The console is where a shop prepares and publishes its Configurator. It is at cutoptim.com/console, you sign in with your CutOptim account, and the console itself is in English (the customer-facing configurator is in ten languages). You start a free sandbox from the console with one click and can upgrade to a Configurator plan at any time; see the overview.
Sandbox first, then live
A sandbox shop is a free test shop with demo data. You load your own boards and prices into it, try the whole flow, and see the result in the live preview. Its limits keep it safe to hand out: one sandbox per account, 14 days, read-only afterwards, up to 100 orders in a 30-day window, webhooks only to public HTTPS addresses (at most two), and e-mail only to the owner’s confirmed address.
Going live turns the sandbox into a live shop and keeps the configuration. It needs an active Configurator plan; the plan is separate from your CutOptim app plan and from the Engine API, and this page lists no prices. The owner or an admin buys the Starter plan on the shop’s “Plan & going live” card in the console (monthly, billed by Lemon Squeezy). When the owner pays for a sandbox, it goes live by itself with the same settings, and its keys keep working; if an admin pays, the owner presses “Go live”.
Draft, preview, publish
You never edit what customers see. The settings are a draft. The live preview mounts the real Configurator on your unsaved draft, so what you see is what publishing will release. Publish validates the configuration and creates a new version; roll back returns to an earlier one. The Advanced category shows versions and a JSON editor, and an audit log records who changed what.
The categories
| Category | What you set |
|---|---|
| Appearance & brand | Colours, corner radius, type, light or dark |
| Steps & flow | Where customers start and end |
| Fields | What a customer sets per part |
| Results shown | Yield, remnants, edge banding on the result |
| Units & language | mm, cm or inches; default language |
| Delivery & lead time | Lead time, shipping zones, pickup |
| Catalogue & prices | Import and export of boards, banding, hardware, machining, and prices |
| Templates | The furniture templates your customers can start from |
| Workflows | Which modes, wording, boards and tabs; only built and enabled modes can be chosen |
| Texts | Your own wording in ten languages |
| Fields & rules | Which fields are shown or required, and the price rules |
| Images & 3D | Pictures of boards and products |
| Keys & embedding | Public and secret keys |
| Embedding code | HTML, WordPress, WooCommerce button, standalone link and QR |
| Team & roles | Members, invitations, hand-over |
| Data management | Retention, customer requests, export, closing |
| Advanced | Versions and the JSON editor |
Catalogue and prices
Import a CSV or Excel (.xlsx) price list, or enter rows by hand. The importer recognises headers in common languages, reports every bad row by its spreadsheet row number, and never guesses an unclear value. Text that could act as a spreadsheet formula is neutralised, and uploaded images are re-encoded.
The price rules are data, not code. For the cut parts, a material is priced by one of five strategies: per full sheet, per square metre of parts with a waste percentage, per metre of cut, sheet plus cut length, or sheet plus a rate per part. Edge banding (per metre), machining (per operation, metre or part), hardware, surcharges, a minimum order, customer groups with their own price lists, VAT, rounding, shipping zones, pickup and lead time are separate rules. A rule applies only when you add it: a missing rule is an explicit error, never a silent zero.
Templates, hardware, bonded panels and machining
- Templates. The five built-in furniture templates can be switched on or off and their ranges narrowed (never widened). The template editor lets you write your own from a form, with a live part-list preview. The customer-facing template picker in the embed shows the built-in templates only; templates you write are not shown to customers there yet.
- Hardware. A template’s hardware need, such as hinges, runners or shelf pins, becomes a priced line through your own map from need to catalogue item. A need you did not map is a visible warning, never a silent zero.
- Bonded panels. A bonded panel is one sellable line; for production it is split into one slightly oversized blank per layer, cut on the same board that was priced.
- Machining. Holes, hinge bores, grooves and corner radii carry checked parameters (position, diameter, depth, length) and are priced per your rules and passed on in the order.
Team and roles
Six roles: owner, admin, pricing, catalog, orders and viewer. Owner and admin can edit, publish, see orders and manage keys, the team and the data. Pricing and catalog can edit a draft but cannot publish. Orders can see orders and move their status. Viewer can only read. The owner hands the shop over in two steps, the current owner offers and the other person accepts. An invitation creates a link that is shown once; the console does not e-mail it, so you pass it on yourself. The invited person must sign in with the same confirmed e-mail address.
Sign-in security is that of each person’s own CutOptim account, including optional two-factor sign-in. A shop cannot yet require two-factor of its whole team.
Keys and test mode
A shop has a publishable key for the embed on your page and a secret key for your server, which you never put in a page. In the Keys category you create and revoke keys and rotate the signing key. The service can also rotate a key with an overlap, so the old one keeps working for a set time; console buttons for that are not built yet.
A live shop can create up to three test keys (see the FAQ below). Use them to rehearse an integration without creating real orders.
Data management
The Data management category shows what is kept and for how long. Quotes that were never ordered, saved projects, finished delivery logs and shoppers who have no order or project are cleared after your retention period (365 days by default, adjustable). Orders, order history and the audit log are kept. For a customer who asks what you hold, you can export their data; to erase, you can delete or pseudonymise it while the order stays. You can download the whole shop as a file, and the owner can close the shop with a deadline of 7 to 90 days.