Platform Builder's Playbook

Owned by Matt Kepple
Last updated: Feb 09, 2024
5 min read

Makerble is a flexible platform and as you’ll learn, there are many ways to achieve the same thing.

This playbook is a suggested approach to use when building your platform. You can successfully build a platform without doing each step in the order specified below. We’ve just found that this is one way to set up your platform in a way that seems logical, but you can certainly find your own path too!

Watch an introduction to the playbook

An introduction to Blueprints for Platform Builders: https://www.loom.com/share/fd20a5c2b5084497af71707d30b1e59a  

Step-by-Step Instructions

  • Many of these steps have links to other pages in the User Guide that explain how to do that step in a lot more detail. You might find it helpful to open those links in a new tab and keep this tab open.

  • Where a tab is referred to, we are referring to your Blueprints spreadsheet.

  1. Start by logging in to Makerble as an Organisation Admin of your organisation.

  2. Pay attention to the colour coding within the Blueprints.

    1. Anything that has a blue background has already been created on Makerble.

    2. Anything that has a green background has already been connected on Makerble.

  3. The Onboarding Status tab: This is the first tab to look at because it shows you which Tabs have been designed and are now ready to be built on Makerble.

    1. Look for any tabs where the status is “Ready for Upload” - these are the tabs that are ready to be built on Makerble.

    2. Once you have built each tab on Makerble, change its status to “Uploaded on Makerble”.

  4. Tab: Fields per Project Category: https://www.loom.com/share/54bd5f72bbc2429eae3aa1652bafe3e5

    1. create/edit the Project Category/Categories: Edit a Project Form / Create a Project Form

    2. Remember to use the blue/green colour coding of each cell blue/green colour coding of each cell to update the spreadsheet as you go

  5. Tab: Projects per Project Category [requires Tab 5 to be built first]: https://www.loom.com/share/a634aa2af92e4450825ff2553f56f163

    1. create projects on Makerble within each Project Category: Create a Project

    2. Remember to use the blue/green colour coding of each cell colour coding to update the spreadsheet as you go

  6. Tab: Indicator Progress Trackers per Outcome: https://www.loom.com/share/cd33373b9bd545529c292ce537f6f5bb

    1. Create the Outcomes. Create an Outcome

    2. Then create the Progress Trackers. NOTE: The Progress Trackers are only the fields that have Activity, Achievement, Attendance, Multiple Choice or Numerical as their field type. Any other fields should not be created. Create a Progress Tracker (quantitative survey question)

    3. Then connect the Progress Trackers to the Outcomes. Add an indicative Progress Tracker to an Outcome

    4. Remember to use the blue/green colour coding of each cell colour coding to update the spreadsheet as you go

  7. Tab: Settings per Event Category: create the Event Categories but simply give it a name and then press save. The other details relating to the Event Creation Form, Guest Booking Form and Guest Background Information can be added later. Create an Event Category

  8. Tab: Fields & Questions per Form & Survey [requires Tab 21 to be built first, unless none of the surveys have Multiple Choice, Numerical or Tickbox questions] https://www.loom.com/share/f700c159e6e0402ca5d7edc5d3c822f1

    1. Decide how the client’s Contact Forms will be built. The options are either Classic Contact Forms (Beneficiary Categories) OR Custom Forms for Contacts. Two ways to build your Contact Bio Forms

    2. If you are using Classic Contact Forms: 

      1. create all the fields that have the ‘List’ type. (At this stage, don’t create any that are Multiple Choice Trackers) - Create a Dropdown field

      2. Create each of the Contact Forms one by one - you can search for any List fields that you created

      3. If any of the List fields have a Limited Multiple Choice or Unlimited Multiple Choice input on that form, set that while on the Edit Contact Form page. You can tell if a field is Unlimited Multiple Choice because there is an asterisk next it in the Blueprints. Change the number of Allowed Answer Choices for a Dropdown field in a Contact Form

      4. You can press the Create New Field button to create fields of the Text, Attachment, Number, Date and Time type that belong in each Contact Form. https://makerble.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/MCPD/pages/846233609

    3. If you are using Custom Forms for Contacts, you don’t need to create the Lists separately. Simply go to the Create Custom Form page and create each of the Custom Forms for Contacts from there: https://makerble.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/MCPD/pages/843546631

    4. If any of the forms in the Fields per Form tab of the Blueprints are of the Case type, create the Custom Forms for Cases for each Case-type form: https://makerble.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/MCPD/pages/639795214

    5. If any of the forms are of the Survey type, create the Surveys last. https://makerble.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/MCPD/pages/158040077

      1. When creating the surveys, you can use the My Questions Library and Public Questions Libraries to search for the Progress Trackers and other Fields that belong in the survey. 

