How it works
The structure is designed, stood up on sample records and corrected before anything real goes into it. That order is deliberate: a structure that has to be unpicked once it is full of live work costs far more than one corrected while it is still empty.
The stages
Nothing binds either side until a quotation has been accepted and the order confirmed back to you in writing.
A conversation and a written summary
We go through how the work moves now: what gets written down, what gets lost, who has to ask somebody else before they can carry on. What comes back is a written brief listing the processes to be carried, the databases they need and which route the build takes.
Scope, figure and timescale, in writing
The brief becomes a quotation naming the package, the full price in pounds sterling with everything included, the timescale and how many revisions are covered. Nothing starts until you accept it and we confirm the order back to you in writing.
The structure, standing up, on sample records
The databases, their properties and the joins between them are built and filled with sample records, so you can see the thing working before your own material is anywhere near it. This is where a structure that looked right on paper gets corrected.
You use it and say what is wrong
You walk through the prototype against the jobs you actually do. Changes that come out of that are part of the revisions the quotation covers; a change that turns out to be a different structure is quoted before it is built.
The workspace, or the template, and the notes
On the template route you get a duplicable template and the written notes. On the in-place route the structure is finished in your workspace and our access ends. Either way the notes say how it is put together and how to add to it without breaking the joins.
A live session, and the questions that follow it
We go through the workspace with you, on a call, and you drive. Afterwards you have a period for questions arising from using it, set out in the quotation.
Two routes
Settled in the brief, before any quotation, because it changes both the work and what access this company ever holds.
The workspace is built in ours, on sample records, and handed to you as a template you duplicate into your own account. Nothing of yours is opened, shared or moved, and no access is asked for at any point. You fill it yourself, with the written notes beside you.
Suits
Anyone whose material is confidential, and anyone who would rather not hand over access to an outside company.
You invite us into a workspace you control, at the level of access we agree in writing beforehand. We build in it, alongside what is already there, and the access is handed back and removed when the work is signed off. What we were given, and when it ended, is written in the order confirmation.
Suits
Teams already working in Notion who want the new structure around records they are using now.
From you
Not how you wish it moved. What gets written down, where it gets lost, and who has to ask somebody else before they can carry on. Half an hour of honest description is worth more than any questionnaire.
Whether everybody sees everything, or whether some of it stops at certain people. This shapes the structure and is expensive to retrofit.
Spreadsheets, documents, a half-built workspace, a notebook. We need to know what there is, roughly how much of it there is, and which of it actually has to come across.
Review needs somebody who can say yes. A structure signed off by a committee is a structure that changes shape after handover.
Access
We build in our own workspace, on sample records, and hand you a template to duplicate. No invitation, no shared page, no access to anything of yours at any point. If your material is confidential this is the route to ask for. Which of the two an order takes is settled in the brief and written into the order confirmation, so neither of us can be in any doubt about it.
If you would rather the structure went up around what you already hold, you invite us into a workspace you control, at a level of access named in the order confirmation before it is granted.
On the in-place route the access is handed back and removed at sign-off, and the confirmation says when. If you want it removed sooner, say so and it goes; the work then continues on the template route.
A customer’s workspace is not shown to anybody, published anywhere or used as an example without that customer asking for it in writing. This is a term of the contract, not a preference.
Afterwards
A workspace that nobody can change without asking us is a workspace we have sold you a dependency on, and that is not what this is.
It is yours
The workspace, the structure and the written notes are yours to use, change, copy and keep once the invoice is paid. Nothing is licensed back to you and nothing stops working if you never speak to us again.
The notes are the point
Handover notes say how it is put together and, more usefully, how to add to it without breaking the joins. They are written as the work goes rather than assembled at the end, which is why they describe what was actually built.
Questions after
Every package includes a period after handover for questions arising from real use, named in the quotation. Anything beyond that is a new quotation, and you will be told which of the two you are asking for before any work starts.
Anything above that does not fit how you work, say so before you accept a quotation: support@worknestle.org.