Frequently Asked Questions

Kinabase is a flexible business management platform designed for SMEs. It helps you organise your data, automate workflows, and streamline operations — all in one place.

Think of it as a customisable database that grows with your business, with built-in tools for tasks, automations, dashboards, and more.

For more information read our Getting Started guide.

After signing in, you'll see the navigation sidebar on the left with your collections (data tables). Here's a quick orientation:

1. Click a collection to view its records

2. Click a record to see its details and edit fields

3. Right-click a collection to access configuration options

4. Use Settings (gear icon) for system-wide settings

Your System admin will have set up collections relevant to your role.

For more information read our Core Concepts guide.

Click Add (the + button) at the top of any collection. Fill in the required fields and save.

You can also create records through automations, forms, or the API.

For more information read our Records guide.

Several resources are available:

• Support documentation – Browse our help articles at kinabase.com/support
• In-app help – Look for the help icon in the interface for contextual guidance
• Contact support – Ask your System admin, or contact our support team via Help & Support

For more information read our Getting Started guide.

Adding new users is straightforward. Navigate to:

Settings → Organisation → Users

Click Invite, enter the user's email address, and select their user type and roles. They'll receive an invitation email with instructions to set up their account.

For more information read our Inviting Users & Licences guide.

If your organisation signs in with Microsoft 365, new users may need to be synced before they can sign in. To sync users, go to Settings → System → Identity & Provisioning and click Sync now under the Microsoft 365 section.

Once synced, users can sign in with the Sign in with Microsoft button on the sign-in page.

For more information read our Connecting to Microsoft 365 guide.

Yes. Every user can turn on MFA for their own account under Settings → Account → Security → Multi-factor authentication. Kinabase uses an authenticator app (TOTP) plus backup codes — there's no SMS option.

If your organisation signs in with Microsoft 365, your existing Microsoft MFA policies also apply automatically at sign-in.

For more information read our Security Settings guide.

Kinabase has several user types:

• Standard user – access defined by your organisation's roles and permissions
• System admin – full access to settings and configuration
• Billing admin – access to billing and subscription management
• Portal users – for colleagues and customers accessing a portal

For more information read our Understand User Types guide.

Yes, users can add multiple email addresses to their Kinabase account under Settings → Account → Profile. This is useful if someone wants notifications sent to a different address or has changed their email over time.

One address is always marked as primary and is used for sign-in and key communications.

For more information read our Managing Your Profile guide.

Kinabase supports field-level permissions. From the collection, click the options menu (⋯) and select Configure, then go to Fields, select the field, and open Permissions → Custom.

From here you can define exactly who can read or edit the field, based on roles or custom expressions.

For more information read our Assign Roles & Permissions guide.

Yes, Kinabase provides record-level visibility controls:

• Add a Colleague(s) field to your collection and set permissions so users only see records where they're assigned
• Create role-based rules so managers see all records while team members only see their own
• Use expression-based permissions for more complex scenarios

This gives you precise control over data visibility across your organisation.

For more information read our Assign Roles & Permissions guide.

Kinabase supports several layers of permission control:

• View permissions – control who can access specific views
• Record permissions – manage read, edit and delete access, with levels No Access, View Only and View & Edit
• Field permissions – set read and write access for individual fields
• Workflow stage permissions – restrict who can move records into certain stages
• Collection permissions – control access to configure, import, export and bulk delete actions

For more information read our Assign Roles & Permissions guide.

Expression-based permissions let you create dynamic access rules based on field values. For example:

• Allow editing only when a status field equals "Draft"
• Grant read access when the current user is assigned to the record
• Restrict access based on a department or region field

These expressions are evaluated in real time, so permissions automatically adjust as data changes.

For more information read our Assign Roles & Permissions guide.

Yes. Navigate to Settings → System → Event Log to see a timeline of every change made across your organisation, including who made it and when.

Individual records also have an activity history showing their own change timeline.

