Open Academy from the left menu — on a phone, the cap in the top bar — and type what you are trying to do, or browse by the job: leads, estimates, contracts, the field, money, setup. A lesson takes you to the right screen, dims everything but the one control you need, and waits for you to press it. New people are met on their first sign-in by a welcome written for their role — admin, sales manager, sales rep, project manager, crew leader or worker — which confirms the details the app needs and leaves a checklist that ticks itself as they do the real work. It's one system for the whole post-frame business instead of five tools taped together, so one Academy covers all of it — the lead, the estimate, the contract, the crew and the invoice — in more than eighty lessons, at desktop and phone width, and a change that would break a lesson fails our checks before it can ship.
Also called: onboarding · tutorials · training · how do I · walkthroughs · guided tour · help centre · learn the system · will my crew use it · onboarding checklist · first login · software training
Lessons that run on your own screens
A lesson opens the screen its step lives on, opens whatever is shut — the side menu, a stage, a card — then dims everything except the one control you need and waits for you to press it. It never clicks for you. If the control genuinely isn't on your screen, the step is skipped rather than leaving you stuck under a dark overlay.
Watching a video of somebody else's screen doesn't build the habit of doing the task on yours, so the owner ends up showing them again anyway.
A new hire remembers what their own hands did far better than what they watched — and the owner gets a rep who can add a lead on day one without anyone sitting beside them. Every step checks its control is really on screen before it dims anything.
Ask it "how do I…" in your own words
Try itThe Academy opens from the Academy row in the left menu, which carries your setup ring while you're getting started. Search comes first — type what you're trying to do — then your Getting set up card, then the shelves: Getting Started, the Customer Journey, Leads & Contacts, Estimates, Projects & Field, Money and more, each row with its length in minutes and a Start button.
"How do I do this again?" turns into a phone call to the owner for anything done once a month — the invoice, the change order, the permit check.
People ask at the moment they're stuck, and that's the moment the answer sticks. The once-a-month job stops being a text to the owner, and the owner gets his evenings back.
A first day written for every role
Try itThe first sign-in greets each person in the words of their job, confirms their mobile, email and time zone (and offers to add where they drive from), then shows their list — for a sales rep, 13 things in the order they matter, about 23 minutes. Field crew get the same welcome, on their own field link.
A new person lands in the app with no idea where to start, and the office never gets the details it needs to reach them.
Day one is when people decide whether a tool is for them. A welcome in their own words makes a new rep or a framer feel expected, and the office gets the mobile number calls need without chasing it.
A setup list that ticks itself
Try itGetting set up lives on Home and in Settings → Academy, grouped You / Your work / Learn. Rows the app can check tick on their own — a mobile on file, a real lead actually touched — and tours tick when they're finished. Open a row for why it matters and a Do it button; anything skipped, already done or optional is folded away underneath.
A setup checklist people tick by hand is a list of things they say they did.
A list that knows what's actually done keeps people honest without anyone checking up on them, and a new rep gets the small win of watching rows go green as they work.
Tours that work on a phone
Try itLessons run at desktop and phone width. On a phone the step sits in a card above the bottom bar that shrinks to a single line when it's in the way, the button it points at stays in view above it, and the lesson points at the control you can actually see — never the hidden desktop copy of it. See running the business from your phone.
Half your team will only ever open the software on a phone, and a desktop-only tour teaches them nothing.
Half a crew will only ever open the software on a phone, in a truck. Training that works there is training that actually happens — and a field team that can learn on its own doesn't need the office on the line.
The whole sale, practised on a demo lead
Try itThe Lead Journey walks nine chapters, from a lead arriving to the first invoice, on a practice lead the Academy adds for you — Sam Carter, a $48,500 barn from Google Ads — who disappears when you finish. The Customer Journey does the same from both sides, showing the screens your customer sees without leaving the tab. If a practice run was abandoned, Remove demo data clears it; real leads are never touched.
People practise on real customers because there's nowhere else to practise — and the customer can tell.
A new rep who can't break anything tries everything, and learns twice as fast. The owner never has to watch a trainee practise on a real customer's $48,000 building.
"Show me how" on the screen you're stuck on
A small cap sits on the screens that need it — at the end of the sales board's tabs, beside Settings headings — and starts that screen's own lesson. On Analytics it's a two-minute walk through what each number means. A cap only appears where a lesson exists, so it's never a dead button.
People don't open a help panel to ask about the screen they're stuck on — they guess, or they leave the feature alone.
Help one click from the confusion gets used; help three clicks away doesn't. A rep who understands the numbers trusts them, and a rep who trusts them acts on them.
A lesson cannot quietly go out of date
Every control a lesson uses carries a fixed name, and a change that breaks a lesson fails our checks before it can ship. If a screen still looks different than a step expects, the card says so — "Skipped a step" — offers Skip and carries on. Skipped steps from real people are rolled up and treated as bugs.
Training videos go stale the first time a button moves, and nobody notices until a new hire follows one into a dead end.
A new hire trusts training that's honest about itself — and one dead end is enough to make them stop trusting it. The owner never hears 'the tutorial said to click something that isn't there'.
The owner sees who's set up — and who's stuck
Team progress in Settings → Academy lists every person: role, how far through their list, when they were last in, and what they skipped, in words. There's no automatic nagging — the footer says it plainly: if someone is stuck, ask them.
The owner finds out a new hire never set up their phone when a customer's call doesn't reach them.
