Your dashboard

Home is where you land when you open the app. It gives you your workspace at a glance — what's in progress right now — and the fastest paths to start the next thing. The counts refresh on their own every half-minute, so a running batch or a firing alert shows up without a reload.

Open your dashboard

1. In the left-hand navigation, choose Home (it's at the top). The page heading reads Home, with your workspace name and "at a glance" underneath.

Read the summary tiles

Across the top of Home are the tiles that apply to your workspace. Each one loads on its own, so if one can't load the others still show.

• Active batches — how many batches are currently in progress. Choose View batches underneath to open the full batch list. You need it: the Recent activity card below shows only your five most recently changed batches, so a batch counted here may not be named there.
• Reminders due — how many reminders are due today or already overdue. Anything you have snoozed to a future date isn't counted until that date arrives, and neither is a reminder on a batch that has been released (the reminders list files those under Batch closed). With nothing waiting it reads nothing due today. Choose View reminders underneath to open the full list.

Two more tiles appear once your workspace has at least one sensor:

• Sensors live — how many sensors are recording now (connected and reporting readings).
• Alerts firing — how many alert rules currently need attention. When none are firing it reads all clear.

If you have no sensors those two tiles aren't shown — they could only ever read zero. They appear on their own once you add one, and Add a sensor in Quick actions is always available.

A count shown with a trailing + (for example, 50+) means there are more than fit on the first page — the true number is at least that many.

See recent activity

Below the tiles, the Recent activity card lists the batches whose details changed most recently — whatever state they are in. A batch that is still Planned, or one you have already Released or Archived, appears here just as an In progress one does, and each row carries a badge naming its state so you can tell them apart. Choose a batch's name to open it.

This is deliberately wider than the Active batches tile above it, which counts only batches that are in progress. The two answer different questions: "what have I touched lately?" and "what is running right now?"

One thing the card cannot yet show: logging a step against a batch does not change the batch's own details, so it does not move that batch up this list. The card is ordered by when each batch's details last changed, which is why no row shows a "last worked on" time.

If you have never created a batch, this card shows No activity yet with two buttons — Start a batch and New recipe — to get going.

See recently finished batches

When you have released at least one batch, a Recently finished card appears on Home beneath Recent activity. It lists up to your three most recently released batches, each as a link to the batch with Released and the date. It shows alongside Recent activity, not instead of it, and it stays hidden until you have a released batch.

Start work from Quick actions

The Quick actions card is the fastest way to begin something. Choose:

• Start a batch — open the new-batch form (see Run a batch through its stages).
• New recipe — open the guided recipe wizard (see Build and version recipes).
• Add a sensor — begin connecting a sensor (see Fermentation & sensors).
• Add starter equipment — set up your fermenters, kettle, and the rest from a gallery of presets (see Equipment, cooperage, and locations). This one only appears while your workspace has no equipment yet, so it disappears once you've added some.
• View batches, View recipes, View reminders, or View sensors — go to those lists.
• Workspace settings — open your workspace settings.

Start a batch is the only filled button — it's the one we suggest. The other create actions are outlined, and the plain View … links just move you around.

Check your notifications

The bell in the top bar carries anything waiting for you — reminders that have come due, alerts that have fired. It shows an unread count when there is one, and its label reads Notifications, 3 unread to a screen reader.

1. Choose the bell. The panel opens under it, headed Notifications.
2. Read down the list — each entry shows what happened and how long ago (Just now, 4h ago, 2d ago, then a plain date once it's more than a week old).
3. Opening the panel marks what's in it as read; there's nothing else to press.
4. Choose View batches at the bottom to go to your batches.

With nothing waiting, the panel reads You're all caught up.

Find your way around

The left-hand navigation shows you what your workspace can actually use, so it looks different on a hobby workspace than on a commercial one.

On a hobby workspace the groups are Day to day (batches, reminders, recipes, equipment, stills — if you're distilling — tools, story pages, explore recipes) — the things you reach for most, right at the top — then Records (inventory lots, ingredients, cooperage, locations, vendors, importing recipes, cost view), Sensors (sensors, sensor alerts), Commercial features, and Settings (members, account, export data, settings). Home and Help sit on their own, and Sign out is the last entry at the very bottom.

Only Day to day opens with its entries showing. Records, Sensors, Commercial features and Settings start folded, so a first visit to a hobby workspace shows you only the Day to day entries under five headers rather than the whole list. Choose a header to open that section — the app remembers your choice, so a section you've opened stays open until you fold it back away by choosing its header again. Arriving on one of a folded section's pages opens that section for as long as you're there, and it folds again when you move on, so the navigation doesn't grow longer as you visit more pages.

Commercial features is a single entry behind its header, Sales & distribution. Selling, packaging, orders, distributor depletion and cost-of-goods are commercial-workspace features; the entry takes you to the page that explains that, so you can see what's there without it filling your navigation.

On a commercial workspace the groups are Production (batches, reminders, recipes, importing recipes, stills — again, only if you're distilling), Inventory (inventory lots, ingredients, cooperage, equipment, locations, vendors), Sales (SKUs, packaging, parties, orders, depletion, cost inputs, cost of goods), Sensors (sensors, sensor alerts), Insights (cost view, story pages), and Settings. Home, Tools, and Help sit on their own, and Sign out is the last entry at the very bottom.

Stills sits with the rest of your production work — under Day to day on a hobby workspace, Production on a commercial one — and appears only when Distilling is one of your workspace's production types. Turn it on under Settings → Production types and the entry appears straight away — no reload needed. See Your workspace settings.

Sign out ends your session and returns you to the Brewstiller home page. You'll find it at the bottom of the navigation on every screen, and also on your Account page.

A Compliance group — TTB operations reports and excise returns — appears only on a commercial workspace, and only where those features are switched on. On a hobby workspace it isn't there at all. Some Settings entries (billing, exporting your data) are part of the beta too and may not appear yet.

Every group header is a toggle: choose it to fold that group away, and the app remembers your choice.