Set up your organization
A checklist for getting your organization ready: your organization's basics, places and buildings, your team and their levels, categories, floor plans, the grounds map and your own connections.
On this page
This page is for the person setting Operacora up for an organization, usually the top-level manager. Most of it takes an afternoon. Work through the steps in order; each one links to a full guide.
Early access: while Operacora is in early access, we create your organization and your first top-level account together with you. Write to hello@operacora.com to get started. Everything after that you do yourself in the web app, under All settings.
1. Places and buildings#
A place is a building, campus or site where work happens. You choose the word your team uses (Building, Campus, Site…) and the name of each place. With two or three places, the web app shows them as buttons at the top; with more, they become a menu. Top-level managers also get All.
Add, rename and order your places in Settings › Buildings (see Buildings and places), and check your organization's name and time zone in Settings › Organization. Then, for each building, mark where it is on the map:
- In the web app, open Settings › Location.
- Under Building areas, search for the building's address, or stand in the building and press Use where I am, or type its latitude and longitude.
- Set a radius in metres that covers the building, and press Save.
Building areas put your buildings on the grounds map. They are also used for location while clocked in, which stays off until you turn it on. Address search needs a Geoapify connection; typing the numbers always works.
2. Add your team#
Each person has an account (an email address or phone number, and a password only they know) and a level. Levels decide who sees what:
| Level in the sample organization | Sees | Typical person |
|---|---|---|
| Level 1 | Everything: the Main Inbox, the personal queues below them, every worker's jobs, settings. | Facility manager |
| Level 2 | The Main Inbox, their own personal queue and every worker's jobs, but not another Level 2's queue. | Assistant manager |
| Worker | Only the jobs assigned to them. | Technician, custodian |
Rename the levels to your own words in Settings › Roles. The rule is always the same: people see and act on the work of those below them, never the private lists of their peers. Only top-level managers change settings and people.
Then add everyone, starting with your workers:
- Open Settings › People and press Add a person.
- Type their name and their email or mobile number, pick their level and, if you like, their buildings and language.
- You get a one-time setup link, a QR code and an 8-character code. Send the link yourself, let them scan the QR code from your screen, or tell them the code. Operacora doesn't send anything by itself.
- They open the link (or tap New here? Use a setup link or code in the phone app), choose their own password and are signed in.
Links work once and for 7 days. Nobody, including you, ever sees someone else's password. See People and setup links.
When someone leaves, deactivate them: they are signed out everywhere at once, their finished work stays on record with their name, and their open jobs stay assigned to them until you reassign them.
3. Categories#
Every job gets one or more categories, such as Plumbing, Electrical or Doors and locks, each with an icon. Operacora suggests categories from the words in a request, and a manager can change them. Look through the built-in list and add your own in Settings › Categories. See Categories.
4. Floor plans#
Floor plans let you see every open job as a pin in its room. For each building, add its floors, upload a plan for each floor (a PDF, an image, or a sharp vector drawing), and mark the rooms. Rooms can also be drawn without any plan. See Floor plans and room setup.
If you have your plans as PDFs from an architect, send them to us. We turn them into crisp vector drawings, so walls and room numbers stay sharp at every zoom.
5. The grounds map#
Outdoor work (a parking lot light, a broken fence, snow on a path) goes on the grounds map. Open Grounds, find your site, press Save this view as the start, and draw your outdoor areas: parking, fields, playgrounds, entrances, gardens and paths. See Grounds map and outdoor areas.
6. Connections (optional)#
Operacora works without any outside accounts. Some extras use your organization's own provider account, so the provider bills you directly: address search (Geoapify) and satellite imagery (MapTiler) work today; keys for AI, voice, translation, texting and email can be saved and tested now, and the features that use them are Coming. See Connections.
7. Time clock and location (optional)#
Workers can clock in and out on the phone, and managers see hours, fix mistakes and approve timesheets. If you also want to know which building people are in while they are clocked in, read Location while clocked in first: it is off by default, and some places require a written notice before you turn it on.
8. Get everyone on the apps#
Send your team to operacora.com/download for the Android app, or have them add the web app to their home screen. See Install the apps. Then show managers the Main Inbox and workers the phone app guide.