      2. Note that if there are any fields that you need to still create, you can only create them on the Edit Survey page, not on the Create survey page.

    6. If any of the forms are Event Forms (e.g. Event Creation Form or the Event Booking Form), create a new Event Category for each pair of forms. https://makerble.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/MCPD/pages/802226382

      1. Note that the Event Creation Form and the Event Booking Form both exist within a single Event Category. I.e. each Event Category contains both of those forms. So check the titles of the Event Creation Forms(s) and the Event Booking Form(s) in the spreadsheet so that you don’t end up creating duplicate Event Categories unnecessarily.

    7. Remember to use the blue/green colour coding of each cell colour coding to update the spreadsheet as you go in Blue and Green

  9. Tab: Event Roles

    1. Create the Event Roles that are listed in this tab

  10. Tab: Settings per Event Category - 2nd step: [requires the Event Roles to be built first]

    1. Edit the Event Categories you created and now you can add

      1. the fields that should go in the Event Creation form (Part 1 of the Event Category)

      2. select yes/no as to whether Event Guest Background Information is required

        1. If you selected yes: you can select the fields

      3. select yes/no as to whether Guest Booking Information is required

        1. If you selected yes: you can select the fields

      4. select yes/no as to whether you are using Event Roles

        1. If yes, you can select the specific Event Roles

      5. Optionally select an Activity Progress Tracker to use to record that events have happened

      6. Optionally select a Survey that will be linked to the Post Event Update button

  11. Tab: Forms & Event Categories per Project [requires Tab 6 to be built first] https://www.loom.com/share/d4df51ce63074352a46a77df8e182728

    1. Start by adding any Surveys to the relevant projects - https://makerble.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/MCPD/pages/158859319

    2. You can add Event Categories and Contact Forms to the project at the same time. Both of those are indicated on this tab.

      1. https://makerble.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/MCPD/pages/802226511

      2. https://makerble.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/MCPD/pages/802226497

    3. Add Custom Forms for Cases to each project: https://makerble.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/MCPD/pages/816250901

  12. Tab: Contact Groups

    1. Create all the Contact Groups: https://makerble.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/MCPD/pages/810287241

  13. Tab: Relationship Categories

    1. Create all the Relationship Categories: https://makerble.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/MCPD/pages/786890759

  14. Tab: Contact Roles

    1. Create all the Contact Roles: https://makerble.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/MCPD/pages/780632065

  15. Tab: Skills

    1. Create all the Skills: https://makerble.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/MCPD/pages/802226518

  16. Tab: Fields per Custom Table [requires Tab 14 to be built first; unless there are no Relationship Titles referenced in the Custom Tables] https://www.loom.com/share/404fc6cc3369474caa266e17eeaa30c7

    1. Create each Custom Table and add the relevant fields to it: https://makerble.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/MCPD/pages/92962817

  17. Tab: Projects per Album https://www.loom.com/share/12943beccc374071b9f519a6077b8cfb

    1. Create all the albums and add the projects to them: https://makerble.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/MCPD/pages/810287183

  18. Tab: Progress Trackers per Progress Board https://www.loom.com/share/cb33dd4efe1d4d10a941d354f285d66d

    1. Create all the Progress Boards as MANAGED Progress Boards and add the Progress Trackers to them: https://makerble.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/MCPD/pages/79822851 NOTE: Pay attention to make sure you distinguish as necessary between project-level Progress Trackers and Album-level Progress Trackers

  19. Tab: Targets per Project Progress Tracker

    1. Add targets to each project’s progress trackers: https://makerble.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/MCPD/pages/79561153

  20. Tab: Financial Values per Progress Tracker

    1. Ask Matt how to do this

  21. Tab: Role per User per Project

    1. Add each of the users in the table to their respective projects and give them the Organisation Role shown in the table. https://makerble.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/MCPD/pages/79429679

  22. Tab: Role per User per Album [requires Tab 29 to be built first]

    1. Add each of the users in the table to their respective albums: https://makerble.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/MCPD/pages/845807670

  23. Tab: Role per User per Board [requires Tab 29 to be built first]

    1. Add each of the users in the table to their respective boards: https://makerble.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/MCPD/pages/845807677

  24. Tab: Organisation Preferences

    1. Set the options that are shown in the Blueprints: https://makerble.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/MCPD/pages/105840661

  25. Tab: Project Preferences [requires Tab 7 to be built first]

    1. Set the options as shown in the Blueprints: https://makerble.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/MCPD/pages/105185305

  26. Tab: Status per CSV Import [requires Tab 7 to be built first]

    1. Start importing the CSV files as necessary https://makerble.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/MCPD/pages/816939042