1The board in one page

The Showcase Board is the shop schedule. Every customer order is one job card. Sales picks when it has to deliver by; the board lines the jobs up by that date, works out when each one gets through the shop, and warns you before anything ships late.

Every job moves through seven stages

Design and Order are lead time in working days, before the job reaches the floor. Cut, Weld, Paint, Assemble use shop hours. Paint comes before assembly. Ship is a 3-working-day buffer after assembly for crating and loading; its last day is the planned ship date.

How the board decides the dates

The pages

2Getting started

Log in

1. Open the board in Chrome or Edge: https://board.showcaseequipment.us
2. Type your email and password and click Log in.
3. You stay logged in for 30 days on that computer or phone.

No login yet? Ask Andy. Each person gets their own — every change is recorded under the name of whoever made it.

Log out, dark / light

Log out is top right. The ☀ / ☾ button switches between the dark and light look.

Who can do what

Anyone logged in can use How long?. The shop crew needs no login — they use the QR stickers (section 6).

Install the app

Installed, the board opens in its own window with its own icon on the desktop and taskbar. It's the same live board; updates arrive by themselves.

Click ⤓ Install app top right and confirm — one click in Chrome and Edge. If a browser can't, the button shows these steps instead:

Device	Steps
Chrome (PC)	⋮ → Cast, save, and share → Install page as app… → Install. Older Chrome: Create shortcut… → tick Open as window.
Edge (PC)	⋯ → Apps → Install this site as an app.
iPhone	Safari: Share → Add to Home Screen.
Android	Chrome: ⋮ → Add to Home screen → Install.

3Reading the board

The headline tiles

Anatomy of a row

Zoom, refresh, details

• Zoom Fit fits the schedule to the screen; 1×–4× set the day width. Remembered per computer.
• Hover any bar, stage or marker for exact dates and hours.
• Auto-refresh every 20 seconds; holds off while you drag or type.

4New jobs & working with jobs

Add a new job

1. On the Board click + New card.
2. Name the job the way you say it (e.g. "Cook 45HD2"), add the Customer, pick the Brand — Echo, Supreme or Frontline.
3. Pick Deliver by: a date, or click 4 wk…12 wk.
4. Read the check under it: ✓ Fits with days to spare, or ✗ N days short with the earliest the shop can do it, and which jobs would move later.
5. Tick the Units if you know them (optional — makes the estimate sharper).
6. Click Create card. A job that's short can still be saved; it shows red on the board.

PO numbers

The board issues the PO when the card is created — nobody types it. Each brand counts up on its own and a number is never used twice, even if its job is deleted.

The PO is also the job's code in Rippling (section 9). Older jobs keep the PO they had. Only an admin can correct a PO.

No units picked?

The board uses the average of that brand's machine types that have shipped at least 3 times, or the shop default if there are none yet. The card says the estimate is rough.

Open a job

Click a job's name anywhere. On top: Deliver by, the planned ship date and the slack. Below: Stages, Units, Details, the Rippling line, Hours and History (every change, who and when).

Update a stage

Click edit on its row:

Button	Does
Save (hours / days)	Changes the estimate.
Mark started	Records the start (defaults to today).
Mark complete	Closes it today; the next stage moves up.
Reopen	Undoes a complete.
Pin / Unpin	Fixes or frees the stage's dates.

Usually automatic Shop stages start when the first hours land, and the crew taps Start / Done on the QR sticker. Mark Design and Order complete when drawings are done and parts are in — until then cutting waits.

Units and serial numbers

In Units: edit description, serial, max blade or weight and click Save; × removes one; Add unit adds one. Serials are automatic: MODEL-YY-NNN, e.g. 45HD2-26-004.

Ship a job

1. Open the job → Shipped — close card → confirm.
2. It moves to Shipped, its Rippling code is marked SHIPPED, and its actual hours and days teach its machine types. Shipped by mistake? Shipped → open it → Reopen card.

5Moving things on the board

The board plans everything itself. When you know better, drag — whatever you drag is pinned and the rest plans around it.

Undo it

Open the job and click Reset to auto (top of the card). It goes back to Deliver-by order and the board's own stage dates.

6Shop floor QR stickers

Each job gets a QR sticker. Anyone in the shop scans it with a phone camera and taps Start or Done for their stage — no login.

Print a sticker (office)

1. Open the job → QR sticker (top right).
2. Print. Only the sticker prints.
3. Stick it on the machine, the cart or the traveler.

