Help and answers

Go to Start your free trial and enter your company name, your name and your work email address. We email you a confirmation link that works once and lasts 24 hours. Open it, press the button to confirm, then choose a password and set up an authenticator app. Your organisation’s workspace is ready straight away, with every feature and no payment details needed.

Pitlamp is built for businesses, so trials start from a company address rather than Gmail, Outlook.com, iCloud and similar free email services. It also tells us who we’re talking to if you need help.

Ask one of their administrators to invite you. Signing up always creates a new, separate organisation, and each email address can belong to only one organisation, so an invitation is the only way into an existing one.

Most teams start by choosing the vendors they run, so the Updates & EOL and Outages pages show what matters to them. Then invite the team, build a daily checklist, and bring existing tasks across with Import. You can do these in any order.

Yes. Pitlamp runs in any modern web browser and the layout adapts to smaller screens, so you can run a checklist or update a card on a phone. There is nothing to install. You can choose a light or dark theme, or follow your device’s setting, in Settings › Account.

An administrator goes to Settings › Users and enters the person’s email address and role. The invitation link works once and lasts 72 hours; if it expires, use Resend to send a new one, or Revoke to cancel it. The person chooses a password and sets up an authenticator app before they can see anything.

There are three roles:

• Member: uses the everyday tools (checklists, to-dos, the Kanban board, projects, the knowledge base, contacts and expiries) and chooses which vendors to follow for themselves.
• Manager: everything a member can do, plus setting what the whole team follows, reports, the audit log, everyone’s to-dos and importing from other tools.
• Admin: everything a manager can do, plus inviting people, changing roles, disabling accounts, resetting a lost authenticator, downloading all your data and setting how long the audit log is kept.

Yes, and we recommend at least two, so someone can always help if an admin loses their phone. Any admin can make another user an admin. Nobody can change their own role or disable their own account.

An admin opens Settings › Users and chooses Disable account. The person is signed out within a couple of minutes and can’t sign in again. Everything they created stays, so your history and audit trail are complete, and a disabled account isn’t charged for. You can re-enable it later if they come back.

Pitlamp holds details of your systems, suppliers and work, so every user signs in with a password and a code from an authenticator app. There is no way to skip it, for anyone, including administrators.

Any app that shows six-digit codes that change every 30 seconds, such as Microsoft Authenticator, Google Authenticator, 1Password, Bitwarden or Aegis. Text message codes aren’t offered because they are easier to intercept.

On the code screen, choose “Lost your phone? Use a recovery code” and enter one of the recovery codes you saved when you set up your account. Then set up your new phone in Settings › Account › Move to a new device. If you don’t have a recovery code, ask one of your administrators to reset your authenticator; you’ll set it up again next time you sign in. If you are the only administrator and have neither, contact us from your work email address.

You get ten when you set up your authenticator. Each works once, in place of an authenticator code. Keep them somewhere safe away from your phone, such as your password manager. You can make a new set at any time in Settings › Account, which cancels the old ones.

Choose “Forgot your password?” on the sign-in page and we’ll email you a link to set a new one. The link works once. After a reset, you’re signed out everywhere else. An administrator can also send you a reset link from Settings › Users, but never sees or sets your password.

At least 12 characters. There are no rules about symbols or capitals, but very common passwords, passwords based on your email address or the word Pitlamp, and simple repeated patterns are refused. A passphrase of several random words works well.

After five wrong passwords in a row, the account locks for 15 minutes to stop anyone guessing. Wait, then try again, or reset your password.

If you tick “Stay signed in”, until 12 hours pass without you using Pitlamp. Otherwise, until you close your browser. Either way, you sign in again 7 days after you last signed in.

Some actions need fresh proof that it’s really you: downloading data, changing someone’s role, disabling an account, or resetting an authenticator. Enter your password or an authenticator code, and you won’t be asked again for five minutes.

No. Every record belongs to one organisation. The application only ever reads your organisation’s records, and the database enforces the same rule independently with row-level security, so a fault in one layer is caught by the other. Automated tests try to reach another organisation’s data before every release.

In Microsoft Azure’s UK South region, in London. It is encrypted in transit and at rest. Our data processing agreement lists every provider involved and the security measures in place.

Please don’t. Pitlamp isn’t a password manager. If text you type into a note, comment or article looks like a password or key, Pitlamp warns you before saving so you can remove it, though you can still save if it’s a false alarm. For expiring secrets, record the expiry date and where the secret is kept, never the secret itself.

You build a checklist template once, with the checks you do, and choose how often it runs: daily, weekdays, weekly, fortnightly or monthly. Each time it’s due, a fresh checklist appears. Whoever runs it marks each check as pass or fail (or skip, where you allow it) and the checklist is marked complete when every required check has a result.

Yes. For each check, you can set the comment and the evidence (such as a screenshot) to be hidden, optional, required when the check fails, or always required.

A card is created on the Kanban board for that check, so the problem has an owner and isn’t forgotten. The checklist shows that the issue is still open, with a link to the card, until it’s resolved. You can also choose who is notified when a checklist fails or is completed.

Yes. Link knowledge base articles to a check and they appear right next to it when the checklist is run, so anyone can follow the same steps.

Yes. Each checklist has a dated history of every run, with who checked what, when, and any notes and evidence.

To-dos are each person’s own lists of small jobs. The Kanban board is the team’s shared view of work in progress, including cards created from failed checks, security updates and expiry reminders. Projects are for larger pieces of work with phases, tasks and dates, shown on a timeline.

You, plus your organisation’s managers and administrators. To-do lists can reset on a schedule, such as every morning or every Monday, which suits routine jobs.

