A demo business is a make-believe salon to look around in, and to try things on before you do them in your own business. Every module is in use, with the kind of records a real small business about six months in would have: a team with their hours and pay, clients and three weeks of their visits, the register, forms and messages, stock in a warehouse with purchasing and manufacturing, the salon's own product line sold wholesale, in the online store and on the marketplace, parcels and an import on its way, a sales pipeline and marketing, and the books, meetings and projects.
Opening one
- With no business yet: on the first screen of the guided setup, under Or look around first, choose Open the demo business.
- From any business: open the business menu (your business's name, top right) and choose New demo business.
A window shows each part as it is made, how many parts there are and how far it has got. It takes a couple of minutes; keep the page open, and the demo opens when every module has its examples. If a part does not finish, the window says so: choose Try again to carry on from that part, or Open the demo as it is and finish it later from the notice at its top (below). Each person can have up to three demo businesses.
Nothing in it is real
- Its team, clients, vendors, customers, addresses, emails and phone numbers are made up.
- Nothing is ever sent from a demo, whatever is switched on in it: no email or text, no social post, no payment or card charge, no shipping label, and no call to a carrier or a bank. Try any button; nothing leaves the app.
- It sits beside your own businesses and shares none of their records, so nothing you do in it touches them.
It keeps itself up to date
A demo is dated around the day it was made, so left alone it would soon look stale: yesterday's visits never checked out, an empty week ahead. Every morning the app brings each demo up to date by itself: the visits since the last time are checked out, today's are under way, the days ahead are booked, and whatever moves on by itself in the other modules is brought up to today. A module that has no examples yet is filled at the same time, a part at a time.
The notice at the top
When a demo has fallen behind (early in the morning, before the app has brought it up to date) or has modules with no examples yet, a strip under the top bar says so in a sentence, such as The demo’s calendar has fallen behind. or Some of the demo’s modules have no examples yet. Its owners and admins see it; the rest of the team never does, and a real business never has it.
- Choose Bring the demo up to date. Only an owner can; an admin is told an owner can bring it up to date.
- The strip shows the part being done, how many there are (2 of 6) and how far it has got. You can keep working in the demo meanwhile; switching to another business stops it after the part under way.
- When the last part is done, the page refreshes and the strip goes.
If a part does not finish, the strip says That did not finish. Try again. Whatever was done stays done: choose Bring the demo up to date again and it carries on from there.
Starting it over
A demo gathers what was added to try things out: a test board, a territory, an automation named abc. To have it clean again, with every module's examples connected as they should be:
- Open the business menu (the demo's name, top right) and choose Start this demo over. Only an owner of the demo sees it.
- Choose Start it over. A new demo is built and filled, the same window showing each part, and it opens when it is ready.
- The old demo is put away with everything in it: it leaves your list of businesses, and nothing is done to it again. Nothing in it is deleted.
Best practices
- Try something new in a demo first: a workflow, an import, a price list, a production run, a campaign.
- Show the app to a new team member in a demo, so nobody practices on real clients.
- When a demo has been changed out of shape, start it over.
See Find your way around for the menus the demo is opened from.