Getting started

Bulk is a Manufacturing Execution System (MES): the software your team uses to run day-to-day work on the shop floor and the offices around it — production, quality, scheduling, audits, inventory, people, and more, in one place. This section walks you from your first sign-in to a workspace you can navigate with confidence, and links to a short task article for each step.

What "getting started" covers

Your first session in Bulk follows a simple path:

1. Sign in with your work email and password.
2. Choose a plant — the site you want to work in.
3. Find your way around the workspace and open the tools you need.

Everything below expands on that path. Each step is a standalone article, so you can read this page top to bottom or jump straight to the task you need.

Before you begin

To use Bulk you need two things:

• A Bulk account. Bulk does not offer open self-service sign-up. An administrator at your organization creates your account by sending an email invitation and assigning your starting role. When the invitation arrives, you follow the link to set your password and finish creating your account.
• Access to at least one plant. A plant (Bulk also calls these sites or entities) is a single site you operate — a factory, workshop, or fabrication plant. Each plant is a self-contained workspace with its own production, quality, scheduling, and people. Your administrator grants you access to the plants you work in.

What you can see and do once you are in depends on your role (for example Operator, Manager, or an administrator role) and on which plants you have access to. Two people signed into the same organization can see different menus and pages.

Your first few minutes

Start with these steps in order. Each links to a full walkthrough.

• Create an account — accept your invitation and set your password.
• Sign in to Bulk — enter your work email and password on the sign-in screen. You can turn on Remember email to save typing next time, or use Continue with SSO if your organization has single sign-on set up.
• Recover your password — if you cannot sign in, use Forgot password? on the sign-in screen to reset it.
• Complete onboarding — first-time setup steps that help you get productive quickly.
• Select an entity — choose which plant to work in. After sign-in, Bulk shows the Choose a plant screen with a card for each site you can access. If you have access to only one plant, Bulk opens it for you automatically.

After you choose a plant, you land in the Hub — the main workspace for planning, managing, and reviewing work.

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How your workspace is organized

Once you are in the Hub, a few controls appear on every page. Getting familiar with them is the fastest way to feel at home.

• Plant switcher (top of the sidebar). Shows your current context as Hub / [plant name] with the plant's short code beneath it. Open it to switch to another plant you have access to, or choose See all sites to return to the full plant-selection screen. See Switch operational context.
• Navigation (left sidebar). Menu items are grouped under PLATFORM — which holds Dashboard and Workstations — and MODULES, which lists the areas you have access to, such as Production, Quality, Safety, Inventory, Scheduling, Analytics, People, and Files. Some newer areas carry a Beta label. See Navigate Bulk.
• Header (top of every page). Holds breadcrumbs that show where you are, a search box for finding pages and records quickly, a help menu, and a notifications bell. See Work with notifications.
• Account menu (bottom of the sidebar). Opens your personal options — Account, Settings, Notifications, the color theme (Light, Dark, or Auto), and Log out. See Update personal account settings.

Two places are worth opening early:

• Open a dashboard — your at-a-glance view of what is happening across the plant.
• Open a workstation — the focused, shop-floor view an operator uses to run work at a specific machine or station. Workstations is the second item in the PLATFORM group.

A day-one example at Granite Peak Manufacturing

Say you are a new shift supervisor at Granite Peak Manufacturing, a UK precision-fabrication company. An administrator invites you by email and gives you the Manager role with access to the Leeds Fabrication Plant.

1. You open the invitation, set a password, and create your account.
2. You sign in with your work email at the sign-in screen.
3. Because you have access to more than one Granite Peak site, Bulk shows the Choose a plant screen. You pick Leeds Fabrication Plant and land in its Hub.
4. From the left sidebar you open Production to review the day's orders, then switch to Workstations to check the view your operators use at the laser-cutting station.
5. Before the next shift you use the plant switcher to hop over to another Granite Peak site to compare its dashboard, then switch back to Leeds.

Within a few minutes you have signed in, landed in the right plant, and found the two tools your shift depends on.

Expected result

When you have finished the first-run path you can:

• sign in reliably (and recover your password if you forget it);
• open the correct plant, and switch plants when your work moves between sites;
• read the Hub navigation and find any module you have access to; and
• open a dashboard and a workstation.

Feature state and what to expect

Getting started is generally available — these are the standard, supported entry points for every Bulk user.

A few things are worth knowing up front:

• Your menu is personalized. The MODULES list only shows areas your role and plant access allow. If a module you expect is missing, it is almost always an access matter, not a fault — see Understand access and visible navigation.
• Some areas are in Beta. Menu items marked Beta are still maturing. They work, but behavior and screens may change, so treat them as previews rather than finished features.
• Security options. To add a second layer of protection to your sign-in, see Enable two-factor authentication.

Where to go next

Once you are comfortable signing in and moving around, these sections go deeper:

• Browse by role — task guides organized around what your job needs day to day.
• Workflows — end-to-end guides that string individual tasks into a complete process.
• Product reference — detailed descriptions of each module and its concepts.
• Administration — for administrators setting up users, roles, plants, and organization-wide settings.
• Integrations — connect Bulk to the other systems your business runs on.