For more information read our Event Logs guide.

You can control access to individual list fields through field-level permissions.

From the collection, click the options menu (⋯) and select Configure, then go to Lists, select the list, select the field, and open Permissions.

Set the appropriate read and write access for each role, so only authorised users can view or edit that data.

For more information read our Collection Lists guide.

Lists are ideal for managing related items, such as attendees at an event, line items on an order, or tasks within a project.

Each list creates a collection list — a sub-collection nested inside your main collection — so you can track detailed information that belongs to a specific record.

For more information read our Collection Lists guide.

Yes, list data can be exported separately from the main collection as CSV. Navigate to:

Settings → System → Import / Export → Export → Records, then select the list you want to export.

This is useful for reporting on related items or transferring data to other systems.

For more information read our Importing & Exporting Data guide.

Yes, lists support the same field types as collections — including text, numbers, dates, select fields and computed fields — and you can configure permissions within a list independently of the parent collection.

For more information read our Collection Lists guide.

While selecting a type is optional, you can make individual fields within a type mandatory. This ensures that once a user selects a type, they must complete all the required information for that category.

From the collection, click the options menu (⋯) and select Configure, then go to Types, select the type, and edit the relevant field's validation settings.

For more information read our Types guide.

Types let you categorise records and show different fields depending on the category. For example:

• A Contacts collection might have types for "Individual" and "Company", each with different relevant fields
• A Companies collection could categorise businesses as "Supplier", "Customer" or "Partner"
• A Projects collection might have types for "Internal" and "Client" projects

This keeps the interface clean by only showing fields relevant to each record's type.

For more information read our Types guide.

Yes, each type can have its own set of fields that only appear when that type is selected. This lets you capture specific information for different categories without cluttering records that don't need those fields.

For more information read our Types guide.

To set a view as the default:

1. Open the collection, click the options menu (⋯) and select Configure

2. Go to Views

3. Click the ⋯ menu next to your preferred view

4. Select Show by default

This view now loads automatically when users open the collection.

For more information read our Saved Views guide.

Kinabase offers three display modes for your data:

• Table – a traditional spreadsheet-style grid with sortable columns
• Side by side – records shown alongside their details, good for comparing records
• Timeline – a Gantt-style view, available when the collection has a Date Range field

You can also Group by a field within any of these modes, and each saved view remembers its own filters, sorting and column selection. There's no separate board, kanban or calendar view — board-like working comes from workflow stages instead.

For more information read our Views guide.

Yes, saved views support role-based permissions. You can configure which roles can see each view, so you can create specialised views for different teams or access levels.

For more information read our Saved Views guide.

Create a new view and apply the filters you need, then save it. The view remembers your filter settings, so users always see the relevant subset of records — useful for views like "My Tasks", "Overdue Items" or "This Month's Orders".

For more information read our Filters & Sorting guide.

Forms are versatile tools for capturing and processing data — each form is an automation whose first step opens a form for users to fill in. Common uses include:

• Works orders and receipts – standardise data entry for manufacturing processes
• Client-facing forms – add forms to portals so customers can submit orders or requests
• Pricing calculators – build interactive calculators that feed into your records
• Internal processes – standardise how your team enters data

For more information read our Forms guide.

A form's response can trigger any of the automation steps you configure after it, including:

• Create a new record in any collection
• Add a task for follow-up
• Send a notification or Send an email
• Generate PDF document
• Make an API call to an external system
• Update the current record

Configure these steps when setting up your form in Settings → Operations → Forms.

For more information read our Automation Steps guide.

Yes, forms support multi-page layouts using Add Page. This helps break complex forms into manageable sections and improves the experience for longer data entry.

For more information read our Creating Forms guide.

Forms attached to a record's context menu can prefill fields with that record's existing data, which is useful when a form is used to update or process an existing record rather than create a new one.

For more information read our Creating Forms guide.

