Platform basics: objects, records, boards, and workflows

Before and after

Before. A new dispatcher opens Rose Rocket and sees a left nav full of boards, a table of orders, and a settings menu that talks about objects, fields, and workflows. The words sound like database talk. They click around until something looks like the spreadsheet they left behind, and the admin who could explain it is on a call.

After. Four words carry the whole platform. An object is a type of thing your business tracks, with a fixed set of fields. A record is one of those things: order ORD-28 is a record of the Order object. A board is a list of records of one object, shaped by the views you save on it. A workflow is a rule that watches records and acts when one changes. Once those four click, every screen, every builder, and every settings page is a variation on them.

What it does

• Objects are the blueprint. Order, Customer, Shipment, Stop, Invoice, Driver, Trailer: each is an object, a named set of fields plus its connections to other objects. The Order object says every order has a Status, a Customer, stops, commodities, and a Quote. The clip at the top of this page opens Settings › Builders › Objects, the list of every kind of thing this org tracks, and picks Order. Order opens in Object Builder with its fields in one list, Available fields, where a Custom pill marks each field the team added without code. Every screen that shows orders reads that one list.

• Records are the data. One row, one load, one customer. A record is a filled-in copy of its object: ORD-28 belongs to a customer record, carries stop records, and moves through the Status values the Order object allows. Records connect to each other through connection fields, so the customer name on an order is a link to the customer record, not typed text.

• Fields have types. Text, Number, Money, Date, Toggle, Select, Status, Measurement, Connection, Formula, Full ID, and Document among them. The type decides how a field is entered, filtered, totalled, and shown. A Status field has a fixed list of states. A Formula field computes from other fields on every read and is never typed in.

• Boards are lists of records. Every entry in the left nav is a board, and a board shows records of exactly one object. Open Orders and each row is an order record, each column an Order field. Views on the board save their own filters, columns, sort, grouping, calculations, and layout, so dispatch and finance look at the same records through different views. To change what a view shows, see board views.

• Opening a row opens the record. In the clip below, Operations › Orders in the left nav opens the Orders board: five rows, ORD-28 to ORD-32, under the columns ID, Status, Customer, Origin, Destination and Required Equipment. Every column is a field of the Order object. Every row is one record. Open ORD-28 and the record page shows the same fields filled in for that one order: Status Paid, customer Midwest Steel Supply Co, origin, destination, first pickup, last delivery, required equipment, customer reference. That page is the detail view. It arranges the object’s fields into sections, with widgets such as a map, documents, or an embedded board of related records. Which fields each role sees is set by detail view permissions.

• Workflows act on records. Every workflow has three parts: a trigger on one object, conditions, and an action. Trigger: an invoice is committed, an order is created, updated or deleted, or a schedule fires. Condition: Status is sent, partially paid or paid, and a billing field changed. Action: block the save, send a notification, update a field, create a record, queue a longer workflow, or call an AI agent. The clip below opens Settings, then Rocket Engine under Builders. Every row of the Workflows table is one rule with its Object, Event, Condition and Action, and this org runs 209 of them. Opening Block edits on a sent invoice shows the rule in the builder as one node, top to bottom: Trigger, a record committed on Invoice. Conditions, Status is sent, partially paid or paid and an invoice number, date, due date, payment terms or order changed. Action, Block Save. Edit a sent invoice and this rule refuses the save. The same rule, built step by step, is protect invoiced orders. Rose Rocket calls the engine that runs workflows Rocket Engine; multi-step workflows with branches are rolling out by organization.

• Everything reads the same object. A field added once in Object Builder is a column on every board, a filter option, a section on the record, a condition in a workflow, and a merge field in a document. That is why customizing Rose Rocket rarely means duplicating anything.

