Printing your procedures manual — Help

Every operation runs on knowledge that lives in somebody's head. How the cool room gets checked, what happens when a supplier turns up early, which alarm code goes in which door, who signs off the final numbers. It works right up until the person holding it is on leave, or leaves. Workflows already capture that knowledge step by step inside 1pm. The Procedures report turns the whole library into a document you can print, hand over, and leave in a folder on the pass.

This article covers what the procedures manual is, sorting your workflows into categories, putting those categories in a deliberate order, and printing or downloading the finished thing.

What the manual is

A procedures manual is your entire workflow library laid out as one document. Every workflow appears under its category heading, with its steps numbered in order, and the written procedure for each step sitting underneath it.

Nothing new gets written to produce it. It is the same workflows you already build on the Tasks page, arranged for reading rather than for ticking off. If you have written procedures against your steps (see the step editor on any workflow), they are what turn a checklist into something a new starter can actually follow.

The manual reads live. Edit a step's procedure this morning and reprint this afternoon, and the change is in the new copy. There is no generate step, no saved version to go stale, and nothing to remember to refresh.

Why categories exist

Left to itself, a list of workflows sorts alphabetically. That is fine for finding one. It is wrong for a manual.

A manual has a running order. Safety leads, because it is the section that matters most and the one people are told to read first. Pack down trails, because it happens last. Alphabetically, "Safety" lands between "Pack down" and "Service", which says the opposite: that no section outranks any other. Worse, there is no way to argue with it short of renaming things "1. Safety" and hoping nobody notices.

So categories are a real list you control, not a label you type. Each one carries its own position, and you set that position by dragging.

That has two other benefits worth knowing. Renaming a category relabels every workflow in it at once, and a category cannot accidentally fracture into "Front of house", "front of house" and "Front-of-house" because you are choosing from a list rather than retyping a word.

Setting up your categories

Go to Tasks, and click Categories beside the Workflows heading.

Add one by typing a name and clicking Add category. Keep them broad. Safety, Setup, Service, Pack down, Admin. Five or six sections is a manual. Twenty is a filing cabinet.
Drag to reorder. This is the order sections appear in the column and in the printed manual, so put them in the order somebody would work through them.
Rename in place and click Save. Every workflow filed under it follows.
Delete removes the category only. The workflows in it are kept, with every step and procedure intact, and move to a section called Other. The confirmation tells you how many will move before you commit.

You do not have to use categories at all. Until you file something, the Workflows column stays one plain list with no headings, and the manual prints as one run.

Filing a workflow into a category

Back on Tasks, click the pencil on any workflow. Alongside the name you get a category picker. Choose a section, or choose No category to take it back out.

Moving a workflow into a section puts it at the end of that section, so it never barges into the middle of an order you arranged deliberately. Drag it up from there if it belongs higher.

Changing a workflow's category is the picker rather than a drag between sections. Dragging is for setting the order inside a section, which is the fiddlier job and the one worth having a direct gesture for.

Ordering the workflows inside a section

Each section is its own drag list. Grab the handle at the left of any workflow row and move it up or down. That order is the order it prints in.

Between the two, you have full control of the document: categories set the chapter order, and the drag order inside each sets the running order within a chapter.

Printing the manual

Go to Reports, then Procedures, under Operations. There is also a Print procedures link beside the Workflows heading on the Tasks page.

The page shows the manual as it will print. Above it:

Categories to include. Tick the sections you want. Tick none to include everything, uncategorised workflows and all. Useful when you want to hand the kitchen its own pages without printing the sales admin section too.
Show logo puts your default branding logo at the head of the document. It comes from your default branding theme, so if you do not have one set the manual prints unbranded.
Download PDF produces a proper A4 document with your logo, the date it was generated, and a page number on every sheet. This is the version to send someone or file.
Download CSV gives you one row per step, with the category, workflow, step number, step title and its procedure. For bulk editing, importing elsewhere, or handing to a consultant.
Print sends the on-screen version to your printer.

The PDF is generally the better choice for anything you are handing over. It is laid out as a document rather than as a printed web page, and the footer carries your account name and the generation date, so a page that gets separated from the rest still says what it belongs to.

What appears, and what does not

A few rules worth knowing so the output never surprises you:

A step with no written procedure still prints, showing just its title. It is a real line of the job, and dropping it would quietly produce a shorter manual than the workflow actually is.
A workflow with no steps is left out entirely, and if that empties a category, the heading goes too. A heading with nothing underneath reads as a printing fault.
Uncategorised workflows print last, under a heading called Other, never in the middle of your named sections.
The generated date is stamped on the document. A printed procedure outlives the screen it came from, so whoever picks it up in six months can see how old it is.

Writing procedures worth reading

The manual is only as good as what you wrote into the steps. A few things that help:

One action per line. The step editor numbers your lines for you, so you never type "1." yourself and never have to renumber when you insert something in the middle.
Write for somebody who has not done it. "Check the cool room" is a reminder for you. "Check the cool room reads under 4 degrees, and log it on the sheet by the door" is a procedure for somebody else.
Keep it short. A procedure is a paragraph or a short list, not a policy document. If a step needs two pages, it is probably several steps.
Edit once, everywhere updates. A step's procedure is stored on the workflow itself, so correcting it fixes the manual and every task already created from that workflow at the same time.

Tasks and checklists covers tasks, steps and building the workflows this manual prints.
Automations can create a workflow's tasks for you when an event hits a trigger, so the procedure runs itself onto the list.