# What is Flightplan?

Flightplan holds three things: a **workflow** is the process you write down once,
a **checklist** is one time you ran it, and a **task** is one thing to do inside
that checklist.

Everything else in the app is a detail of those three.

## The three words

**A [workflow](workflows.md)** is the plan. "Production deploy." "Pre-drive
walkaround." "Quarterly home maintenance." You write it once -- the tasks it
contains, the order they have to happen in, who each one is for -- and then leave
it alone. A workflow is never worked directly. It is the thing you make copies of.

**A [checklist](checklists.md)** is one of those copies, in progress or finished.
Every Monday's walkaround is its own checklist. Every release is its own
checklist. Generating one takes a snapshot of the workflow as it stands right
then, so the checklist you are halfway through cannot change under you.

**A [task](tasks.md)** is one line item: replace the filter, sign off on QA, check
the lug torque. It belongs to a checklist, it may be waiting on other tasks, and
somebody -- or something -- closes it.

## What that gets you

Because the process is written down separately from any one run of it:

- The order is enforced, not remembered. A task stays [blocked](prerequisites.md)
  until the tasks before it are done. Nobody has to hold the sequence in their head.
- You can improve the process without disturbing work in flight. Edit the
  workflow today; the checklist someone started yesterday still shows yesterday's
  version.
- Every checklist leaves [a record](checklist-summary.md) -- who did what, when,
  and what they answered.

## Where things live in the app

The sidebar down the left edge, top to bottom:

| Nav item | What it is |
| --- | --- |
| **My work** | Every open task that is yours, across every checklist. Most people spend the whole day here. |
| **Workflows** | Every process this organization has written down. Start here to build one, or to generate a checklist from one. |
| **Checklists** | Every checklist, in progress and finished. Start here to do work. |
| **Schedules** | The cadences that generate checklists on their own, so nobody has to remember to start one. |
| **Connections** | Where a task can send its work when it becomes ready, if you have wired one up. |

Below those, against the account row, sit **What's new** and **Help**. Both are
public pages outside the app, so both open in a new tab.

On a phone the sidebar sits behind the menu button, so the page keeps the full
width of the screen.

Everything is scoped to your organization. If you belong to more than one, the
switcher next to your avatar changes which one you are looking at -- workflows and
checklists never cross between them.

## Next

- [Workflows](workflows.md)
- [Checklists](checklists.md)
- [How assignment works](assignment.md)