Blueprint vs manual setup
Install a blueprint when a ready-made setup already matches your process, such as a CRM or email campaigns, and you would rather adapt it than build it. Build by hand when what you track is particular to your business and no blueprint covers it. Many businesses do both: a blueprint for the standard parts, their own collections for the rest.
Install a blueprint when a ready-made setup already matches your process, such as a CRM or email campaigns, and you would rather adapt it than build it. Build by hand when what you track is particular to your business and no blueprint covers it. Many businesses do both: a blueprint for the standard parts, their own collections for the rest.
Requirements
A role that can create collections and automations, for either option.
The fork
A staffing firm needs two things: to send outreach campaigns to its candidate list, and to track placements, with start dates, rates, and guarantee periods. Campaigns are a standard shape; placements are its own. The first is a blueprint (elsewhere: template, app) away. The second is not.
Option 1: install a blueprint
What it is. A packaged setup installed in one step: collections, stages and pipelines, email templates, and automations, already wired together. The ones available are listed in Available blueprints.
When to pick it.
- The process is well-trodden and the blueprint's shape fits it with small changes.
- It includes automations you would otherwise have to design and test yourself, such as a campaign that sends an initial email and two follow-ups.
- You want it working today.
What it costs.
- You adapt, not design. You start from someone else's model and change it; Adapt a blueprint to your business covers how far that goes.
- Some parts are fixed. Fields a blueprint depends on can be protected: you can rename them but not archive them. Choices made at install, such as the CRM variant, cannot be changed later.
- It brings its settings with it. Operational limits, such as shared daily sending caps, apply to everything the install runs.
Option 2: build by hand
What it is. You create the collections, fields, stages, and automations yourself; see Create a collection and Build a pipeline.
When to pick it.
- What you track has no ready-made equivalent: placements with guarantee periods, service contracts with renewal terms, equipment with inspection histories.
- You want the model exact, with no fields you will not use.
What it costs.
- Time to design and test, especially the automations.
- Nothing to fall back on: every field and stage is a decision you make.
Notes and limitations
- The CRM blueprint is installed with every new business, so the core sales collections are already there either way.
- A blueprint installation can be removed in one step, which archives everything it created. Do it before you have built on top of it.
- An agent can do either: install a blueprint through its conflict check, or build collections and automations from a description.
Rule of thumb
Install what is standard, build what is yours.