Help

Getting started

Everything in ACE belongs to a business: its people, tasks and processes. You can be in several businesses with one account, and see your work from all of them in one place.

• Joining your team: someone in the business invites your email address. Sign up (or sign in) with that same address and the invitation is waiting at the top of your home page: tap Accept. You can also open the link in the invitation email.
• Starting your own: on the home page, Create a business. You're its owner and can invite others from the business page.
• Your account: click your name at the top to change your name (how everyone sees you), your password, or which emails you get.

ACE on your phone

ACE can sit on your phone's Home Screen and open like an app, already signed in.

• iPhone: open acebpm.com/today in Safari (not inside WhatsApp or another app), sign in, tap the Share button, then Add to Home Screen.
• Android: open acebpm.com/today in Chrome, sign in, tap the ⋮ menu, then Install app.
• Open ACE from the new icon and sign in once more; it remembers you after that. It opens on Today, with tabs along the bottom: Today, Tasks, Requests, Alerts and Home.
• Pull down from the top of any page to refresh it.

Today: type it like a message

Today has one box. Type what you'd text someone, and ACE turns it into a task or a status request. Before you send, it shows how it read your line: what it will make, for whom, in which category, due when.

• @name picks a person by any part of their name. If it matches two people, ACE asks which one.
• #name files a task under a category, creating it if it's new.
• A day at the end sets the due date: today, tomorrow, a weekday (friday, next friday), in 3 days, next week, oct 5, or 10/5 (month first). Only the end counts, so “Friday sermon notes” stays as written.
• If you're in more than one business, the chips by the title choose where new items go.
• Below the box: Sent by you (tasks you gave others today and yesterday) and Needs you (everything waiting on you, most urgent first).

Tasks and categories

A task is a to-do outside any process: a title, and optionally notes, a due date, a category and a link to a run or step. It can be for you or anyone in the business.

• Finishing: tap the round tick in front of a task. Tap it again to reopen.
• Editing: open a task to change its title, notes, due date, category or who it's for. Every change is kept in its History.
• The Tasks page (per business) has a quick-add line (#category works there too), filters by category, and recently finished tasks. Its Sent tab lists the tasks you've given others, by the day you added them, with a filter per person: handy for going through them together.
• Categories (like CDC, IMA, React 19) are shared by the business. Type one on a task: matching ignores capitals and punctuation, so cdc and C.D.C. are the same. Rename or archive them at the bottom of the Tasks page.
• Tasks someone else gave you say who added them, and are marked New for a day.
• Only the person a task is for, whoever created it, and that person's delegates can see it.

Delegates (assistants)

A delegate, such as an executive assistant, manages your tasks for you: adds, edits, finishes, reopens and deletes them. Name yours on the business page, in the Delegates card. Only you can name your own; either of you can end it.

• Your delegate finds your list under People you help on their home page, and can switch between theirs and yours on the Tasks page.
• Everything they change is recorded as theirs, “for you”, in the task's History. Their changes appear in your notifications but aren't emailed.
• They can see your steps in runs but not work them (submitting a step vouches for the work), and they can't see your status requests.
• Delegates are per business, and end automatically if either of you leaves it.

Status requests

A status request asks one person “where are we on this?” and keeps the answer in one place, instead of a chat message that scrolls away. Only the two of you can see it.

• Asking: type ? @name your question on Today, or use Ask for a status (home page, business page, or any step). You can set an answer-by date and point it at a run or step.
• Answering: it sits in the other person's tasks until they reply on its page.
• Closing: their reply comes back to you. Close it if that's all you needed, or follow up, which sends it back to them (and reopens it if closed).
• Answer-by dates bring the same “due soon” and “overdue” reminders as tasks.

Templates: designing a process

A template is a process you run again and again, like producing a lecture: its steps, who does each, and what each must hand over. Designing one never involves specific people; that comes when it runs.

• Process roles (Researcher, Editor, Designer…) are set on the business page. Each step is done by a role.
• Steps have a name, a role, optional days allowed (which sets due dates in a run) and instructions.
• Waits for: tick the steps that must be done first. Steps that wait for the same thing can run side by side. The flow diagram shows the result; on a wide screen it stays beside the steps as you edit, outlining the step you're on, and on a phone the Flow button opens it.
• Fields are what a step hands over: short or long text, a link, a file upload, a checkbox, pick one, pick any, or a checklist (every item ticked). Mark the ones that must be filled in.
• References on a step (links or notes, like a sheet of topic requests) show in every run of it.
• Changing a template never affects runs already going. Templates aren't deleted: archive one to stop new runs.

Runs: doing the work

A run is one go at a template: Launch it, name it (“Lecture: Atrial fibrillation”) and pick people for each role. You become its owner, and can hand that over.

• A step becomes ready when everything it waits for is done, and its people are notified. It shows in their Needs you.
• Working a step: fill in its fields (Save keeps a draft), add notes, then Submit. Comments on a step reach everyone involved; @name tags someone.
• Problems? Mark a step blocked with a reason (the run owner is told), and unblock it with a note on how it was solved. Or send work back to an earlier step with a reason: it reopens, along with everything after it, filled in with the previous answers, so people can revise or confirm “no changes needed”.
• The run owner (or an admin) can change due dates, flag a step urgent, change who's assigned, and cancel the run.
• Runs on the business page lists open tasks across all runs, and searches runs by name, template or step.

Notifications and email

• The bell (or Alerts on a phone) lists what needs your attention: a step ready for you or sent back, a block in a run you own, comments and mentions, tasks given to you or finished, status requests and replies, and reminders.
• Reminders come once when something is due soon (a day before, unless your business sets more) and once when it's overdue.
• Each notification is also emailed, unless you switch that kind off under Account → Emails. Marketing email is off unless you turn it on.
• Opening the thing it's about marks it read, and finishing the work clears it, often before any email goes out.

Who can do what

• Members start runs, work their steps, and use tasks and status requests.
• Managers also build templates (editing the ones they made) and add process roles.
• Admins manage everything: people, invitations, settings, all templates. They can also correct a member's name (the person is told).
• Owners are admins who can also make other owners (and correct an owner's name). A business always keeps at least one owner.

Questions

I accepted an invitation but the business doesn't show.

Check you're signed in with the email it was sent to, then look at the top of your home page and tap Accept. Opening the link alone isn't enough.

I'm in two businesses. Do I need two accounts?

No: one account can belong to any number of businesses. Ask to be invited with the email you already use.

Why can't I see a colleague's task?

Tasks and status requests are private to the people involved (and, for tasks, the person's delegates). Steps in runs are visible to everyone in the business.

Today read my date wrong.

Dates are read only at the end of the line, and 10/5 means October 5. Check the preview before sending; you can always change the date on the task afterwards.

Something else?

Ask the owner of your business, or whoever invited you.