The setup bar
The row of arrows across the top of your dashboard is a map of the order things happen in. It shows what you have already done, what you are in the middle of, and what the next thing is. It never stops you doing anything.
What it is, and what it is not
Setting up something that works has an order to it: connect the system you keep your data in, build a workflow, run it once to see what it does, publish it, and point something at it. Knowing that order is most of the difficulty, and until you have done it once there is nothing on a screen that tells you.
The bar is that order, written down, with your own progress marked on it. Click any stage and it opens to a sentence about where you are and a button that takes you to the page where that work happens.
It is not a wizard. It never blocks the page, it never opens a screen of its own, and you can do the stages out of order or skip them entirely. Every button on it goes to a page already in your menu.
Reading the marks
| Mark | What it means |
|---|---|
| A tick | Done. Something real is true — a connection exists, a workflow is saved, a call has run. |
| The lit one | Where you are: the first stage that is not done yet. There is only ever one. |
| A plain one | Not done, and not next. It is waiting for the stages before it. |
| A faded one | Nothing to do here yet, or we could not look. It keeps its number — a number that vanished would read as a stage that had gone missing — and its own sentence says which of the two it is. When it is because something did not answer, remember that it is not the same as zero: telling somebody with nine connections that they have none would be worse than saying nothing, so the stage says nothing. Reload the page. |
| A padlock | Only on the builder you can try without signing in. Those stages need an account to save into. They are shown rather than hidden, because “here is what finishing needs” is more use than a bar that pretends the job is shorter than it is. |
Every tick is worked out, not remembered
Nothing about your progress is stored anywhere. Each stage is a question asked afresh every time the page loads — do you have a connection, is a workflow saved, has anything run — and the answer is the mark you see.
That has a consequence worth knowing: delete your last connection and the Connect stage un-ticks the next time you look. Nothing has gone wrong. There is no separate record of what you have achieved that could drift away from what you actually have, which is the whole reason the bar is safe to trust.
The seven on your dashboard
| Stage | What ticks it |
|---|---|
| Account | You are signed in, so it is ticked the first time you ever see the bar. It is there to say that everything below it is free to set up. |
| Key — or Workspace | On an account with developer mode on, this is your API key and it ticks when the key exists. On every other account there is no key to get, so the stage is your workspace instead and ticks when it is ready. Same fact, told in the words your account actually lives in. |
| Connect | At least one system is connected — Dataverse, SQL, SharePoint, Blob, SFTP or any of the rest. |
| Build | At least one workflow is saved. Starting from an example and changing it counts, and is the quickest way in. |
| Run | Something has run on this account. A run you watch on the canvas is free, and it is the fastest way to see what each step produces. |
| Publish | A workflow has a live address, so something outside DocButterfly can start it. |
| Go live | Something is pointed at a workflow — a web form, a schedule or a folder being watched — so it runs without you. |
Each stage also says the number behind it, in words: how many systems are connected, how many workflows are saved, how many forms feed one.
The same bar in other places
The dashboard's is the long one. Four other screens carry a shorter bar about their own job, using the same marks:
| Screen | Its stages |
|---|---|
| Connections | Connect a system · Use it in a workflow · Put it to work. |
| Web forms | Create a form · Give it a destination · Point it at a workflow. |
| Template Generator | Data · Fields · Template · Save · Web form · Deliver. |
| The workflow builder | Its own seven, about the workflow on the canvas rather than the account: Connect · Feed it · Build · Deliver · Test · Publish · Go live. Select a step and you get three more about that step alone — Configure, Wire, Try it — naming the settings it still needs in plain words. |
They read from the same facts, so a connection you make on one screen ticks the Connect stage on all of them.
Making it go away
Hide, at the right-hand end of the bar, collapses it to a single small Setup guide button. Press that button and it comes back, opened where you left it.
Each screen remembers its own choice: hiding it on the dashboard leaves the one on the Connections page alone, because “I have read the dashboard guide” and “I have read the connections guide” are different sentences.
The choice is kept in the browser you made it in. Sign in on a different computer, use a different browser, or clear your browsing data, and the bar is back — it is a view preference, not something stored on your account.