How Unobits works

Unobits looks like a set of modules — Inbox, CRM, Projects, Finance and so on — but it behaves like one system. Four ideas explain almost everything you will see in it. Once you have them, each module reads as a view onto the same business rather than a separate app.

1. One organization, one set of records#

Everything you do in Unobits happens inside an organization: your business. The organization owns the records — contacts, companies, projects, invoices, files, messages — and the people who work on them. Every module reads and writes the same records rather than keeping its own copy.

That is why:

• a CRM contact shows the invoices Finance raised for them and the projects they belong to,
• an email thread can show which Reach campaign or CRM record it relates to,
• a stock movement can be booked to a project and appear in that project's costs.

The app's address carries the organization's name — unobits.app/your-org/... — because everything you open belongs to that organization. See Organizations and workspaces.

2. Records are connected, not copied#

Records link to each other. A contact is linked to a company; an opportunity to the people involved; a project to the client it was sold to; an invoice to the customer; a file to the record it belongs to. Those links are what let one screen show context from several modules without anyone re-typing it.

Read Connected records for where you see and make these links in each module.

3. The workspace adapts to the business#

When a workspace is created, the owner tells Unobits what the business does. Unobits then builds a workspace profile: which modules lead, what records are called, which fields they carry, which stages they move through.

The underlying objects stay the same. An estate agency's Property and a hotel's Room are both inventory items; a clinic's Patient and an agency's Client are both CRM contacts. Only the presentation changes — which means the product you learn, the links you share and the permissions you grant work identically in every business.

This is why these docs name things canonically (“contact”, “opportunity”, “item”) and then note how they may read in your workspace. See How Unobits adapts to your business.

4. Access is decided in layers#

Whether someone can use something is not one switch. Unobits asks several questions — does the product have it, does the plan include it, may this person's role open it, does this record allow it, may they take this particular action — and the first “no” wins. Separately, the workspace decides which modules appear in each person's navigation.

Most confusion about “missing” features comes from one of these layers. How access works walks through each one and how to tell which is stopping you.

Where Donna fits#

Donna is the assistant built into Unobits. She works inside the same organization, reads the same records and — importantly — has exactly the access of the person using her. She can answer questions from your data, draft messages, plan work and, with your approval, carry out actions. She is not a separate product to configure; she appears on Home, in a flyout that follows you through the app, and inside modules like Chat and Office. See Donna.

How the modules are grouped#

The app's sidebar groups modules by what they are for:

Your sidebar may show fewer modules or different names: it only lists what your workspace uses and what you have access to. See Find your way around.