Build your first board

This guide takes you from an empty Board account to a working shop-floor setup in about 20 minutes. It assumes you’ve already created an account and verified your email.

Before you start

• You have a Board account at board.apslo.com and you can log in.
• You have a rough idea of the workflow your shop follows — the stations work passes through and the teams that run them.
• You have at least one shop-floor worker you can invite as an employee.

Step 1 — Set up your departments and workstations

Your shop floor structure is the foundation of everything else. Get it roughly right now; you can refine later.

1. Open Configuration → Departments in the sidebar. Click + Add Department and create one entry per team or production area — Cutting, Assembly, Paint, Packing, etc.
2. Open Configuration → Workstations. Click + Add Workstation for each individual station — Assembly Bench 1, Paint Booth 2, Packing Table, etc. Assign each one to a department so it inherits colour and grouping.
3. On each workstation, pick the toggles that fit how it’s used: Allow Quantity, Allow Notes, Allow Images, Allow Time Tracking. See Workstations for the full toggle reference.

The order of workstations on this page is the order they appear as columns on the Production kanban, so drag them left-to-right in the order work flows.

If your sidebar says Stages (or Teams, Areas, Cells) instead of Departments, your account has renamed the module via Naming. It’s the same feature — just a different label.

Step 2 — Configure your job statuses

Open Configuration → Settings → Production Settings (or /app-settings/production). In the Job Statuses card:

1. Add the statuses jobs move through — typical set is New, In Production, On Hold, Completed. Pick a colour for each.
2. In the Status applied when all tasks are completed dropdown at the top, pick the status that should be applied automatically when every workstation step on a job is done (typically Completed).

The system statuses Completed and Archive are pre-installed and locked — leave them in place. See Production Settings for the full reference.

Step 3 — Create your first employee

Open Employees in the sidebar and click + Add Employee:

1. Fill in Name, Surname, and a PIN of 4–8 digits (the PIN is what the employee taps on the Kiosk and mobile app).
2. Switch to the Workstations tab and tick every station this employee is trained on.
3. If they’re a shift lead or foreman, flip the Supervisor toggle on the General tab so they can drag cards between Kiosk columns.
4. Click Create.

See Employees for the full reference.

Step 4 — Create your first job

Open Jobs in the sidebar and click + Add Job:

1. On the General tab, enter the Product Name, Quantity, and any other fields you have to hand (Reference Number, SKU, Order info, Delivery Date).
2. Click Create to save. The panel switches to the Workstations tab.
3. Add each workstation the job needs to flow through, with planned quantities. Or click Apply Template to insert the workflow from a saved Job Template.
4. Save.

The new job now appears on the Production page and can be picked up on the Kiosk.

Step 5 — Open a Kiosk display

The Kiosk is the touch-friendly screen for the shop floor. To open one:

1. Open Configuration → Settings → Kanban Views (or /app-settings/kanban-views).
2. Click + Add New View. Name it (e.g., “Assembly floor”), optionally pick a stage to scope to, hide irrelevant workstation columns, and save.
3. From the Dashboard, find the Kiosk URL widget, pick your new view from the dropdown, and copy the URL.
4. Open the URL on the tablet or TV that will live on the shop floor. Bookmark it or pin it to the home screen.

See Kiosk Overview for the URL parameter reference and feature flags.

Step 6 — Connect the Board Scanner mobile app

If your team will record progress from phones or tablets rather than a wall-mounted Kiosk:

1. Install Board Scanner on each device — see Download links.
2. As an admin, sign the device into your workspace — see Connect Board Scanner App.
3. The device is now linked. From that point on, each employee signs in with their PIN — see Log in with PIN.

Step 7 — Hook into your workflow

A few optional add-ons that make Board part of a daily rhythm:

• Webhooks — push events into Slack, Teams, or an ERP whenever a task is blocked, completed, or has its quantity changed.
• Cron Jobs — auto-close any timers employees forgot to stop at end of shift.
• Notifications — email alerts when tasks are blocked or orders are ready for the next team.
• Client Portal — share a live tracking link with each customer so they can see order progress without emailing you.

Done

You now have a working Board setup — employees, workstations, jobs, and a Kiosk display. Keep iterating from here:

• Add more job templates so creating recurring work becomes a one-click step.
• Tune your stages and workstations as you learn what reporting you actually want.
• Browse the Features reference for everything else Board can do.