Getting started
What your InstaBidder site is, who can do what on it, and a tour of the dashboard.
- Signing in Sign in with your email and password, reset a forgotten password by text, and set a password from a texted link.
- Setup The short list of steps that opens your dashboard, what finishes each one, and what your team sees until it's done.
- Business info About you and your business: your name and mobile, your legal business name, phone, website, office address and time zone.
- Texting Get a test text delivered and save the business details phone carriers need to deliver your texts.
- Team Invite the people who answer quotes, then confirm your team so setup can finish.
- Website and brand Let your site read your website for its colors, adjust the look of your seller form, and save it.
- Seller form on your site Paste one line on your website to put the seller form there, whatever you built the site with.
Your InstaBidder site is your own copy of InstaBidder, at its own address. It does two things: it puts a form on your website that gives every seller an offer for their car, and it gives your team a dashboard to work the quotes, book pickups and set your prices.
Only people you invite can sign in to the dashboard. Sellers never do; they use the form on your website.
The two roles
Everyone who signs in is either an Admin or Staff. An Admin can change settings and invite people. Staff work quotes, messages and pickups, and can read every setting without changing it.
Roles has the details.
Before you start
A new site keeps its dashboard shut until setup is finished. The first Admin works through a short list of steps, and everyone else waits.
Setup explains the steps and what Staff see in the meantime.
The home page
The InstaBidder name at the top of the sidebar takes you to your home page. It has a tile for each screen, in the sidebar's order.
Home page tiles lists them. An Admin who skipped a setup step also sees a notice there until it's finished.
The sidebar
The sidebar on the left is how you move around. It has two groups.
Car Buying is the daily work:
- Quotes: every quote a seller has started or finished, and what to do about it.
- Messages: the texts between your team and sellers.
- Pickups: the cars you've bought and when each is being collected.
Car buying covers all three.
Settings is where you decide how your site behaves. Everyone can open these pages; only an Admin can change them.
- Offers: what you pay, from your metal prices to your bid multiple. See Offers.
- Downturn hedge: how your offers react when metal prices are forecast to fall.
- Seller form: what sellers are asked and how the form looks. See Seller form.
- Texts: which texts your site sends, and to whom. See Texts.
- Towing vendors: the tow companies that collect your cars.
- Yard settings: your business, locations and service area. See Yard settings.
- Change history: who changed what, and when.
- Users and Setup: shown to Admins only. Users is where you invite people. Setup takes you back to the setup steps.
The screen you're on is marked with a bar on its left edge.
At the foot of the sidebar, Docs opens these pages and Sign out signs you out.
Use the arrow at the edge of the sidebar to collapse it to icons; hover over an icon to see its name. On a phone, the menu button in the top bar opens it. Your site remembers whether you collapsed it.
The top bar
The bar across the top stays with you on every page. On a wide screen it starts with the name of the screen you're on.
- New quote takes a quote over the phone. You read each question to the caller, and the offer is the one your online form gives.
- Docs (the open book) opens these pages, on your own site. The help icon beside any setting opens the paragraph about it.
- Zoom (the magnifier) opens a slider from 50% to 200%, in steps of 10%. Choose Done to close it, and press ⌘0 to go back to 100%.
- Light and dark (the sun and moon) switches the dashboard's colors.
- Your avatar, the circle with your initial, opens the My account menu: Profile takes you to your profile, and Sign out signs you out. Hover over it to see the name it stands for.
Your zoom, theme and sidebar are remembered in the browser you set them in, so each computer and phone you use keeps its own.
Access denied
A page that reads "You don't have access to that page" means what you tried is for Admins.
Under the title it says "It is for Admins. Ask an Admin if you need it." It has a Back to home button. A Staff member sees it when they type the address of Users or Setup, or when they try to save a setting. Nothing is saved. Ask an Admin if you need the page or the change.
Where to go next
Three places to read next.
- Signing in: your email and password, and what to do when you forget it.
- Setup: the steps that open your dashboard.
- Users: who can do what, and how to invite your team.