Key terms
Chip builds five kinds of thing. You never have to name them in a request, but knowing them makes the result easy to read & easy to ask about. Every term below has its own link, so you can send a colleague straight to it.
| Term | What it is | Where you find it |
|---|---|---|
| Space | The home for one use case: the tables, views, automations & documents that belong together | Spaces in the left navigation |
| Table | Your data, with typed fields | Inside its space, usually through a view |
| View | The screen people open, over one or more tables | Its own address: the link Chip gives you at the end of a build |
| Automation | Something that runs on its own: a scheduled digest, an alert, an extraction. On screen it is called a pipeline | Inside its space & under Pipelines |
| Document | What Chip writes down about a build, and the files you give Chip to read | The Files list on the space page & under Documents |
| Synced table | A table Waypoint keeps in step with a connected system | Inside your workspace, once an administrator has connected the system |
| Blueprint | A complete build you can start with one click | The right-hand side of the Build screen |
| Draft | An automation Chip has built but not switched on | The automation's own page & the pipeline editor |
| Plan | What Chip shows you before it builds, with a button to confirm | The card in the Build conversation, before anything is created |
| Policy | An automation that labels rows as they arrive | Under Pipelines, with the rest |
Space
A space is one self-contained use case: renewals, escalations, candidate tracking. Everything Chip creates belongs to exactly one space.
You do not set one up in advance. Chip picks or creates the space as part of the build & tells you which one it used. If you want the work in a particular space, or in a new one, say so in your request.
Table
A table is your data with real types. A date field is a date, so "renewing in the next 30 days" is a question you can ask. A status field with a fixed set of values is what lets a kanban group rows into columns & a list show a coloured badge.
The one decision worth getting right at the start is what one row means. One candidate, or one application? One contract, or one renewal? Everything else about a table is cheap to change later. This is not. The getting-started guide shows Chip asking exactly that question.
View
A view is what your team opens. Chip chooses the kind of view from the question you want answered.
| You want to know | You get |
|---|---|
| Which of these need attention, sorted by date | A list |
| What stage each one is in, with cards you drag between stages | A kanban |
| What is happening on which day | A calendar |
| How we are doing overall | A dashboard of numbers & charts |
| The same data sliced by different dimensions | An explorer: one chart whose grouping the reader can switch |
Every view is served at its own address. Send that link to a colleague & they open the view itself.
Automation
An automation runs without anyone opening anything: every Monday at 09:00, when a row is added, or when you press a button. It can post to Slack, send email, update a record in another system or write into your tables. On screen it is called a pipeline, & the list of them lives under Pipelines.
Chip builds every automation as a draft. Each step carries a one-line explanation of why it is there, so you can read what an automation does without opening its settings. Integrations lists the systems an automation can reach.
Document
Chip writes three documents for every space it builds: the intent (what you asked for & why), the overview (what is in the space & what was left out) & the plan (what was built, how it was checked & what was deferred). They are the fastest way for a colleague to understand a space they did not build.
Files you attach are handled two ways. CSV, JSON & Markdown are read as data & become rows. A PDF is filed as a document & read, so the fields Chip extracts from it land in a table of their own.
Synced table
Some tables in your workspace are kept in step with a connected system: your ticketing system, your CRM, your issue tracker. Chip reads them, charts them & drives automations from them; the system that owns the records stays the place you edit them. Connecting is an administrator's job & it happens once. See Integrations.
Blueprint
The Build screen offers a few complete builds you can start with one click: a recruiting tracker, a spreadsheet turned into a real table, a weekly renewals digest, a contract intake. Each is a whole space, not a template to fill in. The getting-started guide types a request instead, because that is what you will do the second time.
Draft
Every automation Chip builds starts as a draft. A draft never runs. When you are ready, ask Chip to activate it, or open the automation, choose Edit pipeline & press Activate in the editor's toolbar.
Plan
Before Chip builds, it shows you what it is about to do: what it will create, what will run & when, what it might affect, with a button to confirm. Nothing is created until you press it. The getting-started guide walks through one.
Policy
A policy is an automation that labels rows as they arrive, so a list or a kanban can group by the label. Unlike other automations, a policy is active as soon as Chip creates it. Which labeling policy is getting it wrong shows one being checked.
The order Chip builds in
Chip builds in dependency order: the space, then the tables, then the automations, then the views. Views come last because each one is checked against a real table before it is saved. If you are watching a build & the view has not appeared yet, it is the last item on the list.
See it used
- Getting started with Chip Build: one build, every term in its place.
- Integrations: where synced tables come from.
- A recruiting tracker from a spreadsheet: a space with a table, a kanban & a list.
- Contract renewal alerts: an automation on a schedule.
- Which labeling policy is getting it wrong: a policy & an explorer.