Operating Procedures and Guides
Learn to create and manage mobile-friendly SOPs and step-by-step guides for setup, safety, and inspections using the Smartlinks admin console.
SOPs & Guides — User & Admin Guide
A friendly walkthrough for brand managers, operations teams, and admins. No technical knowledge required.
What this app does
SOPs & Guides lets you create step-by-step instructions for the people who use your products — customers, technicians, staff, or partners. Each guide is a short, mobile-friendly checklist that walks someone through a task: setting up a new appliance, performing a safety inspection, completing a daily cleaning routine, or running through a troubleshooting flow.
Use it when you want to:
- Make sure a procedure is followed the same way every time.
- Capture proof that a task was done (photos, notes, signatures).
- Track who completed what, and when.
- Trigger follow-up actions automatically when a guide is finished — for example, marking a product as "set up" or "inspected."
End users open guides from the public portal on their phone (typically after scanning a QR code or NFC tag on a product) and tap through each step. You manage everything from the admin console.
Getting started
1. Open the admin console
Open the admin URL provided by your SmartLinks platform. It will look something like:
your-app.com/admin.html#/?collectionId=your-collection&appId=apps_sop
If you see a yellow "Missing Configuration" warning, the URL is missing the collection or app ID — ask your platform administrator for the correct link.
2. Configure global settings
Click the Settings (⚙️) button in the top-right corner of the admin dashboard. A panel slides out with two sections:
- Help Link — a contextual help button shown to end users while they work through a guide.
- Migration Tool — a one-time utility for older data; you can ignore it for new setups.
Help Link settings
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Enabled | Turns the help button on or off across all guides. |
| Help Text | The phrase shown above the button (e.g. "Getting stuck? Need help?"). |
| Action Type | What happens when the user taps the button: Phone (calls a number), Link (opens a URL), Video (opens a video call link), or Appointment (opens a booking link). |
| Action Label | Button text (e.g. "Call Support" or "Book a Visit"). |
| Action Value | The phone number or URL the button uses. |
Click Save when finished. Help link settings apply to every guide in this collection.
3. Create your first guide
Back on the dashboard, click Create Guide and fill out the form (covered in detail in the next section).
Creating a guide
Guides are built in two parts: the guide overview (shared info, behavior, and image), then the steps that make up the procedure.
Guide overview fields
| Field | Required | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Title | Yes | The name shown to end users on the guide card. |
| Category | No | A grouping label (e.g. Setup, Training, Troubleshooting, Safety). Helps users browse. |
| Difficulty Level | Yes | Beginner, Intermediate, or Advanced. Shown as a colored badge (green / yellow / red) on each guide card. |
| Estimated Duration (minutes) | Yes | How long the guide should take. Shown to users so they know what to expect. |
| Description | No | One or two sentences describing what the guide covers. |
| Tags | No | Free-text labels for search and filtering. Type and press Enter to add. |
| Applies To (Group Tags) | No | Restrict the guide to certain product types (e.g. TV, Fridge). Only options defined on your collection appear. If you don't see your product types, ask your platform admin to add them. |
| Active | Yes | When off, the guide is hidden from the public portal. Use this to draft, pause, or retire a guide without deleting it. |
| Requires Approval | No | When on, completed runs of this guide need a supervisor sign-off before being recorded as "done." |
| Track Individual Steps | No | When on, each step completion is recorded individually — useful for audits or compliance. When off, only the overall completion is recorded. |
| Hero Image | No | A square image shown on the guide card. Drag-drop or click to upload. |
On Completion settings
Below the main fields, the On Completion panel decides what happens when a user finishes the guide.
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Update Unique Ownership Record | When on, finishing the guide writes a value back to the product's record (so you can track "this unit has been set up" across your whole fleet). |
| Variable Name | The label to set (e.g. setup, installed, configured). Suggestions are offered. |
| Value Type | Whether to record a true/false, a date, a date and time, or a free text value. |
| Value | What to actually record (e.g. true, today's date, or completed). |
| Skip Confirmation Message | Optional message shown if a user tries to skip the guide — explains why they should complete it. |
Click Save Guide. You'll be returned to the dashboard, where the new guide appears in the list.
Adding steps
Click your new guide on the dashboard to open the detail view, then go to the Steps tab.
Click Add Step and fill in:
| Step field | What it does |
|---|---|
| Title | A short name for the step (e.g. "Plug in the device"). |
| Description | One-line summary shown beneath the title. |
| Instructions | The full instructions, with rich formatting, images, and videos. Use the toolbar to add bold, lists, and media. |
| Step Number | The order the step appears in. Auto-filled but editable. |
| Expected Duration (minutes) | How long this single step should take. |
| Primary Image | A featured image for this step (separate from images embedded in instructions). |
| Warning Text | A red warning banner shown above the step (e.g. "Disconnect power before opening the panel"). |
| Success Criteria | A short note describing what "done" looks like. Helps users confirm they did it right. |
| Requires Photo | If on, the user must upload a photo before continuing. |
| Requires Signature | If on, the user must sign on screen before continuing. |
| Requires Notes | If on, the user must type a note before continuing. |
Save the step. Repeat for each step in the procedure. You can reorder, edit, or delete steps from the Steps tab at any time.
