Read it once front to back to get the lay of the land, then keep it as a reference — every section stands on its own. You can print it or save it as a PDF straight from your browser (File → Print → Save as PDF). The blue links in the contents below jump to each section.
Contents
1The two sides of your site
Your site is really two things sharing one address:
The storefront
What the public sees — your home page, shop, blanks catalog, live quote, design uploader, journal, and contact. This is open to everyone; no login needed.
The Studio dashboard
Your private back office for running the business — orders, customers, invoices, inventory, the production floor, and every setting that powers the storefront. You reach it by signing in.
Everything a customer does on the storefront (places an order, uploads a design, buys a stock item) lands somewhere in the Studio for you to act on. The rest of this manual follows that path: first what customers see, then where it shows up for you.
2Signing in to the Studio
- Go to your site and add
#/adminto the address (for exampleyoursite.com/#/admin). - Enter your studio passcode. You'll stay signed in on that device until you sign out.
- You'll land on the dashboard with a menu down the left, grouped into Customers & orders, Site edits, Production floor, and Settings.
The sign-in page also carries a Floor team sign-in link, so operators can clock in from there (see Floor team).
3Light & dark mode
In the top navigation, next to the cart, there's a small sun / moon button. Tap it to switch the whole site — storefront and dashboard alike — between the warm light look and a warm dark one. Your choice is remembered on that device, and first-time visitors automatically get whichever matches their phone or computer's setting.
4A morning in the studio
A simple routine that touches the things that matter most each day. Adjust it to your rhythm.
- Start on Today. Your dashboard home shows what's due today, what's new, what's awaiting approval, and which proofs still need sending — tap a tile to jump straight to it.
- Maintenance first. Open Production floor → Maintenance. Do each machine's daily upkeep (brush, one drop of oil, check needles) and tap Log daily so it's on the record.
- Check what came in overnight. Look at Customer uploads, Shop orders, and Messages — anything with a number badge is new.
- Pull new orders onto the floor. In Production plan, tap Pull in orders, flag any rush jobs, and fill in stitch counts/colours once you've digitised.
- Build the plan. Tap Generate plan, glance at it, and Save plan. Your Production calendar and Shop floor board now reflect the day.
- Work the floor. On Shop floor, press Start when a machine begins a job and Finish when it's done.
- Advance orders & bill. As jobs move through the stages, update each order's status so customers see progress, and send invoices when appropriate.
5The storefront, page by page
This is what your customers move through. Knowing it helps you understand where everything in the Studio comes from.
Home
Your welcome page and first impression. The wording and imagery here are editable from Site edits → Edit pages.
Shop & Examples
Your decorated work and any ready-made items. In-stock items show an Add to cart button; examples are there to inspire and to start a custom conversation.
Shop blanks
Blank garments customers can choose to have decorated, fed from your SanMar catalog. They browse styles, colours and sizes here before starting an order.
Get a quote
A live estimator. The customer picks an item, quantity, stitch count, number of locations, and whether the design is new; it shows a rough price from the rates you set in Settings → Pricing. Every estimate is clearly labelled as a ballpark — you confirm the real price. A button sends them on to upload their design.
Upload a design
How custom jobs begin. The customer sends you their artwork and details; this creates a Customer upload in your dashboard and is the start of the 5-stage order tracker.
Journal
Your blog. Posts are written and published from Site edits → Journal / blog; only published posts appear here.
Cart & checkout
For ready-made / in-stock items. The cart lives in the customer's browser and survives between visits. When they check out, the order reserves the stock (so nothing is oversold), emails you, and gives them a reference like S-4F2A. These arrive in Shop orders. Customers can also enter a discount code at checkout — a valid Win-Back code takes its percentage off automatically and shows the new total; it's checked against the email it was sent to, works only once, and is marked redeemed when the order is placed.
About & Contact
Your story and how to reach you. Messages sent from Contact land in Messages. Text and contact details are editable from the Studio.
6Accounts, order tracking & guest links
Customer accounts
Visitors can create an account ("Sign in" in the top-right). From their dashboard they can follow their orders and view or print invoices and receipts. Invoices match to a customer by email — so an invoice can exist before someone registers and will link to them automatically when they sign up.
The 5-stage order tracker
Every custom order moves through five stages that the customer can watch:
| Stage | What it means |
|---|---|
| 1 · Order Placed | The upload came in; you've received it. |
| 2 · Design & Digitizing | Artwork is being prepared / digitised. |
| 3 · On the Hoop – Stitching | In production on a machine. |
| 4 · QC & Finishing | Checked, trimmed, finished. |
| 5 · Order Finished | Done and ready. |
You advance the stage from the order in your dashboard; the customer sees the current step.
