Set up your shop asks what work you do and what you run, then loads a starting setup to match. It takes about two minutes. It is optional: you can skip it, set everything up by hand, or run it later. Open it from the first step of the Get started checklist on your team home page.
Everything it adds is ordinary data. You can edit, rename or archive any of it afterwards, just as if you had added it yourself. Only a team admin can load the setup; other members can look through the steps.
1. Your work#
Pick every kind of work your shop does. A shop with a flexo label line, a digital label press and a wide-format department picks all three. Each one adds its own equipment lists, machines, routes, materials and spot colours.
| Kind of work | Equipment lists | Machines on the schedule | Route templates |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flexo labels | Narrow-web flexo presses, flexo platemaking | Flexo press, slitter rewinder, laminator, packing, shipping | Plates › print › slit and rewind, with or without laminating |
| Flexible packaging | Mid-web and CI flexo presses, flexo platemaking | Flexo press, laminator, slitter rewinder, pouch maker, packing, shipping | Print › laminate › slit, and pouches |
| Digital labels | Digital label presses (roll-fed) | Label finishing line, slitter rewinder, packing, shipping | Print › laminate › die cut › slit and rewind |
| Wide format and signs | Wide-format printers, cutting tables and plotters | Laminator, hem and grommet table, mounting, packing, shipping, outside vendor | Decals and wraps, banners, rigid signs |
| Commercial and booklets | Offset, digital sheet and inkjet web presses, platesetters, guillotine, bindery (folders, stitchers, perfect, coil and Wire-O binders, three-knife trimmers) | Folder, saddle stitcher, perfect binder, laminator, packing, shipping, outside vendor | Brochures, offset and digital booklets, perfect-bound books |
| Digital sheetfed | Digital sheet presses, from light production to high volume, guillotine, bindery | Laminator, folder, saddle stitcher, perfect binder, packing, shipping | Business cards, short-run booklets |
| Folding cartons | Offset and digital sheet presses, die cutters, folder-gluers, window patchers | Laminator, packing, shipping, outside vendor | Cartons, window cartons |
| Corrugated and displays | Digital corrugated presses (sheetfed and preprint), flexo folder-gluers, die cutters, folder-gluers, flatbed cutting tables | Corrugator, packing, shipping, outside vendor | Digital boxes, preprinted boxes, boxes on a flexo folder-gluer, displays cut on a table |
| Screen printing | Screen presses: garment carousels, flatbed, cylinder and roll-to-roll presses, guillotine | Screen room, conveyor dryer, packing, shipping, outside vendor | Garments: screens › print › cure; posters and panels: screens › print › dry › cut |
2. Equipment#
For each kind of work, search the lists by maker or model and add what you run. The lists are the same presets as Add from presets under Equipment, so each machine starts with its published specs. Add a model twice if you run two, and rename a row to the name your floor uses ("Indigo 1").
Not on the list? Type its name and pick Add “…”, or pick Not listed? Add your own at the end of any list. A short dialog asks for its name, maker and model, the one choice its times depend on (a press's technology and whether it is sheetfed or web-fed, a printer's or cutter's type, a platemaker's plates, a finishing machine's kind) and its largest sheet, web, bed or plate in inches or mm. The size is optional: it keeps jobs that don't fit off the machine. The row is marked Your own and is added like a preset, with its speeds and costs left for you to fill in under Equipment.
Web-fed inkjet presses for commercial work and corrugated preprint (such as HP PageWide web presses) are presses on a roll: their times come from the web speed and length, like a digital label press. Digital labels lists only label presses; Commercial and booklets lists the commercial web presses, and Corrugated and displays the corrugated ones, sheetfed or preprint.
A flexo press you pick becomes a press in Equipment (with its web and print width, stations and repeat range; see Flexo presses) and a Flexo press machine on the schedule linked to it. The maker's top speed is a ceiling, so it is shown on the preset but never copied: set the press's web speed from your own runs. When you pick your flexo presses, the generic Flexo press machine isn't added as well. In the same way, a folder, stitcher or binder you pick replaces the generic one on the schedule, and a screen press becomes a press and a Screen press machine (see Screen presses).
On the schedule lists the machines and stations jobs move through that aren't equipment presets, such as a flexo press or a packing bench. Each starts with a typical setup time and speed, which you can change under Schedule › Setup. Equipment you add also gets its own machine on the schedule.
Routes are saved as templates. New job on the board offers them, and they never change the route other jobs get (see Routes). A step such as Plates or Laminate is optional: it joins a job only once a machine on the schedule can do it.
3. Materials and sizes#
The common stocks for your work, in the sizes shops usually carry: label films and papers in 6.5, 7, 10 and 13 in
widths, packaging films in 26, 40 and 51 in, wrap vinyl and laminates in 54 and 60 in, banner, rigid boards, cover and text papers, carton boards and
corrugated. Every size becomes its own material. Turn off sizes you don't stock, or type another width (48) or
sheet size (20 x 26) in inches. Sizes you already have are marked added.
Materials start without prices. Set your cost and price per unit under Materials before you quote with them.
Quotes follow the same answers. Each kind of work adds the finishing it prices, at $0 until you set a price (hem, grommets and laminate for wide format; fold, score, round corners and coatings for commercial print; coatings and hand gluing for cartons; strapping and pallet wrap for corrugated; a design fee and a rush for everyone), and a new quick quote suggests that work's products first (see Quick quotes without a drawing): a flexo roll label for flexo labels, a saddle-stitched booklet and a perfect-bound book for commercial work (see Booklets and books), screen-printed T-shirts (priced by hand) for screen printing.
4. Spot colours#
The spot colour names your customers' files and your RIP use for die lines, such as CutContour, KissCut,
Crease or Perf, and what each name's lines are. They are saved to your team's default line types for PDF die
files. When you import a die from a PDF under Tools & dies, lines on these spot colours come in as cut, kiss cut,
crease and so on. Add your own names with Add a spot colour. A name your team already maps keeps the kind it has.
5. Review and set up#
Review counts what will be added. Set up my shop loads it all at once, then shows what was added with a link to finish each part: costs on equipment, speeds and hours on the schedule, prices on materials.
Running it again#
Open Set up your shop again to add another department later: once it has run, its checklist step says Done and keeps an Add to your shop button. It starts from your last answers, and only adds what is missing. Materials are matched by stock and size, schedule machines and routes by name, and spot colours by name. Equipment is added as you pick it. Each list shows how many of a model you already have.
Setting up by hand#
Prefer to do it yourself? Set up by hand, at the top of the wizard, links to each setup page: Equipment, Materials and the schedule's machines and routes. The Set up your shop step on the checklist also ticks itself off once your team has any equipment.