Connect your first source

Shipped

Once your instance reaches Ready (see Provision your instance), the console drops you into the setup wizard at /instances/<slug>/setup. This is where you choose your first source, connect it, create your app’s first admin, and finalize, after which your live Turbobase app opens.

Most instances start with Oracle NetSuite, and the rest of this page assumes that path. Everything else you can connect is covered under Connecting additional sources.

The setup wizard

The wizard has four steps. It is connector-driven: the Connect step is named after the source you choose (and is skipped entirely for Standalone). There is no AI setup step, because your instance comes preconfigured with the platform’s default AI model.

1. Data source: pick the system of record to mirror. Most instances start with Oracle NetSuite. The grid also shows the other business systems Turbobase can mirror — Stripe, HubSpot, Salesforce, Zoho CRM, QuickBooks, Xero, Bill.com, Ramp, Shopify, Zendesk, Intercom, Jira, Asana, Notion, GitHub, Workday, Dynamics 365 Business Central, GetSales.io, DocuSeal, PrintNode and WhatsApp Business — the knowledge sources it can read — Google Workspace, Fireflies.ai, Granola, FeedHive and Azure Blob Storage — and Standalone (no connector), which is always selectable. Every tile is listed on Add sources. Which connector tiles you can select depends on what’s enabled for your instance; a tile that isn’t enabled for you yet shows an early-access hint with a sales contact.
2. Connect {Source}: named for your pick, for example Connect NetSuite. Authorize the source so Turbobase can read from it (details below). Standalone skips this step.
3. Initial admin: set the initial admin user / password for your Turbobase app. These are the credentials your team will use at <slug>.turbobase.app, not your console sign-in.
4. Finalize: Turbobase runs the initial sync, restarts your instance’s services, and marks setup complete. The Set-up button disappears from the instance’s row in the instances list, and its slug becomes the link that opens your app.

The wizard is resumable. Each step is idempotent and the server re-reads the next step on every load, so if you navigate away and come back you pick up where you left off.

Connecting NetSuite

NetSuite runs inline in the wizard’s Connect step. It is two things at once: an OAuth 2.0 consent, and a one-time deploy of the Turbobase managed bundle into your NetSuite account. The bundle is what gives you real-time sync out of NetSuite rather than polling alone; see NetSuite real-time sync for what it installs.

Your NetSuite account does not need every optional feature turned on. If a feature the bundle’s integration role can use is off — Multiple Subsidiaries on a single-company account is the usual one — the deploy leaves out only the access that needs it and finishes, and the deploy log says what was left out. If you turn the feature on later, the next time your bundle is updated it includes that access again.

NetSuite OAuth 2.0 setup is the click-by-click reference for issuing the credentials, if you want to see the steps the console is running on your behalf or need to do them by hand.

Advanced settings: customizations only

The NetSuite connect card carries an Advanced settings panel, collapsed by default, holding one choice: Data sync. It is on the NetSuite card only, because it is the only source where turning record mirroring off leaves something behind to run on.

Leave it on (the default) and Turbobase mirrors your records so apps, search and write-back can use them. That is what the product does, and it is what almost every instance wants.

Turn it off and your instance runs on customizations only: Turbobase still discovers your fields, scripts and workflows, still keeps your schema in step, and still runs the Analyzer, but it never copies your record data. This is for the customer who specifically does not want their records held in Turbobase.

On every other source, mirroring records is the whole connector, so there is no such choice to make — connecting one starts the mirror.

The choice is not symmetrical. You can turn data sync on later from inside your instance; once on, it cannot be turned off again. The wizard warns you before you leave it off for that reason.

Connecting additional sources

Turbobase runs on NetSuite and can bring other systems into the same canonical layer, either as your first source instead of NetSuite or added later alongside it. They all use the same wizard step and the same connector contract.

Most connectors authorize over OAuth. You never paste long-lived secrets that Turbobase stores and reads back: the connect step either redirects you to the provider’s own consent screen or, for a few connectors, collects connect-time credentials that are written one-way into your instance’s secret store.

The flow at a high level:

1. You click Connect {Source} in the wizard.
2. For shared-app OAuth connectors (Asana, Notion, Jira, QuickBooks, and others), Turbobase mints the provider’s authorize URL and redirects your browser to the provider. You pick the workspace / account / company on the provider’s own consent screen, then approve.
3. The provider redirects back to the console, which completes the OAuth exchange and stores the resulting access on your instance, write-only, never read back into the console.
4. The console polls the connection to success and advances the wizard.

Connector specifics:

• NetSuite: OAuth 2.0 consent plus a one-time managed bundle deploy into your NetSuite account. Runs inline in the wizard’s Connect step.
• Stripe / Bill.com / Fireflies.ai / FeedHive / Granola / GetSales.io / DocuSeal / PrintNode: collect credentials in the wizard. Bill.com also prompts for an MFA code; FeedHive takes the API key from Settings → Account → API Key and reads by default, and Turbobase posts on your behalf only once publishing is switched on for your instance; Granola takes a workspace API key and registers its own webhook endpoint for you; GetSales.io needs your own <workspace>.getsales.io host alongside the key; DocuSeal and PrintNode take an API token, and write back only once that is switched on for your instance.
• WhatsApp Business: you sign in to Meta in a popup and pick the WhatsApp Business account to connect — there is nothing to paste. Your customers’ conversations are then mirrored onto your instance beside everything else it knows about those people, and replies and approved templates can be sent back out through your instance’s API. Meta charges the per-message fees to your own WhatsApp Business account, on the payment method you hold with them — those charges do not come through Turbobase. Sending is switched on per instance and starts off. See Add sources for the rules on what may be sent and when.
• Azure Blob Storage: collects a Microsoft Entra directory id, application id and client secret, plus the storage account and the one container to mirror. Two more choices sit on the same form, and neither is defaulted for you: how the files are kept — copied into your instance, or left in Azure and fetched each time one is opened — and whether Turbobase may add files to that container, which starts off and needs us to switch it on. Turning writing on requires the account to have blob versioning or blob soft delete turned on, checked when you connect. See Add sources for what each choice means for you.
• HubSpot / Shopify / Zendesk / Salesforce: OAuth with your own provider app. You supply the connection details on the connect form, then approve on the provider’s consent screen.
• Zoho CRM: OAuth with Turbobase’s own app — there is nothing to register. Choose production or sandbox on the connect form, then approve on Zoho’s consent screen. Your organisation’s data centre is detected from that redirect, so a Zoho organisation in any region connects the same way. A CRM Plus subscription connects through this same tile: the sales data in that bundle lives behind the Zoho CRM API.
• Asana / Notion / Jira / GitHub / Google Workspace / QuickBooks / Xero / Intercom / Ramp / Workday / Dynamics 365 Business Central: a provider consent redirect that runs on the dedicated connect-source route (/instances/<slug>/connect-source/<source>); the wizard links you there and back. Most need no input at all — you approve on the provider’s own screen and pick the organisation, repository or drive there; a few collect a little config first (Business Central asks for your Entra tenant id and the BC environment).
• Standalone: no source. Your instance starts as a blank, native Turbobase database you populate yourself.

Records from every connected source land on the same canonical schema, so a customer from Stripe sits in the same table as a customer from NetSuite, and Atlas consolidates the two when they are the same real-world entity.

After it connects

When Finalize completes, your instance is set up and its slug in the instances list links straight to it. Move on to Open your app to sign in to the live app.

Need to connect another source later, after setup is done? See Add sources.