Guest tracking links no account needed
For a customer who doesn't want an account, you can hand them a secure tracking link (see Production floor → Tracking links). It shows their order's stage and lets them view and print their receipts — and it stays live the whole time the order is in progress, then for 30 days after it's finished, so they can grab a receipt later without messaging you.
Multiple shipping locations business accounts
A business with more than one location can save a ship-to address for each store — one set as the default — so an order can be sent to the right place rather than the main address. The customer manages these in their own dashboard, and you can view and manage the same list from Customers. When you build an invoice you pick which location it ships to (see Invoices).
7The Studio dashboard · Customers & orders
Customer uploads
Every custom design job. Open one to see the artwork and details, advance it through the five stages, and add notes. The badge counts new ones. When you send a proof you can attach a stitch count and the thread colours the logo will be sewn in — the customer sees both beside the mockup. Any embroidery file (.dst/.exp/.pes/.pec) has a Quick look that reads the file and shows the design drawn from its own stitches plus stitch count, size, colour changes, density and run time — no digitizing software needed.
Shop orders
Ready-made / in-stock purchases from the cart. Each one already reserved its stock at checkout. Work through them and mark them as you fulfil and invoice.
Customers
Your customer accounts — contact details and history in one place. Expand a customer to see and manage their shipping locations: a business with several stores keeps a ship-to address for each, with one default. You and the customer manage the same list, so it stays in sync. Expanding a customer also shows their saved logos & designs, so you can view a logo and its details straight from here without hunting for an order — images preview inline and embroidery files get the same Quick look as the order view — including the thread colours from the most recent order that used the design.
Customer Win-Back
A prompt to re-engage customers you haven't heard from in a while, so repeat business doesn't slip away. When a customer comes back, their code now works right in the cart — they type it at checkout, the discount comes off automatically, and it's marked redeemed so it can't be reused. Shop orders show the code, the amount off and the total to invoice.
Invoices
View invoices and receipts. A paid invoice shows as a Receipt with a paid stamp. Customers can see and print their own from their account, and via guest links. When you build an invoice, a Ship to picker lets you choose the main address or any of that customer's saved locations (their default is pre-selected); the chosen address is stamped onto the invoice and appears on the customer's receipt.
Sales
Your money view, built from paid invoices: revenue this month and year, sales tax collected, outstanding unpaid invoices, period breakdowns, and a 12-month revenue chart.
Labels & Scan
Print labels and scan to pull up the matching order quickly on the floor.
Messages
Notes sent through the Contact page. The badge counts unread.
8Site edits
Everything here changes what the public sees. Nothing in this group is exposed to customers except where noted.
Shop items & Add new item
The products and examples on your Shop page. Add a new one, set its description, price and image, and decide whether it shows in the store. A ready-to-buy item has an In stock now field — enter how many you have ready to ship and it appears in the shop's "In stock now" list and on your Inventory page automatically, so you only enter it once. Blank keeps it made-to-order; 0 marks it out of stock.
Inventory
Your in-house stock of blanks and consumables — quantity, cost, sale price, notes (private to you). Total stock value is summed at the top, and items show low / out badges so you reorder in time. A "Show in store" toggle can list an item publicly. Rows badged shop item came from a Shop item's "In stock now" and are managed on the Shop items page.
Vendors
A private supplier contact sheet — company, rep, phone, email, ordering portal, your account number, what you buy, and notes — so everything's in front of you when you place an order. Admin-only. Import CSV brings in a whole list at once (matching common column names; re-importing updates rather than duplicates), and Export CSV downloads the sheet.
SanMar Catalog
Manage the imported SanMar blanks that feed your Shop blanks page, with stock and sale pricing kept fresh.
Journal / blog
Write, edit and publish blog posts. Drafts stay private (the badge counts them); only published posts appear in the public Journal.
Edit pages
Change the words and details on your Home, About and other pages without touching code.
Artwork studio
Prep a logo entirely in your browser — lift it off its background, enlarge it, and trace it to a clean SVG for digitizing. The preview updates live as you drag the Tolerance and Soft-edge sliders, so you can dial it in by eye; "Show original" compares before and after, and Apply commits the result so you can download or trace it. Nothing leaves the page until you save or download.
FAQ
Add and edit the questions and answers shown to customers.
9Production floor
This is the heart of running the shop: turning orders into a real plan across your machines, watching the work happen, and keeping the equipment healthy. The six screens are designed to be used roughly in this order.
Production plan
Where the day gets built. It does three jobs:
- Your machines. Add each embroidery head and press once — its type, speed (stitches-per-minute or impressions-per-hour), number of heads, efficiency, and how many run-hours a day it's available. The planner needs these to schedule.
