Welcome to Encircle, the fastest and easiest way for restoration contractors to document, manage, and share their work. As an organization admin, you’re about to set your business up for success. In this video, we’ll walk you through the simple steps to get set up with Encircle so your team can start working right away. You’ll learn how to set up your account, customize Encircle to match your business, connect integrations, and enable payments. We recommend watching this video all the way through. But if you’re looking for something specific, use the chapter markers to jump to the section you need. Let’s get started. Let’s begin with your organization settings. From the web dashboard, click the settings icon. You’ll see the organization settings for your company. Here, you’ll add your company details if you haven’t already, including your organization name and country. This is also where you manage access to Encircle Floor Plan for your organization. If you don’t want a user to create floor plans, go to the Organization Members tab and toggle it off for that individual. While you’re on this page, set up your default settings for Water Mitigation and Contents jobs. Customize your default Hydro task list. Click the pencil icon, enable or disable the tasks you want your team completing on every Water job, then click Confirm. Set tolerances and alerts. Under Hydro warnings, choose the thresholds at which your team will receive alerts when capturing readings in the field. Enable your moisture meters. Select the moisture meters your organization uses. These will be the only ones available for selection on hydro jobs, ensuring accuracy and consistency across your team. Choose your identifier preference. Decide which ID field will be used to identify jobs in the claim inbox. You should choose this based on which field you use to label your jobs. Carrier identifier is typically the insurance claim number. Contractor identifier is typically an internal job number assigned by your company. Assignment identifier typically matches the exact analysis assignment number. As an optional step, enable sticky dispositions for contents packouts. This speeds up box selection during packouts and saves your team extra clicks in the app. Taking the time to get these settings right ensures your jobs start on the right track and your team has a smooth, consistent experience in the field. Let’s make sure your company looks professional in every report you send out. From your organization settings, select Branding. Then click the pencil icon to edit. Enter your brand name, the name your customers know you by. Then add your legal business name. This may be different, but it’s important. Your legal name will appear on digital forms like work authorizations, contracts, and certificates of completion. Next, add your company contact information. This will appear at the top of your digital forms and photo reports. So make sure it’s accurate. You can also include a custom footer for your forms, for example, a company tagline or your website. Finally, upload your company logo. Once added, it will automatically appear on all reports, forms and documents generated from Encircle. This small step makes a big impact, giving your documentation a polished, trustworthy, and consistent look that reflects your brand. With your organization details set, it’s time to bring in your team. From the Organization Settings dashboard, click Organization Members. Then select Invite Team Members. Enter your team members’ email addresses. Choose their permission set, and click Send Invitations. Each person will receive an email with a link to log in and create their password. The Members page is also where you manage your team going forward. Click the three dots beside any member to change their permission set. Remove or add the ability to create floor plans, enable notifications for payment activities, or remove them from the organization if needed. When assigning permissions, here’s what they mean: Limited permissions are best for subcontractors or temporary staff. They can only see jobs explicitly shared with them, or jobs that they create themselves. Standard is the default permission set, ideal for field staff. Standard users can see and work on all jobs in the organization. Admin includes everything in Standard, plus the ability to add and manage users, manage billing and payment information, and configure organization wide settings. Encircle is built for collaboration. Every subscription includes unlimited users, so you don’t need to worry about licenses or extra fees. That means you can and should get your entire team encircling as quickly as possible. Once you’ve sent the invites, encourage your team to complete the Field Documentation Basics course in the Encircle Learning Hub. This way, they’ll be ready to start documenting right away, and you’ll see the real power Encircle can bring to your business. Your Encircle account is now set up. You’ve customized your organization settings, added your branding, and invited your team with the right permissions. With these foundations in place, your organization is ready to hit the ground running. To request a custom form, go to the Encircle Help Center and fill out the Custom Forms submission form. Provide your contact info and company details. Enter the name of your Encircle Customer Success Manager if you know it. Provide some details about your request along with any important comments or notes. Upload PDF or Word copies of your forms. And submit your request. Our dedicated forms team will digitize your forms. Once your forms are live, they’re fully integrated into your Encircle account. From the Overview page of the job, scroll to the Documents section, click Generate Report, then select PDF Report. Your custom forms will appear alongside Encircle’s standard forms and reports. Your team can also access custom forms on their mobile device, even offline, so nobody is ever without the important paperwork. From the home screen of the job, open the documents page. Click generate report. Select PDF report. And the form they need is right at their fingertips. Everything is optimized for readability on a mobile device, automatically populated with the customer’s information and ready to be signed on the spot. Every form carries your company branding, logo, business name and contact info. So every signature, every report looks polished and consistent. To save even more time, our forms team can set a permanent company signature to auto appear on every form, so one signature applies across all your documents. And because everything is digital, every signature is time stamped, making your documentation stronger, more defensible and easier to audit. Custom forms give your team consistency, speed and confidence while elevating your brand at the same time. Let’s talk about note templates a low effort, high impact way to bring structure and professionalism to your notes. Note templates let you create