Portals give portal users secure access to a specific, branded view of your Kinabase data. Common uses include:

• Client portals – let customers view their orders, submit requests, or track project progress
• Supplier portals – let suppliers update their information or view purchase orders
• Internal portals – give colleagues without a full licence access to specific collections and actions

Portals are enabled per organisation — if you can't see this option, contact our support team to enable it for you.

For more information read our Understand User Types guide.

Workflow access for portal users is controlled on each stage's action. From the collection, click the options menu (⋯) and select Configure, then go to Workflow, select a stage, and open the relevant action.

Use the action's Permissions tab to control who — including which portal roles — can perform it, and its Fields tab to control which fields are visible or editable when they do.

For more information read our Configuring Workflows guide.

Yes, portals can be customised with your own branding, including:

• Custom domain settings
• Navigation menu items
• Sign-in and welcome messages, and background colours

Access these settings under Settings → Operations → Portals.

For more information read our Custom Domains & Branding guide.

External portal users receive an email invitation to access your portal, then sign in with a passwordless code emailed to them each time — there's no separate password to manage.

For more information read our Managing Portal Users guide.

If you're seeing this message and need to allow duplicate names, you can adjust the validation setting.

From the collection, click the options menu (⋯) and select Configure, then go to Fields, select the Name field, and open Validation.

Change Unique from "Show error" to "Show warning" (to alert but still allow saving), or set it to "None" if duplicates are acceptable for your use case.

For more information read our Configuring Fields guide.

To ensure a field only contains unique values, from the collection click the options menu (⋯) and select Configure, then go to Fields, select the field, and open Validation → Unique.

Choose whether to show a warning (allows saving but alerts the user) or an error (blocks saving until it's resolved).

For more information read our Configuring Fields guide.

Kinabase supports several validation types to maintain data quality:

• Required – ensure essential fields are always completed
• Unique – prevent duplicate values, shown as a warning or an error
• Numerical limits and format checks – validate numbers, dates, email addresses and other field types

For more information read our Configuring Fields guide.

Yes, tasks can flow between related collections. From the collection, click the options menu (⋯) and select Configure, then go to Tasks and turn on Show in related records.

This is useful when you want to see all relevant tasks in one place, such as viewing all project tasks from a client's record.

For more information read our Using Tasks guide.

Collections can be organised into groups in the navigation sidebar. As a System admin, you can drag collections into groups, or create a new collection directly into a specific group.

This keeps your workspace organised, especially if you have many collections across different business areas.

For more information read our Managing Collections guide.

Yes, collection visibility is controlled by role-based permissions. Users only see the collections they have permission to access, keeping the interface clean and focused on relevant data.

For more information read our Assign Roles & Permissions guide.

Use a linked collection field to create relationships between collections — for example, linking orders to customers, or projects to clients. Once linked, you can navigate directly to a linked record, view all linked records on the parent record (for example, viewing contact records from a company record), and add a lookup field to pull a specific value from the linked record.

For more information read our Linked Collection Fields guide.

Use an automation to create records across collections:

Settings → Operations → Automations → Add Automation

• Set the trigger — Record Added, Record Updated, Manual, Scheduled or Stage Change
• Add a Create a new record step targeting your destination collection
• Map the fields you want to copy across

For example, when a quote moves to "Accepted", automatically create an order with the relevant details.

For more information read our Automation Steps guide.

Yes, an automation can include multiple steps. You can update the source record, create records in other collections, send notifications, and more — all from a single trigger.

For more information read our Automation Steps guide.

Lookup fields pull a specific value from a linked record in another collection, based on selection criteria you define. Once you have a linked collection field connecting two collections, you can add a lookup field to show information from the linked record — for example, if Orders has a Customers linked collection field, a lookup field can show the customer's address directly on the order without duplicating data.

For more information read our Lookup Fields guide.