- Your work queue. Tap Pull in orders to bring approved custom orders onto the floor, or add a manual job. For each job set the quantity, stitch count and colours, a deadline, and tick rush if it jumps the line. Stitch count and colours are editable right in the list — fill them in once you've digitised, since that's what makes the time estimate accurate.
- The plan. Tap Generate plan and the system estimates every job and lays out the whole floor for you. Review it, then Save plan.
Each job's run time is calculated the way an industrial engineer would: stitches divided by the machine's real stitching speed (its rated speed adjusted for efficiency), plus colour-change time, plus the hands-on time to hoop and handle each piece, plus one-time setup. Screen-print and DTF jobs use impressions-per-hour with screen-burning setup. The planner then:
- Assigns each job to the machine that finishes it soonest, so big jobs land on your fast multi-head rather than tying up a single-head.
- Sequences embroidery jobs to minimise thread changes between them — running jobs with shared colours back-to-back so you re-thread fewer cones.
- Packs the work into your available hours, rolling over to the next working day when a day fills up, with rush jobs first.
Production calendar
A week-at-a-glance grid: one row per machine, one column per day, showing the scheduled run-hours in each cell with a little bar against that machine's capacity. A bar turns rose when a day is overbooked, so you can see crunches coming and move deadlines or shift work. Use the arrows to look ahead or back. The numbers come from the last saved plan, so regenerate the plan after big queue changes.
Shop floor
The live board for the actual day — one card per machine, refreshing on its own. Each card shows what's running, the operation, a running timer, and what's up next.
- Press Start when a machine begins a job (pick the operation — hooping, stitching, printing, etc.).
- Press Pause if you stop partway, or Finish job when it's complete.
This captures the real start and stop times, so over time you can compare what jobs actually take against the estimates.
Maintenance
Keeps every machine on a healthy schedule and reminds you what's due. Tap View full schedule to read the complete checklist; here's the gist:
| Cadence | The essentials |
|---|---|
| Daily before your first project |
Brush out lint from the feed dogs and rotary hook; one drop of oil on the hook raceway; check the needle for burrs and replace if bent or dull. |
| Weekly | Deep-clean the tension disks and bobbin cavity; lubricate the moving parts your manual lists; tighten the thread-guide and presser-foot screws that vibration loosens. |
| Monthly | Dust thoroughly under the needle plate and floss the tension disks; back up your designs and machine settings to a drive or the cloud. |
| Yearly | Professional tune, clean and re-time by a certified technician — every 12 months, or every 6 for heavy commercial use. |
Each machine shows four cards (Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Yearly), colour-coded up to date due soon overdue. Tap Log daily (or weekly, etc.) to record it: a checklist to tick through, a date you can backdate if it was done earlier, and an optional note. The Maintenance menu item carries a due badge so you're reminded the moment anything needs attention, and View log shows the history of what was done, when, and by whom.
The checklist follows each machine's Type — embroidery, DTF printer and screen-print press each get their own. Every machine card has a Type dropdown: if a DTF printer was added on the default Embroidery type and shows needle-and-hook tasks, switch it to DTF printer and its own checklist (environment, shake the white ink, nozzle check, wiper & caps…) appears.
Floor team
Set up the people who work the floor. Add each person with their own name, username and PIN, and pick a role (which sets sensible permissions), then fine-tune exactly what they can do with the checkboxes — build plans, edit jobs, manage machines, see the floor, start/stop jobs, and so on. This is also what attributes start/stop times to a person. The screen shows the exact web address your operators use to clock in.
Each person also has a Pay section: choose Hourly and enter their rate, or Salaried and enter their annual salary (the site works out the hourly cost as salary ÷ 2,080 hours). You get a labour cost per hour with a Copy for calculator button to paste into the job-cost calculator on the Pricing page. The same figure drives the Time-clock labour totals, and it's admin-only.
Tracking links
Create a secure link for a customer to follow an order without an account. Search for the order, tap Create link, and copy it to send them (the full link is shown only once). They'll see the order's stage and their printable receipts. The link stays live while the order is in progress and for 30 days after it's finished. You can see every link for an order, when it was last opened, and Revoke any link instantly.
Schedule
A weekly grid — one row per person, one column per day. Add a shift with start/end times, an optional station and a note; Copy last week rolls the previous week forward. Your team see their own week on their floor screen. This screen also holds their time-off & overtime requests — approve or deny each with an optional note, and they see the decision.
