First Steps

This guide walks you through your first setup in Mind One. By the end, you’ll have a workspace with a working sheet and loaded data.

Before you start: make sure you’ve completed Access and Login.

The fast track: the First Steps wizard

The fastest way to get started is to upload an Excel or CSV file and let Mind One do the rest:

1. Click the First Steps button in the sidebar (or drag a file onto the upload area on the Sheets page).
2. Upload your .xlsx, .xls or .csv file. If it has multiple tabs, choose which one to use.
3. The wizard detects the columns and suggests a data type for each one (text, number, currency, date…). Review the types and, if you want, enable the suggested value lists for categorical columns.
4. Choose the workspace (new or existing) and confirm: the wizard creates the workspace, the lists, the sheet and imports the data, all in one step.

If you’d rather build it piece by piece, follow the manual steps:

Step 1: Create your first workspace

The workspace is the main container for organizing your data.

1. From the sidebar, click Workspaces.
2. Click Create workspace.
3. Fill in the details:
   • Name: a descriptive identifier (for example, Customers).
   • Description: a brief explanation of its purpose.
   • Icon (optional): pick an icon to identify it visually in the menu.
4. Confirm the creation.

The workspace will appear in the sidebar and in the workspace list.

Step 2: Create a sheet

Inside the workspace, create a sheet to store structured data.

1. Navigate to the workspace you just created.

2. Click Create sheet.

3. Fill in the basic details:

   • Name: for example, Key customers.
   • Description: the sheet’s purpose.
   • Workspace: select the workspace created in the previous step.

4. Define the sheet’s fields:

   Field	Type	Required	Description
   name	Text	Yes	Customer name
   email	Email	Yes	Contact email
   country	Text	Yes	Country of origin
   active	Boolean	Yes	Whether the customer is active
   signup_date	Date	No	Registration date

5. Optionally, define cross-field validation rules (for example, if you have start/end date fields).

6. Confirm the creation.

Tip: start with a few fields. You can always add more later without affecting existing data.

Step 3: Load data

You can load data in three ways:

Manual editing

1. Open the sheet.
2. Use the spreadsheet-like interface to add records directly.
3. Data is validated in real time against the defined rules.
4. Save your changes.

Importing from Excel

1. From the sheet, click Download template to get an Excel file with the correct structure.
2. Fill in the template with your data.
3. Click Import Excel and select the file.
4. Choose the import mode:
   • Replace: replaces all existing data.
   • Append: adds the new records to the existing data.
5. Mind One validates the data before applying the import. If there are errors, they’re shown so you can fix them.

Syncing from a data lakehouse (autosync)

If you have a connection configured (Snowflake, BigQuery, etc.), data can sync automatically. See the Connections section for more detail.

Step 4: Organize with groups

If you have multiple related sheets, group them together:

1. From the sidebar, go to Groups.
2. Click Create group.
3. Give it a name and select the associated workspaces.
4. Once created, you can assign sheets to the group from its detail view.

Step 5: Create a value list

If you need a reusable catalog of options (countries, categories, statuses):

1. From the sidebar, go to Value Lists.

2. Click Create value list.

3. Define a unique key (for example, countries), a name and the values:

   Value	Label	Order
   ES	Spain	1
   MX	Mexico	2
   CO	Colombia	3

4. Save the value list. You can now link it to fields in your sheets so they appear as dropdown options.

Next steps

• Invite users: from Settings > Users, invite your team and assign them roles.
• Connect a data lakehouse: set up a connection to Snowflake, BigQuery or another system to sync data.
• Export data: download your sheets as Excel or via the API.
• Configure Billing: change your plan’s capacity from Account Settings > Billing.

To dig deeper into each feature, see the Configuration and Connectivity sections.