Kinabase offers a comprehensive range of field types, including:

• Text & contact – Text, Rich Text, Email Address, Website, Phone Number, Address
• Numeric & date – Number, Currency, Rating, Date, Date + Time, Date Range, Duration, and Measurements (Percentage, Length, Weight, Temperature and more)
• Choice – Select, Multi-Select
• People – Colleague(s) for internal users, Person Name for external contacts
• Relationships & calculated – linked collection fields, Lookup, Aggregation, and Computed fields
• Files – Image(s) and File(s), single or multiple

For more information read our Configuring Fields guide.

Activities support custom activity types, which let you categorise different kinds of activity — meetings, calls, notes and so on. Every activity captures the same standard details: type, content, date, and the record it's logged against.

For more information read our Using Activities guide.

Use field permissions to control visibility. Set the field's Read Permissions to a condition regular users won't meet, such as a specific admin role.

The field remains accessible via the API while staying hidden from the user interface.

For more information read our Configuring Fields guide.

Create a computed field to track days until expiry, then use an automation to alert users:

1. Create a Computed (Number) field with the formula:

diff_days($EXPIRY_DATE, now())

2. Create a Scheduled automation that checks this field and sends a notification when the value drops below your threshold (for example, 30 or 7 days).

This works well for contract renewals, certification expiries, or any date-based reminder.

For more information read our Record Alerts guide.

Customise your notifications under Settings → Account → Notifications.

You can control which events notify you, whether you're notified in-app, by email, or both, and the priority of each notification type.

For more information read our Notifications guide.

Yes, automations can send targeted notifications. When setting up an automation, add a Send a notification step, choose recipients, and include dynamic content from the record.

For more information read our Automation Steps guide.

Tasks have built-in due date tracking. Once a due date is set, users receive automatic notifications as a task approaches or becomes overdue, based on their notification settings.

For more information read our Using Tasks guide.

Navigate to Settings → System → Import / Export → Import and follow the guided process:

1. Select the target collection

2. Upload your CSV file

3. Choose whether to create new records or update matching ones

4. Map your CSV columns to Kinabase fields

5. Review and confirm the import

The import wizard shows a preview so you can check the mapping before committing. Import is CSV only — Kinabase doesn't accept Excel files directly.

For more information read our Importing & Exporting Data guide.

When importing, select Update matching records and choose how to match CSV rows to existing records — on the record ID (if included in your export) or any unique field, such as an email address or reference number.

This is ideal for bulk updates: export your data, make changes in a spreadsheet, then reimport to apply them.

For more information read our Importing & Exporting Data guide.

For a smooth import, check these points first:

• Mandatory fields – make sure required fields have values, or temporarily remove the mandatory setting
• Unique values – remove duplicate rows if you're matching on a non-ID field
• Select / Multi-Select options – make sure values in choice columns match your configured options
• Date formats – use consistent date formatting throughout your CSV

A good tip is to export the target collection first, so you can see the expected structure and match your import to the field headings.

For more information read our Importing & Exporting Data guide.

Yes, activity data can be exported by collection. Navigate to:

Settings → System → Import / Export → Export → Activities

Select the collections you want to export activities from — useful for compliance reporting or data analysis.

For more information read our Importing & Exporting Data guide.

Export data from Settings → System → Import / Export → Export. You can export:

• Records – collection data including all fields
• Activities – the activity history for selected collections
• Data structure – fields, relationships and settings, useful for replicating your set-up in another organisation

Exports are generated as CSV files, which open in Excel or any other spreadsheet application.

For more information read our Importing & Exporting Data guide.

Every user has their own Dashboard — a personal page you open from the sidebar, with Home, Tasks, Activities and Reports tabs. To build a custom report, open the Reports tab and click Add report, then add chart or quick add widgets to it.

As a System admin, you can set organisation-wide defaults — such as quick links and who can access reports — under Settings → Organisation → Dashboard.

For more information read our Creating Reports guide.

