Docs/Getting Started

Getting Started

Account setup, first project, and navigating the dashboard

Last updated: 2026-05-14

What is S3Suite?

S3Suite is a product engineering platform designed for hardware companies. It helps you manage everything from design files and BOMs to production batches and deployed devices, all in one place.

Instead of juggling Google Drive, spreadsheets, and email chains, your entire team works from a single system that understands the hardware product lifecycle.

S3Suite includes three main areas:

Engineering - Manage design files, firmware, schematics, BOMs, hardware revision control, risk register, and test plans
Manufacturing - Track production variants, lots, individual devices, vendor communication, and a release-controlled file vault
Operations - Monitor deployed devices, handle warranties, RMAs, customer support tickets, and field service

Creating your account and organization

Open S3Suite in your browser (or the desktop app)
Click Sign Up on the login page
Enter your name, email, and password
After signing in, you will be prompted to create an organization, your company workspace
Give your organization a name and invite team members if you are ready

Note: Every user belongs to an organization. Your organization is the top-level container for all projects, users, and settings.

Tip: S3Suite is free to get started with full access to all features.

Creating your first project

A project in S3Suite represents a product you are building, for example "Smart Thermostat v2" or "Industrial Sensor Hub".

From the dashboard, click New Project
Enter a project name and optional description
Enter a short Project Code (uppercase, unique within your organization). Customers use this code when contacting support so tickets land in the right project.
Choose which suites to enable (Engineering, Manufacturing, Operations)
Click Create

Your project is now ready. You will land on the Project Overview page.

Navigating the dashboard

Sidebar

The left sidebar is your primary navigation. It shows:

Your projects - Click any project to open it
Suite sections - Once inside a project, the sidebar expands to show modules within each suite (Documentation, Hardware, Firmware, BOM, Revision Control, Risk Management, etc.)
Settings - Organization and project settings at the bottom

Project Overview

When you open a project, the overview page gives you a snapshot:

Recent activity across all suites
Quick counts of documents, devices, open tickets, risks
Links to jump into any module

Suites

Each suite appears as a section in the sidebar when you are inside a project. Click any module name to open it directly.

Quick start: your first 10 minutes

Here is a fast walkthrough to get comfortable with S3Suite.

1. Upload your first document

Open your project
In the sidebar, go to Engineering → Documentation
Pick a category (e.g., Product Docs)
Click Upload and select a file from your computer
Add a title, optional description, and set the Review Status to Not reviewed or Reviewed & verified
Save

Your file is now stored, versioned, and accessible to your team. The review status flag tells the rest of the team whether the file has been independently checked.

2. Create a production variant

Go to Manufacturing → Production Variants
Click New Variant
Give it a name (e.g., "Rev A - US Market") and fill in details
Link production files from the Engineering vault

A variant defines a specific version of your product for manufacturing.

3. Add devices

Go to Manufacturing → Devices
Click Create Devices
Choose the variant and lot
Enter how many devices to create. Serial numbers are generated automatically.

Each device gets a unique identity that follows it through production, testing, deployment, and field service.

Engineering essentials

The Engineering Suite covers all design and engineering files. Beyond the basics covered above, three modules deserve a closer look.

Hardware Revision Control

A built-in, git-style version control system for hardware design files. Use it to track schematic and PCB revisions over time without juggling email attachments or Dropbox folders.

Create one repo per discipline (e.g., one for the schematic, one for the PCB layout, one for mechanical)
Choose the right tool stack when creating the repo: KiCad, Altium, Autodesk Eagle, Fusion 360, SolidWorks, Mixed, or Other
Every commit captures the full file tree at that point in time, with an author, timestamp, and message
Browse history, view individual commits, and download blobs from any browser
Author commits and restore older revisions from the desktop app
Create Releases to mark a commit as a candidate or final revision for production

Tip: Use the release feature when you hand off a revision to manufacturing. A release pins a specific commit, links to the production lot it powered, and shows up on the project timeline.

For the full walkthrough (first commit, cutting a release, restoring an older revision, vendor handoff, review status workflow), see the dedicated Hardware Revision Control guide.

Risk Management

A flat-list risk register lives at Engineering → Risk Management. Each entry captures one risk with:

Field	Description
Severity	Low, Medium, High, Critical
Likelihood	Rare, Unlikely, Possible, Likely, Almost Certain
Status	Open, Mitigating, Closed
Owner	Who is responsible for tracking it
Mitigation	The plan to reduce or eliminate the risk

Filter by status and severity, change status from the row without opening the full edit modal, and link risks back to commits, devices, or tickets where relevant.

For the full walkthrough (weekly review cadence, linking risks to design changes, closing risks with audit trail), see the dedicated Risk Management guide.

Review Status on file uploads

Every Document and every Firmware upload now carries an explicit Review Status:

Not reviewed (default) - the file is uploaded but has not been independently checked
Reviewed & verified - a second person has signed off

The status is visible everywhere the file appears (Engineering, Manufacturing Vault, and the variant detail page). Allocating to manufacturing is allowed in either state, but the reviewed-vs-not flag is visible so production knows what they are working from.

Golden Sample configurations

Each Golden Sample now includes a Configurations field so you can describe the exact state of the reference unit (DIP switch positions, jumper settings, firmware build flags, calibration values, etc.). This avoids the classic "which gold unit was the one tuned for the EU certification?" confusion.

Manufacturing essentials

The Manufacturing Suite saw the largest set of changes. The big shift: the Manufacturing Vault is now a proper change-controlled snapshot collection, not a live mirror of engineering.

