# What is Ovidens (/docs)



Ovidens is where your team does all of its analytics, at a speed that used to be
out of reach. You describe what you want, AI builds it, and you have a working
result in minutes instead of weeks. What makes that safe to rely on is that
nothing is a black box: every logic block, from a data transform to a computed
metric, stays **configurable**, **auditable**, and **versioned**. You can always
see how a number was produced, and change it with confidence.

Ovidens also takes care of the parts you should not have to think about. There
are no servers to size, no databases to run, and no pipelines to keep alive. You
bring your analytics; Ovidens runs the infrastructure underneath.

## Everything is an app [#everything-is-an-app]

Everything you build in Ovidens is an **app**: a self-contained home for one
piece of analysis, holding its data, the logic that shapes it, and the
**Visualisation** your team works in. Because each app is self-contained, you can
build, share, and change one without touching the others. There are two kinds.

* **Analytic apps** are for combining data intelligently. Reach for one when the
  answer comes from bringing several sources together, cleaning them, and
  reshaping them, for example joining a sales export with a list of regions and
  presenting revenue by region.
* **Indicator apps** are for collecting key figures over time. Reach for one when
  you record values by hand, period by period, and the data is multidimensional,
  for example fuel use or electricity per site each month, with Ovidens computing
  totals, ratios, and trends for you.

You can use one kind on its own, or feed the metrics from an indicator app into
an analytic app to combine them with other data.

## Meet Vera, your AI assistant [#meet-vera-your-ai-assistant]

**Vera** is the built-in AI assistant, and the fastest way to build. You describe
what you want in plain language, for example "track our monthly electricity use
per site and chart it", and Vera sets the app up for you: the data steps, the
metrics, and the Visualisation. It pauses to ask whenever it needs more detail,
and everything it builds is yours to review or adjust.

The rest of this guide explains each part of the product, so you can check what
Vera builds, or build things yourself when you prefer.

## Your first hour [#your-first-hour]

You do not start with an empty workspace. Ovidens sets one up for you at sign-up,
already filled in so you can learn on something real:

* **Sample Sales Analytics**, an analytic app with data in it, a pipeline that has
  already run, and a finished Visualisation.
* **Sample ESG Indicators**, an indicator app whose metrics the sales app reads.

Both are yours: change them, break them, delete them. Nothing about them is
protected.

### Guided tours [#guided-tours]

A tour walks you around a real screen, highlighting one thing at a time: what a
pipeline node is, how a chart is wired to a result, how to ask Vera a question, and
what each control on the admin pages actually does before you press it. One covers a
basic worth knowing early - [how to get back out of an app](apps.mdx#leaving-an-app),
which has no separate Back button. Three teach an app editor: building and running a
pipeline, turning results into charts and tables, and working with Vera. Three more
show you around an administration page: the Access page, the System page, and API
credentials.

Open **Guided tours** at the bottom of the sidebar to see them all, grouped under
headings - Basics, Analytic app for the three editor tours, and Access and System for
the administration pages - so look under the heading that matches what you want to
learn rather than scanning one long list. The count beside it says how many you have
finished, and each tour in the list is ticked once you have been through it - a
finished tour stays in the list, because watching it again costs nothing. The three
administration tours also carry a compass in the page header, so you can start one while
you are standing on the page it describes - the API credentials tour on the Access page's
**API credentials** tab.

A tour only shows you around; it never changes anything. Where a tour has you press
things for yourself - the editor tours, and the one about leaving an app - it moves
you to a **practice** app first, marked with a **Practice mode** badge. Everything you
do there is thrown away when the tour ends, and none of your own apps is touched.
**Skip tour** leaves at any point, and a tour never starts by itself.

Occasionally Ovidens tells you about something new with a small note marked **New**;
**Got it** dismisses it.

## Where to go next [#where-to-go-next]

* **[Administration](../administration.mdx)** covers your workspace, teammates,
  the activity log, and usage.
* **[Analytical Apps](../analytical-apps/overview.mdx)** walks through combining
  data and building the Visualisation your team works in.
* **[Indicator Apps](../indicator-apps/overview.mdx)** explains collecting metrics
  and working new ones out with calculations.
* **[Tips](../tips/interact-with-vera.mdx)** has guidance on working with Vera,
  keyboard shortcuts, and search.