Getting started

Proto Tracker keeps a permanent record of every physical prototype your team builds: where it is, what state it’s in, what’s been done to it, and who did what, when. This page gets you from sign-up to your first logged boards.

1. Create your account

1. Go to app.proto-tracker.com/signup.
2. Enter your name, work email and a password of at least 10 characters.
3. Open the confirmation email and click Confirm email. You’re signed straight in.

If a colleague invited you, use the link in their invitation email instead. You’ll join their organisation directly and won’t need to confirm your email separately.

2. Your workspace

Every new account gets its own organisation called “your name’s workspace” on the free Personal plan. Everything you create lives inside an organisation. You can rename it under Organisation settings, and upgrade it when your team wants in. See Organisations and roles.

To help you start, new workspaces come with some statuses (Assembled, In test, Passed, Failed, Scrapped) and locations (Lab, With customer). Change them to suit your process.

3. Take the tour (or add example data)

The first time you sign in, Proto Tracker offers a short guided tour. If your workspace is empty it can also add an example design with a few prototypes, so you can see every feature with real-looking data. Delete the example design whenever you like; that removes all of its data.

Skipped it? Run the tour again any time from Take the tour in the sidebar (or More → Take the tour on a phone).

4. Add a design and a revision

1. Open Designs and click New design. Name it after the thing you’re building, e.g. MC-4 Motor Controller.
2. On the design page, click Revision and add the first revision, e.g. A.

5. Log your first prototypes

1. Open Prototypes and click Build prototypes.
2. Pick the design and revision, enter the first serial (e.g. MC4-001) and a quantity.
3. Choose where the boards are and their status, then click Add.

Proto Tracker numbers the rest for you: MC4-001, MC4-002, MC4-003… See Prototypes for more.

Already have a spreadsheet of prototypes? Skip steps 4 and 5 and import it: designs and revisions are created for you.

Next steps

• Core concepts: how designs, revisions, mods and prototypes fit together.
• The prototype page: status, location, log entries and QR labels.
• Mods: track reworks and see exactly when each was done.
• Invite your team.
• Turn on two-factor authentication.