Time clock
Your team clock in, take breaks and clock out from their floor screen; their hours land here. The top shows who's on the clock now with today's paid hours. If someone forgot to clock in or out, or a break was mis-recorded, use the correction tools to fix the times, add a missed shift, or edit a break — every correction is written to the audit trail.
10Settings
Settings
Your general studio and site settings.
Pricing
The rates behind the customer-facing live quote — garment prices, embroidery by stitch count, bulk discounts, digitizing, and sales. Turn on a sale here and a sale badge appears; the quote updates for customers automatically.
Two profit tools sit with the job-cost calculator: a consumables calculator turns what a jug of ink, cone of thread or roll of film costs (and how much a job uses) into the real material cost per job and per garment; and a DTF profit / loss by the square inch table steps across print sizes at a rate you choose, showing materials vs. what you'd charge and the break-even rate. Both are private scratchpads.
A Sew-out policy setting lets you offer the first sew-out free and set the price for each additional sew-out after a change. That notice appears on the Get a quote page and in the proof email, so customers who skim the quote still see it. Set the price to 0 to hide it, or write your own wording.
Announcement
A banner across the top of the storefront — for a holiday closure, a promotion, or turnaround notice. Toggle it on, set the text, link and colours. An on badge shows when it's live.
Audit trail
An append-only record of who changed what — invoices, customers, proofs, prices, settings, staff/permissions, time-clock corrections and more. Search and filter by action or person, and Export CSV. It can't be edited or deleted in the app, and Verify integrity can prove nothing was tampered with.
Error log
Recent server errors and browser crashes, newest first — so if something misbehaves, you or whoever helps with the site can see exactly what and where. Clear log empties it.
Spam & scanner protection
Runs quietly in the background: hidden traps on your public forms drop bot submissions before they reach you, and automated attackers probing the site are logged (tagged scanner) and turned away. Nothing to manage.
11For your floor team
You can print just this section to hand to staff.
Go to yoursite/#/floor (or use the "Floor team sign-in" link on the studio login page) and sign in with the username and PIN Joy set up for you. Your start/stop times are recorded under your name.
At the top of your floor screen is My clock: Clock in when you start, Take a break or Lunch when you step away (and End it when you're back), and Clock out when you leave. It shows your paid hours and today's record. Forgot to clock in or out? Tell Joy — she can correct it.
My week shows the shifts you're scheduled for. Use Request time off / overtime to send Joy the dates and a reason; you'll see it go from pending to approved or denied.
Do each machine's daily maintenance: brush out the lint, one drop of oil on the hook raceway, and check the needle — replace it if it's bent or dull. Then open Maintenance and tap Log daily for that machine.
On the Shop floor board, find the machine, choose the operation, and press Start. Press Pause if you step away mid-job, and Finish job when it's done. That's what keeps the board accurate for everyone.
Anything marked RUSH comes first. If you're unsure of the order, the board already lists jobs in the right sequence — work top to bottom.
Log it in the maintenance note and tell Joy. Don't push a machine that's skipping, thread-breaking repeatedly, or making a new noise — a quick check now saves a big repair later.
12Troubleshooting & FAQ
The production screens say "Available on the live site."
The production floor, calendar, maintenance and tracking links run on the live studio database, so they only appear on the real deployed site — not in a local preview.
A job's time estimate looks like almost nothing.
It's probably missing its stitch count or colours. Fill those in on the Production plan work queue (they're editable right in the row), then Generate plan again.
The calendar doesn't match what I just changed.
The calendar reads the last saved plan. After changing the queue, regenerate and save the plan on the Production plan screen.
A customer says their tracking link stopped working.
Links expire 30 days after an order is finished, or if you revoked one. Just create a fresh link from Tracking links and send it.
I changed something on the storefront and don't see it.
Refresh the page. Most edits are instant; a hard refresh clears anything cached.
I'm locked out of the Studio.
Re-enter your passcode at #/admin. If it's truly lost, it can be reset on the server — reach out for help.
13Glossary
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Blank | An undecorated garment (often from SanMar) that you embroider or print. |
| Upload | A custom design job started by a customer on "Upload a design." |
| Shop order | A purchase of a ready-made / in-stock item through the cart (reference like S-4F2A). |
| Stitch count | Total stitches in a design — the main driver of embroidery time and price. |
| SPM / IPH | Stitches-per-minute (embroidery speed) / impressions-per-hour (press speed). |
| Setup | One-time prep per job — loading a design and threading cones, or burning and registering screens. |
| Run-hours | Machine time a job will take; what the calendar totals per day. |
| Rush | A job flagged to jump ahead of the normal queue. |
| Guest link | A secure, no-account URL a customer uses to track an order and get receipts. |
| Receipt vs. invoice | An invoice becomes a receipt once it's marked paid. |