pre populated headings and formatting that your team can use on every job. These templates ensure critical details are never missed while reducing repetitive typing. To create a new template, go to Organization Settings. Then select Note templates. From here, click New template. Give your template a title, then add the description text that you want your team to use as the note content. You can apply formatting, bullet points, or even checkboxes. This text becomes the starting point for every note that uses this template. Once you click Save, the template is instantly available to your entire organization on every job. Note templates save time by eliminating repetitive typing, and they help ensure that no important details are ever forgotten. Because every team member uses the same structure, your documentation is clear and reliable, whether it’s created by a technician in the field or a project manager in the office. If your business receives jobs from carriers or TPAs through exact analysis, setting up external assignments will save your team some time and prevent missed opportunities. To get started, go to the Organization Settings dashboard and select External Assignments. Under My Magic Email, click Copy Text. This unique address is what Exact Analysis will use to forward assignments directly into Encircle. Keep it handy, we’ll paste it into Exact Analysis in a moment. Now open Exact Analysis in another tab. Open the Administration menu and select Contact Methods. Click Add, choose Email and paste in your Encircle Magic email address. Click Save, then close the Contact Method window. Next, click Administration Notification rules and click Add new notification. Use the defaults. Type should be Assignment. Assigner and Assignee should both be set to All. Start and End time should both be set to twelve a. M. Time zone and language should be set to your time zone and language. Under Days, make sure each day of the week is selected. Set your preference for Priority and Type of Loss. If you wish to send all new assignments to Encircle, make sure these are both set to All. For Contact Method, choose Email and select your Encircle Magic email. Click Save. You can also send a test notification to confirm it’s working. That’s it. Your exact analysis assignments will now flow straight into Encircle. Instead of retyping details or worrying about missed notifications, jobs arrive automatically in your Encircle external assignments inbox, ready for your team to accept and start documenting. Connecting Encircle to Xactimate bridges your field documentation and your estimating, so your floor plans flow directly into Xactimate as ready to use sketches. Your team can start building estimates right away, instead of drawing sketches from scratch. To set up the integration, start an Xactimate admin. Open the Instances page. Select the Integrated Services tab and click the row labeled Encircle. A side menu will open. Check Interior walls. Click Next and enter a short note to proceed. Then click Confirm. Encircle services are now enabled for your Exactamate instance. Next, enable the connection inside Encircle. Before you begin, have your XactNet address handy. You’ll find it under your profile in Xactimate. In Encircle, go to Organization Settings. Then choose Integrations. Toggle the Xactimate integration on. Then click Add. Enter a name for the integration. Paste your exact net address and click Save. You can connect as many Exactamate accounts to Encircle as your business needs. And that’s it. You’re ready to start importing floor plans from Encircle directly into Xactimate, creating instant sketches that save your team hours of manual work. With this integration, what used to take hours takes only minutes now, helping you move faster, reduce errors, and deliver estimates with confidence. If you’re in the US or Canada, one more step you don’t want to miss in your initial setup is Encircle Payments. Getting paid up front keeps jobs moving, and Encircle Payments makes it simple to collect payments like deposits and deductibles on the spot, in the field, any time of day, by anyone on your team. Fast, secure, and built right into the app, it ensures your team can start work with confidence, without stressing about cash flow. As an admin, here’s how to set it up. In the Encircle web app, go to the Payments tab and click Begin Payment Setup with Stripe. Enter some basic company details and continue to the payment setup. You’ll be prompted to create a Stripe account. Use the same email you use for Encircle. Stripe will guide you through creating a password, setting up two step authentication, and filling in your business details like your legal name, tax number, and industry. You’ll also connect your bank account so Stripe knows where to send your payouts. You’ll review your company info before submitting. Next, Stripe will ask you to verify your identity. This only takes a few minutes. Just scan your ID and take a quick selfie. Before you finish, add your logo and brand colors in Stripe so receipts and payment screens look polished and professional. If your team uses iPhones, don’t forget to open the Encircle mobile app and accept Apple’s terms and conditions. This only needs to be done once for your organization. And that’s it. Your setup is complete. From this point on, anyone in your organization with standard permissions or higher can request and collect payments right from the job. For a full walkthrough of setup, collecting, and managing payments, check out the dedicated Encircle payments training video in the Learning Hub. And that brings us to the end of your Encircle setup. You’ve configured your organization, added your branding, invited your team, customized your account, connected your integrations, and set up payments. With these foundations in place, you’re ready to hit the ground running. If you’d like more training for you or your team, explore the Encircle Learning Hub. It’s packed with courses and resources designed to help your staff learn Encircle quickly and confidently. Every new user should begin with the field documentation basics course. It covers the essential skills they’ll need on day one, like capturing photos, notes, forms, and signatures in the field. Now it’s time to put nCircle into action. Get your team logged in, encourage them to try it on real jobs, and watch how quickly they gain confidence. Remember, the best way to learn Encircle is to get out there and use it. And you’re not alone. Our help center, support team, and your customer success manager are here to answer any questions that come up. Every subscription includes unlimited users, so don’t hold back. The sooner your team is using Encircle in the field, the faster you’ll see the real value. High quality, complete documentation, jobs that move forward without stress, and a more profitable business. For now, you’re all set. Log in, start documenting, and experience the difference encircle can make in your business.