The owner can fix the one gap before it costs a job — the crew without field links, the rep with no QR code on the truck — with a two-minute conversation instead of a robot reminder people learn to ignore.
Your call: hints on or off, and how new people start
Try itEach person has their own Show hints on screens switch — the caps go away, the Academy and any lesson link still work. Under Defaults for new people, the owner sets whether hints start on for anyone who joins, and whether the orientation tour starts right after the welcome or waits until they press Start.
Help that can't be turned off gets in the way of the people who no longer need it, so they learn to resent the whole thing.
Your experienced people keep a clean screen and your new ones still get the help — nobody feels talked down to, and nobody feels left alone.
- 1Open Academy from the left menu — or the cap in the top bar on a phone — and type how do I…, or browse the shelves.
- 2Pick a lesson: it opens the screen, opens whatever is closed, lights up the one control — and waits for your click.
- 3On a phone the step sits in a card above the bottom bar that shrinks to one line, with the button it points at kept in view above it.
- 4A new person's first sign-in opens a welcome for their role, confirms their mobile, email and time zone, and leaves Getting set up on Home.
- 5Rows tick themselves when the real thing is done; a tour ticks when it is finished.
- 6Progress follows the person, not the device — stop halfway on the computer and pick it up on the phone.
- 7Practise on a demo lead and a demo estimate, never a real customer.
The question every owner asks before buying software is will my crew actually use it? A builder buys in the spring and is using half of it by fall, and the half nobody found is the half that would have paid for it. Training that lives outside the product rots: a video goes stale the first time a button moves, and nobody notices until a new hire follows it into a dead end. So the training lives inside the working app, it is written for the job each person does, and every lesson is checked against the real screens — a renamed button breaks its lesson in our checks, not in front of your new hire. And people who join were landing in the app with no guidance while we never collected the phone number, email and address the rest of the platform needs to work for them, so day one now does both.
- Team members never discovering the features that would save them time
- Training material drifting out of date the moment the product changes
- Onboarding a new hire meaning a call with the owner instead of self-service
- New people starting without the phone, email and address the app needs
Guided tours for your numbers
Step-by-step tours written for builders, not analysts. Understand your Analytics walks conversion, speed to lead, the funnel and stage time in four plain steps, and closes by explaining why the tab is empty on a new account. How the Leaderboard and Rep Score work covers ranking, what moves a score, and the longest-reign record.
Walkthroughs that run on your real screens
A lesson takes you to the right screen first, opens whatever is closed, then dims everything except the one control you need. Press it and the lesson moves on. If that button is genuinely not on your screen, the step is skipped rather than leaving you stuck under a dark overlay.
The Lead Journey and Customer Journey courses
Single lessons teach the parts. These two teach the whole run. Lead Journey follows a lead landing and getting worked. Customer Journey follows lead, estimate, portal, contract, start, build, invoices. Each shows as a card with chapters ticking off as you go.
Ask 'how do I…' and get the right lesson
Type something like how do i send an estimtes into the Academy box. It throws away the question words, forgives a wrong letter, and shows the six closest lessons. When it truly has no answer it hands you the category list rather than an empty screen.
Practice on a demo lead, not a real customer
The practice lead lands on your real pipeline board, badged, assigned to whoever is taking the lesson. It is fenced off so practice cannot touch the business: no mail can reach it, nothing goes to your CRM, and it never enters your numbers. When the lesson ends it is gone.
See exactly what your customer sees
The Customer Journey course flips between your side and theirs without leaving the page. Every name and number on those screens is made up and belongs to nobody. One exception, on purpose: you learn to send an estimate on the real send screen, not a picture of one.
Training progress follows the person, not the device
Every step you finish is saved to you. Open the app anywhere and the lesson picks up where it stopped. Restart is a real reset, not a half-finished state nobody can clear. It works for a field worker on the narrowest permissions in the company.
'Show me how' on the busy screens
The screens with the most moving parts — lead distribution, analytics, the send-estimate window, an opportunity card — carry a cap icon up in the header. Click it and the lesson for that exact screen starts. If no lesson exists for it, the icon is not there at all.
Turn the Academy off
Experienced people should not be nudged into a lesson they took a year ago. Show hints on screens is a single switch on your own Settings → Academy page, and the Academy panel's gear menu carries Hide Academy behind a confirm that tells you how to bring it back before you press it. An admin sets the same two things for everyone who joins next: whether hints start on, and whether the first tour opens straight after the welcome. A lesson you paused halfway stays reachable either way — the resume chip survives hiding, and opening any tutorial link turns your hints back on.
First-login welcome, written for the job
A framer and an owner need completely different first sentences. The welcome greets you by name, says in three lines what your role owns here, then asks you to confirm the four things everything else depends on — your mobile, your email, your home address and your time zone — saving them to the same places the rest of the product reads. It ends on your list: the setup steps for your job, ordered by what hurts most if it is skipped. The list then lives on Home until it is finished. Most rows tick themselves the moment the real thing is set up; tours tick when you finish them; the few the app cannot check, you confirm. Anything you are not ready for takes Skip for now, which hides the row and still counts it unfinished.
First sign-in welcome
Four cards the first time somebody signs in: this is your home base, here is your schedule, photos straight off your phone, ticking off milestones. Crew leaders get one more about assigning tasks and inviting workers. Admins get one more about crews, permissions and pipelines. Skip it at any point.