress → In Review → Done. Two more statuses cover work that goes back or stops: Revision (a manager sent it back with a note) and Rejected (won't be done). Blocked and archived are flags on a task, not statuses.

• The assignee starts work (To Do → In Progress), can put it back, and submits it for review (→ In Review). They cannot decide their own review.
• A manager (a project manager or anyone who can manage projects) decides the review: accept to Done, or send back to Revision with a required note. Managers can also move a task to any status.
• Moving a task to Revision or Rejected asks for a note. The note shows on the task.
• A workspace on the Enterprise edition can rename these statuses or define its own under Settings → Workflows.

Opening a task

Click any task card, row, or link to open its full page:

Status vs. priority

Status is where the task is in its lifecycle and moves it across the board. Priority (Critical, High, Medium, Low) is how urgent it is, regardless of status.

☰ Boards (Kanban)

The board is the drag-and-drop view of tasks moving through their statuses.

1. One column per status: To Do, In Progress, In Review, Revision, Done, and Rejected.
2. Drag a card between columns to change its status. You can only make moves your role allows; the review decision belongs to a manager. Dropping on Revision or Rejected asks for a note.
3. Click a card to open the quick-view drawer, then use the link to the full task page.
4. Use the filter row above the board: a search box and filters for assignee, priority and type, and a Group option (assignee, priority, or epic).
5. Add task at the bottom of a column adds a task with that status.

Click Tasks in the sidebar for the board across every project you can see. Use the buttons above it (All projects or a project key) to narrow it. Every project also has its own Board tab.

☰ Backlog

The Backlog is where you plan work for a project before it is scheduled into a sprint. It is a ranked list, not a board, with a switch between projects.

1. Drag a row by its grip handle to reorder tasks.
2. Move a task to a sprint by dragging it into a sprint section or using the "Move to sprint" dropdown on the row.
3. Select several tasks with the checkboxes and use the bar that appears to change them in bulk (sprint, priority, assignee).

◷ Sprints

Sprints are a module: they appear in the sidebar only if the Sprints module is on. A sprint is a time-boxed chunk of work (commonly two weeks) with a goal, a capacity in points, and start and end dates. The Sprints page lists every sprint, has a search box, and has New sprint.

🏢 Clients

Clients is a module and appears for people who can manage projects. The page lists clients as cards, with a search box (case-insensitive), a status filter (active, prospect, paused, archived), and New client.

Open a client to see their projects, open work, campaigns, intake forms, contact details, your point of contact and account manager, notes, and activity. An Edit button changes contact details and status.

Client portal access

On a client's page, the Client portal panel has Give access. Enter a contact's name and email. They get a starter password by email and can sign in to a Client dashboard. Share specific projects with them by adding them as a project member.

📣 Campaigns

Campaigns is a module. A campaign tracks a marketing or creative initiative separately from day-to-day tasks, and can link to a project. Open it from Search (saved filter Marketing Campaigns) or from a client's page. It has a search box (case-insensitive), New campaign, and filters for status, channel, and client.

Three views switch at the top: List, Board (by stage), and Calendar (launch and end dates).

Inside a campaign, the row of stage buttons near the top moves it directly to a stage: Planning, In Progress, In Review, or Live. The campaign page also shows its details, linked tasks, files, and performance notes.

📋 Forms & briefs

Forms are structured intake: a brief or information request, so you don't chase details over email. Forms is a module.

The Forms & briefs page lists forms with a search box (case-insensitive) and filters for type, status, and client. Open a form to see its details, who submitted it, and its dates.

1. Edit the details from the form's own page with Edit.
2. Submit for review when it is complete. This moves it from Draft to Submitted.
3. A reviewer starts the review, then either approves it or marks it as Information Missing, which sends it back to be completed.
4. Convert to project — once approved, someone who can manage projects can convert it. FuturnFlow creates a new project from the form's details.
5. Archive a form that is no longer needed.

✔ Approvals

Approvals is a module. A task, campaign, or form can have an approval attached: a specific person is asked to sign off. Open the Approvals page from the Pending approvals card or panel on Home, or the badge on Home in the sidebar. It has three tabs: Waiting on me, Requested by me, and All approvals.

Who can approve: approvals go up the reporting hierarchy

The approver picker does not list everyone. You can ask someone who sits above you: your reporting manager and the people above them (set by the Reporting manager field on each person), whoever manages the project the work belongs to, or an Owner or Admin. You are never offered yourself, and nobody can approve their own request. The exception is the Client Review stage, where the approver is a client with access to the project.

Requesting an approval

Open the task, campaign, or form, find the Approvals panel, and click Request. Pick the approver and the stage (Review or Client Review), and add a note.

Deciding an approval

📅 Calendar

A month calendar of everything with a date: task due dates, campaign launches and ends, and form deadlines, colour-coded by type. Click an entry to open it. Each project also has its own Calendar tab.

📈 Timeline

A horizontal bar chart plotting projects and campaigns across time. Each project also has its own Timeline tab for its dated tasks.

📊 Reports

Reports is a read-only analytics page: counts of active, done this week, overdue, blocked, and pending-approval items, average completion time, tasks by status and priority, projects by status, campaigns by stage, workload by team member, and productivity by team. Nothing is editable. It is all derived from your live data.

🗂 Files

Files are uploaded from a task, project, client, or campaign. The workspace-wide list (Settings → Content → Files) shows each file's name, type, approval status, and what it is attached to. It has a search box (case-insensitive) and filters for type and approval. You only see files attached to things you can see. Uploads are private and capped at 25 MB per file.

📖 Docs

Docs is a module: the internal knowledge base for process notes, guidelines, and client documentation. Pages are organized into spaces, with nested sub-pages. The page has a search box (case-insensitive). People who can edit see New page and an edit control on each page. Open it from Settings → Content → Docs.

⚡ Automation

Automation is a module. Rules fire automatically when something happens, for example notifying someone. Rules marked Live are running now. Add a rule with New rule and switch rules on or off. Only people who can manage the workspace can use it. Open it from Settings → Advanced → Automation.

⚙ Settings

Workspace configuration, for people who can manage the workspace. The Settings page groups its cards:

Under People there is also Roles & permissions for creating and editing company roles. Teams are managed on the Teams page, not in Settings.

§ Glossary

? Troubleshooting