Use it (shop)

1. Point the phone camera at the sticker and tap the link.
2. Type your name the first time; the phone remembers it.
3. Find your stage — Cut, Weld, Paint or Assemble.
4. Tap Start when you begin, Done when it's finished. Wrong one? Undo.

7How long? — quoting

1. Click How long?.
2. Tick the units. "(est.)" = that type hasn't shipped 3 times yet.
3. Priority #: blank = behind everything; a number = what if it jumps the line.
4. Calculate.

You get the earliest ship date, shop start, hours, each stage's dates, and Who slips if we take it — every job that moves later, by how many days, and any that would go late.

8Shop load & bottleneck

• Bottleneck = the stage over its crew most often in the next 8 weeks — where overtime or moving a man pays off.
• One stage red while others are light → move a man that week. Everything red → the board is over-sold.
• Crew hours per stage are set in Admin → Settings (section 12).

9Hours & Rippling

How hours get onto the board

1. A new job is created → the board adds its PO to Rippling's PO list right away (e.g. SM2100 · Hochstetler edger).
2. The crew clocks in on the Rippling app or kiosk and picks PO and Stage (Cut, Weld, Paint, Assemble, Design).
3. Every 15 minutes the board reads the clocked time and puts it on that job and stage. The first hours on a stage mark it started.
4. When the job ships, its PO in Rippling is renamed SHIPPED — … so nobody clocks onto it.

Each card shows its Rippling status: In Rippling ✓, or a red line with the reason (the board keeps retrying). The Hours page shows the last read and has Read Rippling now.

Old job codes

Codes made by hand in the old form still count: PO, a dash, the stage — 4471-WELD, SM2073-CUT, 4471-ASM, 4471-PAINT, 4471-DESIGN. Spaces and capitals don't matter.

Unmatched rows

Time whose code matched no job — picked no PO, or an old code with a typo. For each: pick the job and stage → Assign, or Discard (shop cleanup etc.). Each shift shows up once, never again on the next read.

Before Rippling is connected

Hours → choose the Rippling CSV export → Import. Importing the same file twice doesn't double anything. Managers can also add hours on a job's page.

10Calendar

1. In the bar on top set Date, optional Time, What, Kind → Add.
2. Remove with the small ×. ‹ Prev Today Next › change the month.

Deliver-by dates appear by themselves; click one to open the job.

11Shipped jobs & learning

1. Each machine type holds default Cut / Weld / Paint / Assemble hours and Design / Order days.
2. A new job copies them from its units (or the brand average if none are picked).
3. When it ships, what each stage really took — Rippling hours, and working days for Design and Order — is averaged into its types.
4. After 3 shipped of a type its "est." tag drops: the numbers are learned, not guessed.

12Admin

Give someone a login

1. Admin → Add a login: name, email, a password (8+ characters), role → Add.
2. Send them the board address, their email and the password.

• Reset a password — type a new one on their row → Save.
• Someone leaves — untick Active → Save. Their history stays.

Machine types

One row per kind of unit: name, brand, model code (used in serials), Design / Order days, Cut / Weld / Paint / Asm hours. Untick On to hide one. A green number = learned from that many shipped; est. = still a guess.

Rippling

1. Melvin creates the API token in Rippling.
2. Paste it under Admin → Rippling → Save & test.
3. Sync now — the PO and Stage lists appear in Rippling with every open job.

The token is never shown again (only its last 4 characters). Disconnect stops the sync.

PO numbers

Echo=EC5001,Supreme=SM2100,Frontline=FL7001 — brand, letters, first number. Raising a first number skips ahead; numbers already issued are never reused.

Settings

The delivery buffer (3 working days between assembly and Deliver by) is the ship_buffer_days setting — ask Andy to change it.

API tokens, recent changes

API tokens connect other programs (such as Claude) to the board; shown once when created. Recent changes lists the last 50 changes on the board.

13Reminders & email

Checked every morning at 6:00. Each one is sent once per job. Mail comes from board@showcaseequipment.us and links straight to the job.

14The board's address

The board is at https://board.showcaseequipment.us (padlock, secure). The old address http://91.99.186.141 forwards there by itself, so old bookmarks and QR stickers printed before the move keep working.

If you used the board before the move — once

1. Open the board (old icon or address forwards).
2. Log in again. Logins are tied to the address.
3. If you installed the app from the old address: in its window ⋮ → Uninstall Showcase Board, then click ⤓ Install app on the board — now one click.
4. On a phone that scans stickers: type your name once more.

15Troubleshooting

16Quick reference