Vault snapshots and change control

When an engineer allocates a Document, Firmware, BOM, or Schematic to manufacturing, S3Suite creates a frozen snapshot in the vault at that point in time. The snapshot includes the file, its version, and a reviewer/timestamp stamp.

The original file in Engineering can keep evolving; the vault snapshot stays frozen
If the engineer unallocates a file, they must enter a reason. The vault entry is greyed out with the reason banner visible, not deleted, so the audit trail is preserved.
Released BOMs include a full snapshot of the BOM items at allocation time. Open any vault BOM entry and click View Released BOM to see the exact component list that was approved for production.

Note: Engineering changes never silently leak into manufacturing. A new revision in Engineering requires a new allocation to reach the floor.

For the full walkthrough (allocation, unallocation with reason, re-allocation after engineering changes, downloading the released BOM, Send-to-Vendor handoff, passkey-gated downloads), see the dedicated Manufacturing Vault guide.

Schematics in the Vault

Schematics are a first-class vault source type alongside Documents, Firmware, and BOMs. Allocate, unallocate, and release the schematic exactly like any other production file. Vendors who need the schematic (e.g., for assembly drawings or test fixtures) get the frozen snapshot, not a live engineering file.

Send to Vendor uses frozen snapshots

When you click Send to Vendor on a variant, the file list is built from the vault snapshots, not the live Engineering files. This guarantees the vendor receives exactly what was approved for the variant, with the version and review status preserved.

The flow refuses to send if any selected vault entry is unallocated, missing, or belongs to a different variant
Files are downloaded with the project's file passkey applied

Per-template IMEI validation

Test Templates now have an IMEI Validation toggle. By default it is off (lenient mode), which suits products that do not have an IMEI. Turn it on for cellular devices to require a well-formed 15-digit IMEI per device.

Multi-station testing

A device tested at multiple stations no longer creates duplicates. If the same device serial / IMEI / MAC is submitted from a second station with a different test template, the new test report is appended to the existing device record. The device's full test history shows results from every station in chronological order.

Production Lot discussion

Production Lots keep their discussion thread for capturing live decisions on the floor (material substitutions, yield issues, supplier changes). Use these freely. When a question comes up six months later about a specific lot, the thread is where the answer lives.

Operations essentials

Org-wide support widget

The customer-facing support form is one form per company, not one per project. Embed a single widget on your marketing site and customers can submit tickets without needing to know your internal project structure.

How to embed:

Mode	URL shape	When to use
Org-wide	`/support/widget?org=s3so_xxxxxx`	One form for your whole company. Customers optionally type a Project Code or Device Serial Number; S3Suite resolves the ticket to the right project.
Per-project	`/support/widget?key=s3sk_xxxxxx`	One form scoped to a single project. Legacy mode, kept for existing embeds.

The org-wide form never exposes your project list publicly. The Project Code field is optional, the lookup happens server-side, and an unknown code is silently treated as no hint.

Drop the widget on your site three ways:

Direct link: Contact Support
iframe embed:
Pop-up from your chat bubble pointing at the same URL

Unassigned tickets inbox

Tickets submitted via the org-wide widget that cannot be auto-routed (no Project Code given, or an unknown one) land in an Unassigned Inbox at /tickets. Visible to organization admins only. Each card shows the customer's message, device serial if provided, and a Route to project dropdown. Pick the right project, the ticket moves into that project's Operations queue, and the admin is taken straight to the conversation view.

Tip: Print your Project Code on product labels, invoices, and packaging so customers can type it. Most tickets will then auto-route. The unassigned inbox is the safety net for everyone else.

Other Operations modules unchanged

Device Management, Health Dashboard, Warranty, RMA, Firmware Updates, and Connectivity all work as documented in the Operations Suite guide. For the RMA workflow (5-Why root-cause analysis, Knowledge Base auto-suggest, mass troubleshooting, linking RMAs to tickets and risks), see the dedicated RMA, 5-Why & Knowledge Base guide.

Desktop app and updates

S3Suite ships as a signed Windows desktop app in addition to the web app. The desktop app gives you the same UI plus access to features that need local file system access, such as committing to a Revision Control repo or restoring an older commit.

Downloading the installer

Visit /releases on your S3Suite host. The page shows the current installer version and a download button. Run the installer once on each machine.

Auto-updates

After the first install, the desktop app keeps itself up to date automatically:

The app checks for a new version 10 seconds after launch and every 6 hours after that
When a newer version is available, the app asks before downloading
After download, the app asks again before restarting to install
Updates are signed and verified, so the installer cannot be tampered with in transit

You can also trigger a check manually from the Help → Check for Updates menu item.

Web vs desktop

Capability	Web	Desktop
Browse projects, files, devices, tickets	Yes	Yes
Upload files via the dashboard	Yes	Yes
Browse Revision Control history	Yes	Yes
Commit to a Revision Control repo	No	Yes
Restore an older commit to disk	No	Yes

What's next?

See the whole project on one screen with Project Map & Timeline - Lifecycle Map + activity Timeline + BOM Analysis
Learn about managing engineering files in the Engineering Suite guide
Track design-file revisions in the dedicated Hardware Revision Control guide
Run a project-level risk register with Risk Management
Set up production tracking in the Manufacturing Suite guide
Understand the Engineering-to-Manufacturing handoff in Manufacturing Vault
Run support and field operations in the Operations Suite guide
Handle returns end-to-end with RMA, 5-Why & Knowledge Base
Connect your devices in the Device Protocol guide
Configure team access in Security & Access
Read the Support & Ticketing guide for full ticket workflow
See the Desktop App guide for installation and update details

Project Map & Timeline