Trace one order through all four

1. Click Orders in the left nav. The board opens on its default view. Every row is a record of the Order object; every column header is a field on that object.
2. Click an order. The detail view opens with the record’s fields grouped in sections. Customer is a connection field: it points at a customer record rather than holding a name.
3. Click Settings in the left nav, then Objects under Builders, then Order. The Available fields list is the same set of fields you just saw on the board and the record.
4. Back in Settings, click Rocket Engine under Builders (an administrator row). The Workflows table lists every rule with its Object, Event, Condition and Action. Click a rule and the builder shows it as one node, top to bottom: Trigger, Conditions, Action. When this happens, if this is true, do this.

Read the wiki in this order

Each of the four words above has its own page, and so do the ideas around them and the builders that shape them. A new user reads the concepts first, each one leaning on the one before it, then meets the builders in the order the work meets them. Every concept line is that page’s definition; every builder line is that builder’s job, with the pages under it riding on the same line.

1. Org: your company’s own Rose Rocket, where every board, record, role and view lives.
2. Object: a type of thing your business tracks, such as Order or Customer, defined once as a named set of fields.
3. Record: one real thing your business tracks, for example order ORD-28, one row on its board and one page when opened.
4. Field: one named slot on an object, such as Status or Weight, whose type decides how it is entered, filtered, totalled and shown.
5. Formula field: a field that computes its value from other fields on the record every time it is read, so nobody types it.
6. Board: the table of every record of one object, one row per record and one column per field, and what every entry in the left nav opens.
7. Board view: a saved tab on a board with its own filters, columns, sort, grouping and layout, so two teams see the same records differently.
8. Detail view: the record page, one record laid out in sections and tabs with panels for related things around it.
9. Widget: one panel on a record page with one job, such as a form of fields, a map, the documents or a list of related records.
10. Document: a file attached to a record, such as a BOL, rate confirmation or POD, uploaded or generated from a template you control.
11. Workflow: a rule that watches one kind of record and acts when something happens to it: when this happens, if this is true, do this.
12. Agent: an AI helper inside Rose Rocket that does a named job for you, such as answering about the order you have open.
13. Integration: a ready-made connection to another system, such as QuickBooks Online or Geotab, that you switch on rather than build.
14. Role: what a person is in your organization, such as dispatcher or driver, and what that lets them see and do.
15. Permission: one yes-or-no attached to a role: whether its people can see a board, open a record, or read or change a field.
16. Configurability, or 51/49: Rose Rocket ships the part every carrier and broker needs, and you shape the part that makes your operation yours.
17. Anti-template: a template is someone else’s box; Rose Rocket starts from your own objects, boards and rules.
18. Built with you: setup is shared work, the platform gives the parts and Rose Rocket’s team builds the first pieces alongside yours.

With the words in place, the builders are where an administrator puts them to work. Meet them in this order, each one shaping something the one before it defined.

1. Object Builder: how to add a field to the Order object once, pick its type, and have it on every record, board column, filter and rule.
2. Board Builder: how to add a view to a board, set its filters, columns, sort, grouping and calculations, and save it so the whole team opens the board that way.
3. Detail views: how to lay out the record page, sections and fields down the form and panels beside it, then how to set which fields each role sees with detail view permissions.
4. Widget Builder: how to build a custom widget, a short form of fields such as Confirm Pickup that a dispatcher fills in from the record page, and set the order the widgets open in.
5. Document Builder: how to lay out a BOL or invoice template once, with the record’s fields as placeholders, so every document printed from an order reads its own data.
6. Rocket Engine: how to write a rule that acts on a record as trigger, conditions and action, with the trigger that names the event that wakes the rule, the has not changed condition that compares a field before and after one save, and the block save action that refuses the save.

Every concept page is listed at /concepts/, every outcome built on them at /use-cases/ and everything that shipped at /builder-blog/; this page is the order to read them in.

Availability

Objects, records, boards, and detail views are the foundation of every Rose Rocket organization, on the objects the platform ships and on any object your org adds. Object Builder and the workflow builder are admin tools: the Objects and Rocket Engine rows under Settings › Builders appear for Rose Rocket administrators, and everyone else works with the fields, boards, and rules they produce. Multi-step workflows in Rocket Engine are rolling out by organization. Start customizing with board views, then build a first workflow with protect invoiced orders.