Navigating iVSS

Signing in

When you open iVSS, you'll see a sign-in page. Enter your email and password. Your administrator will have set up your account and assigned you a role (more on roles in the User Management & Roles article).

Once signed in, you'll land on your default dashboard.

The main navigation

iVSS has a simple navigation structure. Here are the main areas you'll see:

VSS Dashboard

This is the heart of iVSS. It shows you two boards side by side:

• The Velocity Board — all the work currently released to your floor. Buckets are shown in colored zones (green, yellow, red) based on their status.
• The TBR (To-Be-Released) Board — all the work that has been scheduled but not yet sent to the floor. This is your "on deck" pipeline.

This is where supervisors and planners spend most of their time.

Bucketizer

This is where you turn raw orders into buckets. You'll see a list of open line items (work that hasn't been bucketed yet), and tools to group them into appropriately sized buckets.

Schedule

The Schedule view lets you manage the sequence of your buckets. You can adjust rankings (priority order), release buckets to the floor, and manage the flow of work.

Detailed Planning

This is where iVSS shows you deeper analysis of your shop's capacity and constraints. It identifies bottlenecks (called CCR — Capacity Constraint Resources) and can recommend changes to your bucket sequence to improve throughput.

This area is most useful for managers and planners who want to optimize beyond the basics.

Analytics

The Analytics section gives you reports and charts:

• Due Date Report — How are you doing on on-time delivery? See the percentage of jobs delivered on time, early, or late over a rolling time window.
• Velocity Tracking — How fast is work moving through each work center?

Settings

This is where managers configure how iVSS operates for your shop:

• VSS mode (startup vs. auto)
• Maximum bucket size
• Target WIP hours
• Velocity board layout
• Release method
• And more

Changes here affect how the entire system behaves, so access is limited to managers.

Users

This is where managers add, edit, or remove user accounts and assign roles.

Profile

Every user can access their own profile to update personal information.

Understanding what you see on screen

Status indicators

Throughout iVSS, you'll see status labels on buckets:

Color zones on the Velocity Board

Rank numbers

Every bucket has a rank number. Rank 1 is the highest priority. Lower rank numbers mean higher urgency. When you see buckets listed, they are typically sorted by rank — the most important work is at the top.

Quick tips for getting around

• Click on any bucket to see its full details: what line items are inside, which work centers it needs to pass through, its current progress, and its history.
• Drag and drop on the boards to reorder buckets (when your role allows it).
• Look for the refresh icon if you want to force a data update, though iVSS updates in real time via live connections.
• Use filters on list views to narrow down what you're looking at (by status, by work center, by due date, etc.).

Common navigation mistakes

• Going to Settings when you should be on the Dashboard. Settings controls how the system behaves — it is a "set it and forget it" area. If you are checking Settings daily, something is wrong. Your daily home is the VSS Dashboard.
• Living in the Bucketizer instead of the Velocity Board. The Bucketizer is for creating buckets. Once work is bucketed and scheduled, your attention should shift to the board. Spending too much time in the Bucketizer usually means you are re-bucketizing work that should have been sized correctly the first time.
• Skipping Detailed Planning entirely. If you are a planner or manager, Detailed Planning is where you catch bottleneck problems before they hit the floor. Ignoring it means you are only reacting, never anticipating.
• Using Analytics only during reviews. Analytics is not just a monthly report — it is a feedback loop. Check velocity trends weekly at minimum so you can spot slowdowns before they become delivery misses.

A note about real-time updates

iVSS uses live connections (WebSockets) to keep your screen up to date. When a bucket moves, gets released, or changes status, you'll see it update on your screen without needing to refresh. This means multiple people can watch the same board and stay in sync.

The Two Tests

Ineffectiveness — are you doing what you should NOT do?

• Checking Settings repeatedly instead of trusting the configuration your admin set during onboarding
• Spending more time in the Bucketizer re-grouping work than monitoring the board
• Ignoring the Velocity Board and making release decisions from your ERP or a spreadsheet
• Manually overriding bucket ranks from the Schedule view every day instead of letting the system sequence work

Unreliability — are you NOT doing what you SHOULD do?

• Not opening the VSS Dashboard at the start of every shift to check floor status
• Not reviewing the TBR Board to know what work is releasing next
• Not using Analytics to review velocity trends at least weekly
• Not clicking into yellow or red buckets to understand why they are off-track
• Not using Detailed Planning to identify CCR bottlenecks before they cause delays

Next steps

Now that you know where everything is, the next articles will teach you about the building blocks of iVSS: Orders & Line Items, Buckets, Work Centers & Routing, and the Velocity Board in detail.