The other tabs
Once a guide exists, the detail view has five tabs:
| Tab | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Setup | Edit the guide overview fields (same form as creation). |
| Steps | Add, edit, reorder, and delete the steps inside this guide. |
| Analytics | See how many people started, completed, or abandoned the guide. |
| Executions | Browse a history of every time someone ran this guide, with timestamps, duration, photos, and notes. |
| Broadcasts | Send a notification to users prompting them to complete the guide. |
Day-to-day usage (end-user view)
End users typically arrive at the public portal by scanning a QR code or tapping an NFC tag on the physical product. Here's what they see:
- Home screen — A list of guide cards relevant to their product, plus an Outstanding Tasks panel at the top showing anything still owed.
- Guide card — Title, hero image, category icon, difficulty badge (green/yellow/red), and estimated time.
- Tap a guide — They see the description and a Start button.
- Step-by-step flow — One step at a time, with progress shown across the top. They read instructions, view photos/videos, and meet any requirements (photo, signature, notes) before tapping Next.
- Help button — If you've enabled it in settings, a help button appears on every step.
- Completion — On the final step they get a confirmation, and any On Completion action you configured fires automatically.
Sessions are saved in the browser, so if a user closes the page mid-guide they can pick up where they left off.
Widgets
This app exposes one widget that other apps in your SmartLinks portal can embed.
| Widget | What it shows | Sizes |
|---|---|---|
| Example Widget | A welcome card with the user's name and a button that opens the full SOPs & Guides app. | Compact (small card, button only), Standard (default), Large (full detail) |
Your platform team chooses where and how to embed it.
Managing guides and runs
From the dashboard list
- Search and filter — find a guide by title, category, or tag.
- Click a guide — opens the detail view.
- Edit — change any setting on the Setup tab.
- Activate / deactivate — flip the Active switch on the Setup tab to hide a guide from end users without deleting it.
- Duplicate / archive / delete — available from the guide's action menu.
Reviewing executions
On the Executions tab of any guide you'll see every run with:
- Who ran it (where identifiable).
- Start and end time.
- Total duration.
- Each step's photos, signatures, and notes.
- Whether it was completed, abandoned, or is still in progress.
Broadcasting
Use the Broadcasts tab to push a notification to a group of users telling them to complete the guide. You'll be able to choose the audience and the channel (your platform decides which channels are available — typically push, email, or wallet pass).
Bulk import
You can create many guides at once by importing a CSV.
CSV template
title,description,category,steps
"Daily Safety Inspection","Walk through every safety checkpoint","Safety","[{""title"":""Check fire extinguishers"",""description"":""Verify all extinguishers are charged and unobstructed"",""required"":true},{""title"":""Test smoke detectors"",""description"":""Press the test button on each unit"",""required"":true}]"
"Opening Procedure","Morning opening tasks","Operations","[{""title"":""Unlock entrance"",""description"":""Use master key from the safe"",""required"":true},{""title"":""Turn on lights"",""description"":""Main panel in utility room"",""required"":true}]"
"Coffee Maker Setup","First-time installation","Setup","[{""title"":""Unbox and place"",""description"":""Place on a flat, dry surface near a power outlet"",""required"":true},{""title"":""Fill water tank"",""description"":""Use cold filtered water up to the MAX line"",""required"":true},{""title"":""Run a cleaning cycle"",""description"":""Press and hold the clean button for 3 seconds"",""required"":true}]"
Field reference
| Column | Required | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| title | Yes | Text | Max 200 characters. Becomes the guide title. |
| description | No | Text | Max 1,000 characters. |
| category | No | Text | Free text — used for grouping on the public portal. |
| steps | Yes | JSON | A JSON array of step objects. Each needs a title; description and required are optional. Make sure all double-quotes inside the JSON are escaped (""). |
After import you'll see a summary: "Imported X of Y guides successfully." Any rows with broken JSON in the steps column are skipped — see the FAQ below.
FAQ & troubleshooting
Why can't users see my guide? Check that Active is on (Setup tab). If you used Applies To, the user's product must match one of those tags. If neither matches, the guide is hidden.
Why is my CSV import skipping rows?
The most common cause is broken JSON in the steps column. Open the row in a plain-text editor and confirm: every " inside the JSON is escaped as "", the array starts with [ and ends with ], and every step object has at least a title. Re-import the corrected rows.
A user reports their progress was lost. Progress is saved in their browser. If they cleared cookies, switched devices, or used a private/incognito window, the saved session is gone. They'll need to start the guide again.
The "Help" button isn't appearing. Open Settings → Help Link and confirm Enabled is on, Action Value is filled in (number or URL), and you clicked Save.
Can I change a guide after launch? Yes. Edits take effect immediately for new runs. Runs already in progress keep the version they started with until completed.
Can I delete a guide that's been used? We recommend turning Active off instead of deleting — that way past execution history stays intact and reportable. If you do delete a guide, its executions and analytics are removed too.
Group Tags / "Applies To" is empty.
Your collection doesn't have product types defined yet. Ask your platform admin to add a groupTags list (e.g. ["TV", "Fridge", "Washing Machine"]) to your collection settings.
A step requires a photo but the camera won't open. The user's browser must have camera permission for your site. On iPhone, Safari prompts on first use; if they tapped Don't Allow, they need to re-enable camera access in Settings → Safari → Camera. On Android, the prompt appears in Chrome the first time.
"On Completion" didn't update my product record. Confirm Update Unique Ownership Record is on, the Variable Name is set, the Value Type matches what you expect, and the user fully completed the guide (not skipped). Skipped guides do not trigger completion actions.
A user says they need to redo a guide they already completed. Currently each completion is recorded as a separate run. They can simply start the guide again from the public portal — the new run won't overwrite the old one.