Guide for testers

Thank you!

InVenn is a family organizer for any phone, tablet or computer: chores with a parent's OK, the family calendar, lists, a mailbox, and a kitchen tablet that shows everyone's day (the Wall). You're one of the first families to try it. The most useful thing you can do is use it for a few weeks and tell us what gets in the way.

1. Start your family

1. Open this address on your phone (on an iPhone, in Safari).
2. Tap New and enter the invite code we sent you. It works once.
3. Your name, your family's name, your email and a password. Tick the box to agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms.
4. The Getting started list at the top of To-dos walks you through the rest: add your family, set your PIN, add a first chore, the kitchen tablet, the Home Screen, the other parent.

2. Put it on your Home Screen (needed for notifications)

• iPhone / iPad: in Safari, tap the Share button, then Add to Home Screen. Open InVenn from the new icon and sign in once more there (the Home Screen app keeps its own sign-in).
• Android: in Chrome, tap ⋮ → Install app (or Add to Home screen).

The first time it opens on your phone, it asks to allow notifications and the microphone: tap Allow, then allow both when the phone asks. If you said "Not now", setting a reminder on a to-do turns notifications on then. Reminders then arrive even when the app is closed.

On an iPhone, notifications only work in the Home Screen app, not in Safari.

3. The kitchen tablet (the Wall)

1. On your phone: Settings → Family → Household → Add a device. You get a 6-digit code for 15 minutes.
2. On the tablet: open the same address, tap Join and enter the code.
3. "Whose device is this?" → Shared family tablet. It opens on the Wall: everyone's day, big enough to read from across the kitchen.

Kids tap their own picture to tick chores off; a parent OKs them on their phone or on the tablet.

Photos on the Wall: add some from your phone (Settings → Family → Photos → Add photos), then on the tablet pick Settings → Wall → Screen saver → Photos. When nobody has touched the Wall for a while, it shows them one after another with the time in a corner.

5. The other parent

• Settings → Family → Household → Give Ben their own sign-in: his email and a temporary password. His phone is his straight away, and he can change the password.
• Or add his phone with a code (as for the tablet) and pick him in "Whose device is this?" with his PIN.

7. Stars, rewards and routines

• Kids' chores earn stars ⭐ (a new chore earns 2; change it in the chore). Kids spend them in your family's rewards store: the 🏆 in the top bar, ⋯ → Rewards on a phone, or a kid's ⭐ on the Wall.
• Fill the store with what works for you (screen time, picking dinner, staying up a bit later…). When a kid taps Get it, it waits in to OK with the chores, and you OK it or say "Not now".
• An allowance is there if you want one (Settings → Family → Rewards & allowance): chores can earn money into Save, Spend and Give jars, and you write down what you pay out. There's no bank card.
• Confetti and streaks 🔥 come with it. Turn the chime off in the same settings.
• Routines: ⋯ → Routines on a phone (or Settings → Family). Give a kid a morning, after-school or bedtime routine. At its time it shows on their card on the Wall and in their To-dos: they tap it and do one big step at a time, with a timer if you like, and get confetti and stars at the end.

8. Meals and recipes

• The plan: the Meals tab on a phone, or Meals in the top bar on a tablet or computer. Tap a day to say what's for dinner and who's cooking. Copy last week fills the empty days. Breakfast and lunch too, if you like: Settings → Family → Meals.
• Recipes: Meals → Recipes → Add a recipe. Type it in, or paste a link from a recipe website and tap Bring it in (most sites work). Cook mode shows one step at a time in big letters and keeps the screen on.
• Shopping: Add to groceries on a recipe (or the week's ingredients on the plan) puts them on your grocery list, without doubles, each saying what it's for.
• The Wall shows tonight's dinner under the date. Kids can Suggest a dinner; you get it in your mailbox and Accept puts it on the plan.

9. Priority, subtasks and progress

• Open any to-do and tap ↑ or ↓ to make it more or less urgent. Its colour shows across the top of it: red, orange, yellow, green, light blue.
• Today's list puts the most urgent first. This week and Later still go by date.
• A to-do with subtasks: open it and tap a subtask to tick it off, tap it again to take it back. The bar shows how far along it is.
• In the to-do's form (More options → Subtasks) each subtask can have a percent of the work. Leave some empty and they share what's left when you save; with none set, each counts the same.
• Setting a time on a new to-do asks which day it's due, and switches its reminder on (switch Notify off if you don't want one).

10. Work and school

• Settings → Family → People → Work and school: switch on someone's Work list (a kid's School list). A kid can switch on their own on their own device.
• Their to-dos and appointments then have a Work (or School) switch. On their own device, the Work button next to Today (on a phone, next to the to-do count) shows only those, inside a shaded frame.
• Outside Work mode a grown-up's work to-dos are out of sight everywhere, and their work appointments show only on their own devices, with a briefcase. A kid's school things show as usual, with a school cap.

11. Tell us what you think

• On a phone: ⋯ → Send feedback. On a tablet or computer: Settings → About → Send feedback. On the Wall, the gear → Send feedback.
• Pick Problem, Idea or Question and write a few words. It comes with the app version and the kind of device, so you don't need to explain those.
• Or write to vunderusaf@gmail.com, for example if you forget your password (write from the address you signed up with).

Known gaps

• A forgotten password needs an email to us; there's no reset link yet.
• Outlook calendars come into InVenn, but what you make in InVenn doesn't go to Outlook yet.
• In Google Calendar, changing one time of a repeating appointment (or how it repeats) doesn't come back to InVenn. Change those in InVenn.
• Most rules for kids (what they can see and change) are enforced by the app on each device, not on the server. Parent-only settings (resetting, devices, sign-ins, AI settings, calendars, people's roles and PINs) are checked on the server too, but on the shared tablet a parent's PIN is the key, so treat it like a screen lock. Stars and money live on the family's devices too, so a determined kid could change them. (Private things and a grown-up's work go only to that person's own devices.)
• Every device downloads the whole family's things every 15 seconds. Fine for now; it gets smarter later.
• It works offline, but needs the internet to share changes with the rest of the family.