Yes. Anyone can rename, add or reorder columns, and add statuses (coloured labels such as “Waiting on vendor”) that sit alongside the column. Resolved cards move to the archive after a number of days a manager chooses, and can be restored at any time.

Yes. Turn on “push to Kanban” for a project and each task becomes a card on its due date.

Files of up to 20 MB on checklist results, Kanban cards and to-dos: images, PDFs, plain text, CSV, Markdown, JSON and ZIP files. Images and PDFs open in the browser; other files download.

Articles use Markdown, a simple way of adding headings, lists, links, tables and code with plain text. Give an article a heading to group it with related articles, and add tags to find it again. Every edit is kept in the article’s revision history.

Yes. Link an article to Kanban cards, checklist checks and the services it covers, so the instructions are where people need them.

Go to Settings › Updates & EOL and tick the vendors you use, or open a vendor and tick individual products. Managers can also set a list for the whole team, and choose whether members can add their own.

From the publishers: end-of-life dates from endoflife.date, which tracks vendors’ own published dates; security advisories from vendors such as Microsoft, Cisco, Fortinet, Palo Alto Networks and Veeam; known exploited vulnerabilities and alerts from CISA, the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre and CERT/CC; Linux distribution notices; and vendors’ own status pages for outages. Severity scores are the publisher’s own.

End-of-life dates are checked daily. Security advisories are checked between every 15 minutes and every few hours, depending on the source. Outage pages are checked every few minutes. Each page shows when its information was last updated.

Yes. A manager can turn this on in Settings › Updates & EOL and set the thresholds. Once on, by default, advisories rated High or Critical, and products reaching end of life within 180 days, become cards. You can also create a card from any item by hand.

No. Pitlamp doesn’t connect to your systems. It tells your team what’s been announced for the products you follow, so you can decide what to patch, upgrade or replace, and track that work. It is guidance to help you prioritise, not a vulnerability scanner.

The Outages page follows the same vendors as Updates & EOL unless you choose a separate list in Settings › Outages. New incidents always appear in the notification bell; tick a vendor in Settings › Notifications to get emails too.

Software licences, support contracts, SSL/TLS certificates, secrets such as API keys, domain names, warranties and anything else with a renewal date, with the vendor, owner, reference, quantity and cost.

By default, emails 90, 30, 14, 7 and 1 days before the expiry date, and a Kanban card 30 days before. You can change these for each item, with any number of days up to two years ahead. Managers, administrators, the item’s owner and anyone following it are notified.

Open the item and enter the new expiry date under “Renewed it?”. The reminders start again for the new date and any open reminder card is closed.

Yes. Download any contact as a vCard to add to your phone or address book, or download all contacts as a CSV file. Importing contacts isn’t available yet.

Exports from Microsoft Planner, Jira, Asana, Trello, monday.com, ClickUp and Todoist, or any Excel or CSV spreadsheet. Each import goes onto the Kanban board, a new or existing project, or a to-do list. Managers and administrators can import.

Each file can be up to 10 MB and 5,000 rows. Pitlamp shows a preview of exactly what will be created before anything is saved, and matches names in the file to your team.

Yes. Undo removes what that import created. Anything your team has added since is left alone.

Its contents are deleted once the import runs or is discarded. An upload that’s left unfinished is deleted after 7 days.

The bell at the top of every page shows new cards for vendors you follow, new incidents, and checklist alerts. You choose which vendors also send emails in Settings › Notifications, and each checklist can send emails when it’s completed or fails. Emails are grouped, so you get one message listing what’s new rather than one per item.

In Settings › Account. Checklists, due dates and reminders follow your time zone.

Managers and administrators can build reports from sections such as Kanban activity, checklist results, security updates, outages and project progress over any date range. Two ready-made reports are included. Print a report or save it as a PDF, or download any section as a CSV file.

Sign-ins and failed sign-ins, changes to sign-in security, invitations, role changes, exports and every change made in the workspace, with who did it, when, and from which IP address. Managers and administrators can view and download it. Entries can’t be edited or deleted. An administrator sets how long they’re kept, from 90 days to 10 years; the default is a year.

Your workspace becomes read-only. Everyone can still sign in and see everything, and an administrator can download all your data, but nothing new can be saved until you subscribe. Nothing is deleted. Administrators get an email reminder 7 days and 2 days before the trial ends, and on the day it ends, and a banner shows the days left.

Contact us at hello@pitlamp.com and we’ll start your subscription. Your workspace carries on exactly as it is.

£9.99 per active user per month, excluding VAT, with every feature included and no minimum number of users. See pricing.

Anyone with an active account in your workspace during the month. Pending invitations and disabled accounts aren’t charged for.

We invoice monthly by email, for the month just ended, payable within 14 days. The full details are in our customer terms.

Yes, at any time, by emailing us from an administrator’s address. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing month, and there’s no cancellation fee.

An administrator goes to Settings › Export and downloads a zip file containing a spreadsheet-friendly CSV file for each type of record and every attached file. It works at any time, including when the workspace is read-only.

Download anything you want to keep, then email us from an administrator’s address. We delete your workspace and everything in it. Deletion can’t be undone. When a subscription ends, the workspace stays read-only for 30 days so you can download your data, and is then deleted. Our privacy policy gives the full retention periods.

Yes. Our data processing agreement is part of our customer terms and covers UK GDPR Article 28. Email us if your organisation needs a signed copy.

Email hello@pitlamp.com. We answer during UK working hours, Monday to Friday, and aim to reply within one working day.