Kinabase supports five chart types:

• Line – track trends over time
• Bar – compare values across categories
• Pie – show proportions and distributions
• Scatter – identify correlations in your data
• Bubble – show relationships between multiple variables

For more information read our Creating Charts guide.

Records can be excluded from a chart when a computed field it depends on has an empty source value. For example, if a chart uses a calculated field based on a number field, records with a blank number value won't appear.

Solution: enter zero (or another appropriate default) in the source field rather than leaving it blank.

For more information read our Creating Charts guide.

Reports and widgets can each have their own view and edit permissions, so you can create Shared Reports visible to specific roles alongside Personal Reports that only you can see. This means everyone's dashboard can surface the metrics most relevant to their work.

For more information read our Creating Reports guide.

Automations handle repetitive tasks and streamline your processes. Available steps include:

• Send a notification – with dynamic content from the record
• Create a new record – in any collection
• Update the current record – change field values automatically
• Add a task – assign follow-up work to team members
• Make an API call – integrate with external systems
• Generate PDF document – create documents from templates

For more information read our Automation Steps guide.

Automations can be triggered by:

• Record Added – when a new record is added
• Record Updated – when a field changes
• Stage Change – when a workflow stage transitions
• Scheduled – runs relative to a due date field on the record (there's no cron-style schedule)
• Manual – triggered when a user right-clicks a record, including forms

For more information read our Triggers guide.

Monitor your automations under Settings → Operations → Automations. Click View History next to any automation to see its run history, including when it ran, any errors or skipped runs, and detailed logs for troubleshooting.

Individual records also show automation activity in their history, helping you trace what happened.

For more information read our Managing Automations guide.

Yes, automations support branching logic using If / Otherwise if / Otherwise conditions that check field values and run different steps based on the result — for example, only creating a task when a value exceeds a threshold.

For more information read our Automation Steps guide.

Kinabase integrates with your email in several ways:

• Outlook add-in – log emails directly from Outlook onto the relevant record
• Email forwarding – forward or CC emails to inbox@kinabase.email to log them as activities
• Outbound emails – send emails directly from a record in Kinabase

Configure these under Settings → Integrations → Email Integration and Settings → Integrations → Outbound Emails.

For more information read our Emails guide.

To get started with the Outlook add-in:

1. Make sure you're signed in to Kinabase using Microsoft (Sign in with Microsoft)

2. Turn on Enable Outlook add-in under Settings → Integrations → Email Integration

3. Configure which collections (for example, Contacts, Organisations) should be searchable from Outlook

4. The add-in will appear in your Outlook ribbon

For more information read our Outlook Add-in Set-up guide.

Try these steps to resolve Outlook integration issues:

1. Update Outlook to the latest version

2. Sign in to Kinabase with Microsoft, not a password, if your organisation requires it

3. Sync your Microsoft account under Settings → System → Identity & Provisioning

4. Sign out and back in to both Outlook and Kinabase

5. Remove and reinstall the Kinabase add-in in Outlook

Alternative: while troubleshooting, you can forward emails to inbox@kinabase.email to keep logging them as activities.

For more information read our Using Outlook Add-in guide.

Tasks can be created in several ways:

• From a record – open a record and add a task in its Tasks tab
• Via automation – set up an Add a task step to create tasks automatically
• From forms – form submissions can trigger task creation

Tasks can be assigned to colleagues with a due date and description.

For more information read our Using Tasks guide.

Click Dashboard in the sidebar, then select the Tasks tab to see tasks across all your collections. You can group tasks by Due Date, Scheduled Date, Collection, Record or Status, or switch to a built-in view like Today, Overdue or Assigned to me.

For more information read our Managing Tasks guide.

Activities track the history and interactions for each record. They include:

• Automatic entries – field changes, stage transitions and other system events
• Manual entries – notes, calls, meetings and other logged interactions
• Email logs – emails logged via the Outlook add-in or email forwarding

View a record's Activities tab to see its complete history.

For more information read our Using Activities guide.

