Patchworks quickstart guide
Introduction
There are two possible paths for new clients to get up and running with Patchworks:
Custom integrations, with help from the Patchworks team
Self-serve integrations, via the Patchworks dashboard
If yours is a custom integration, you're in safe hands! Our teams will work with you to gather requirements and implement a tailor-made solution to meet your exact needs. However, with the launch of the new Patchworks dashboard, self-serve onboarding is now possible.
In this guide, we summarise the key steps required to get up and running, with links to relevant articles to help you complete each one.
Where to start?
Key steps from initial registration through to putting process flows live are summarised in the illustration below:
Step 1: Registration
To register your company for a Patchworks account so you can access the Patchworks dashboard, use our registration link below:
You can register with a Google sign-in, or with a username and password. For details, please see: Registering for a Patchworks account.
If you are a Patchworks partner, you should create a company profile for each of your managed companies. Please see Registering for a Patchworks account - Patchworks partners for more information.
Step 2: Company setup
If your systems operate in a single country with a single currency, you probably won't need to complete any additional company setup after initial registration.
However, if you have multiple instances of a system (e.g. Shopify) to manage different locations and currencies, you will need to add a company group for each instance. For details, please see: Adding a company group.
Step 3: User setup
Having registered for a Patchworks account, a user account is created with the credentials you provided. By default, this is an admin account.
As an admin user, you can choose to create additional user accounts so other members of your team can access the Patchworks dashboard. When you create a user account, you can choose whether that person will have admin privileges (so they can create and manage process flows/services in Patchworks), or simple user permissions, (so they largely have view-only access). For details, please see Adding a company user.
To learn more about Patchworks roles and permissions, please see: About passwords, roles & permissions.
Step 4: Install connectors & add instances
Now we're getting to the heart of Patchworks!
Connectors and instances are used to integrate third-party applications with Patchworks. For any third-party application that you wish to pull data from or push data to, you must:
Install the associated Patchworks once
Add one or more for the installed connector
You'll find a curated library of prebuilt connectors in the Patchworks marketplace. If we don't have a prebuilt connector for an application you need to sync, and you have some technical expertise in-house, you can use the Patchworks connector builder to build your own.
For more information please see: Connectors & instances.
Step 5: Add process flows
Having installed your required connectors and added instances, you are ready to build your first process flow - this is where you define if, when, what, and how data is synced.
Process flows are built in a very visual way, by dragging and dropping automated shapes onto a canvas, then configuring them as required. For more information please see: About process flows.
Step 6: Day-to-day-management
Once a process flow is activated, it runs automatically as per any defined trigger shape settings. if required, you can also choose to run a process flow manually, with instant feedback and real-time logging.
As a process flow runs, you can see real-time progress from the canvas, with detailed logs generated throughout the run. Run logs can also be viewed retrospectively, so you always have full oversight of what's happened with your data.
Last updated
