HelpGetting startedSet up your first line & go live

Set up your first line & go live

Setup is a short guided run — plain questions, a few per step, no jargon and no presets to decode. It takes about five minutes, ends on a printable join poster, and you can change every answer later from Locations.

Owner Where: Get started → Set up a line 4 min read

Describe your line in plain terms. turnda never asks you to pick an industry template — you just say how your own line runs, and it configures itself around that.

The guide finds you

What you see	What it means
"Let's get turnda working for you — three things and you can take your first customer. About 5 minutes."	The very first time you sign in as an owner with no line yet, turnda takes you straight there — you don't have to hunt for it. It's also always one click away as Get started in your sidebar.

Tell us about your place
Open your queue
Try it yourself

Steps are numbered as you go — "Step 3 of 8 · about 4 minutes left" — with a live preview of your customer's phone beside them so you can watch the queue page take shape as you answer.
Nothing is lost if you walk away. Save & finish later is on every step, and the draft picks up exactly where you were.

Your business, and where it is

Step	Asks	Notes
Step 1	What language should we message your customers in? — English, Spanish, Indonesian, Portuguese, French or Arabic.	This sets the language your customers receive, not yours. You and each of your team set your own dashboard language separately, in Settings — the same six languages.
Step 1	Your time zone	turnda takes it from your device. It drives when your queue opens and closes, and which day your numbers start again.
Step 2	What's your business called?	The one thing the guide won't let you skip — it names your queue page, your QR poster and every message your customers get.

How a visit goes, and how the line is split

Step 3 is the heart of it — three questions on one screen. Each offers a most common choice, so you can take the well-trodden path without deciding anything you have no opinion about yet.

	Does a visit have one stop, or several?	How is the line split?
Choices	One stop (most common) — served at one place and done. Or Several stops — a journey through stages you name, e.g. check, consult, collect.	One line (most common) — everyone waits in the same queue. By service — a line per service, picked after scanning. By staff — a line per person, so a visitor can wait for who they want.

The first two questions on Step 3 describe the shape of the work.

Booked, or just turning up

The third question on that same screen is Do people book a time, or just turn up?

Choice	What it means
They just turn up (most common)	Pure first-come, first-served.
They book a time	Appointments are the only way in.
Both	Walk-ins and bookings mixed, following the serving rule you choose.

The guide tells you this one "sets up most of the rest for you" — it decides which of the later steps you are even asked.
If you take bookings, the serving rule that mixes them with walk-ins is explained on the Serving order & fairness page.
Walk-ins are always included whatever you pick.
"Not sure? Pick how it works most of the time. You can change it whenever you like." Every one of these is a setting afterwards, not a decision you are stuck with.

Naming the queue and the branch

Step	Asks	Notes
Step 4	What should we call this queue?	The name customers see on the poster and on the screen in your waiting area. turnda fills it in from your last answer, so you can usually just carry on.
Step 5	Where is this?	A Branch name, so your team can tell one place from another. Customers see it next to the queue name, on their join page and in their messages. The time zone is not asked again — you set that in step 1.

Its own advice for the queue name: most places just use "Walk-ins", and if you will have more than one queue later, name it after what happens there — "Collection", "Service desk". The preview beside it shows exactly where the name lands.

How many you can serve at once

Step	Asks	Notes
Step 6	"How many people serve customers at the same time?"	Counters, chairs, desks or bays. One dentist's chair is 1; three checkout tills is 3. This one is required — without it turnda cannot show who is being served where. It becomes your stations, and you can add or rename them later from Stations.

Opening your queue

Step	Asks	Notes
Step 7	"Ready to take real customers?"	Your queue is built at this point — what it does not yet have is anyone who can join it. To open it to real people turnda needs a card on file: free for 30 days, then $44 per branch, per month, cancel any time.

Two buttons, and Not yet is a real answer — everything you have set up stays exactly where it is, and you can come back and press Open my queue whenever you are ready.

The last step is the fun one. Past the card, step 8 is the guide's third promise — try it yourself — where you join your own queue and watch it work before a single customer does.

Appointments line? Add the services people can book right after the wizard — until then there's nothing for them to choose. The wizard points you there, and Services & slot lengths walks it through. A journey's other stops are added the same way, from Locations.