Yes, you can define custom activity types to match your business processes. Common examples include meeting notes, phone calls, site visits and follow-up reminders. Each type has its own icon, making it easy to report on different kinds of interaction.

For more information read our Using Activities guide.

Yes. Approved integrations can use the Kinabase API to:

• Query and filter records
• Create, update and delete records
• Manage activities
• Read colleagues and roles

System admins manage integrations under Settings → System → API → App Registrations. Developers can find the technical details in our developer documentation.

For more information read our API guide.

Ask your developer or integration provider what they need, then create a separate App Registration for the integration:

1. Go to Settings → System → API → App Registrations

2. Click Add

3. Give it a name

4. Save and securely share the App Id and App Secret with the person responsible for the integration

Treat the App Secret like a password. If it is exposed, remove the registration and create a replacement.

For more information read our API guide.

Kinabase integrates with several business tools:

• Microsoft 365 – single sign-on, Outlook email logging, and sending outbound email
• SharePoint – store and manage files in your SharePoint document library
• SQL data sources – sync records from a Microsoft SQL Server or MySQL database
• VoIP providers – click-to-call from records
• Xero and QuickBooks for accounting, and GoCardless for payments

Some of these are enabled per organisation — if you can't see one, contact our support team to enable it for you.

For more information read our Integrations guide.

The automation Make an API call step can send data to tools such as Zapier or Make. You set the method, URL, headers and body yourself, and can capture values from the reply for later steps. It sends information out of Kinabase; an event in another system cannot currently start a Kinabase automation.

For more information read our Making an API Call guide.

Add an Image(s) or File(s) field to your collection to enable attachments, and configure the field to accept a single file or multiple files. Drag and drop files directly onto the field, or click to browse and upload.

For more information read our Organising Files guide.

Kinabase offers two file storage options:

• Kinabase (built-in) – files stored securely in our cloud infrastructure
• SharePoint – connect your Microsoft SharePoint document library for enterprise file management

Configure storage under Settings → Integrations → File Storage.

For more information read our SharePoint guide.

Yes. Create a document template, then either add a Generate PDF document step to an automation, or right-click a record and select Print to generate one on demand. This works well for invoices, quotes, contracts and reports built from your record data.

For more information read our Document Templates guide.

Open a record's Files tab to see its attachments. Files open externally — in a new browser tab or your device's default app — rather than in an in-app preview; Word, PowerPoint and Excel files can also be created directly from the tab when you're using SharePoint storage. Use the file menu to download a file or, with SharePoint, show it in its enclosing folder.

For more information read our Organising Files guide.

Computed fields automatically calculate a value based on a formula you define, and update in real time as the source data changes. Available types are:

• Computed (Number)
• Computed (Text)
• Computed (Date)
• Computed (Duration)
• Computed (Select)

For more information read our Computed Fields guide.

Yes. Once you have a lookup or aggregation field pulling in a value from a linked collection, a computed field can use that value in its formula — letting you calculate totals from linked line items, format data from related records, or build business logic that spans multiple collections.

For more information read our Lookup Fields guide.

Stages track where a record is in your business process. For example:

• Orders: Draft → Confirmed → Shipped → Delivered
• Projects: Planning → In Progress → Review → Complete
• Leads: New → Qualified → Proposal → Won/Lost

Configure stages from the collection: click the options menu (⋯) and select Configure, then go to Workflow.

For more information read our Configuring Workflows guide.

Yes, each stage action can have permission rules controlling who can move records into it. For example:

• Only managers can mark items as "Approved"
• The finance team can move records to "Paid"
• Anyone can move a record to "In Progress"

Configure these under the stage's action, in your collection's Workflow settings.

For more information read our Configuring Workflows guide.

Yes, Stage Change is one of the most useful automation triggers. Common examples:

• Add a task when a project enters "Review"
• Send a notification to the finance team when a deal is "Won"

Set the trigger to Stage Change in your automation.

For more information read our Triggers guide.