Getting started with DICE
DICE keeps one digital record — a Thread — for every physical item you care about. By the end of this page you will have created a folder, created your first Thread inside it, and have that Thread open in front of you.
Before you start
- Role
- Team member
Your DICE account is provisioned by your organization: someone invites you, places you on a Team, and you sign in through your organization’s identity provider. There is no self-service sign-up. If you have no invitation yet, the landing page has a Contact Sales link; if you were invited but cannot get in, see I signed in but don’t see my organization.
Sign in
Section titled “Sign in”-
Open your DICE URL in a browser. The landing page greets you with Welcome back.
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Click Sign In and authenticate with your organization’s sign-in service.
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You land on the app Home page. On later visits, an active session shows Go to App instead of Sign In.
Choose your organization and team
Section titled “Choose your organization and team”Everything you do in DICE happens inside a context: an organization and a team within it. Threads, folders, and permissions all belong to a team.
If your account has access to more than one context and none is selected yet, DICE shows the Select your organization and team page after sign-in. Pick an organization, pick a team, and click Continue. You can change this at any time — see Switching context later.
Create your first folder
Section titled “Create your first folder”Every Thread lives in exactly one folder, so create a folder before you create a Thread.
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Open Folders in the sidebar.
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Click New Folder. If your team has no folders yet, the page invites you to “Create your first folder”.
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In the Create a Folder dialog, enter a name and click Create. The hint suggests “Use a short, specific name so the folder is easy to scan later.”
Create your first thread
Section titled “Create your first thread”-
Click New Thread in the sidebar. The Create a New Thread page opens.
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Under Details, enter a Name (required) and optionally a Description.
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Choose a Folder (required). DICE pre-fills your most recently used folder when it can — look for the Last used badge in the folder picker.
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Click Create Thread.
Expected result: a “Thread created” confirmation appears and DICE opens the new Thread’s detail page, showing its fields, files, identifiers, and history. That detail page is where you will spend most of your time; see Threads.
If Quick Create opens instead
Section titled “If Quick Create opens instead”Where Quick Create is enabled, New Thread starts a short two-step flow instead of the full form:
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Add a photo — take or upload a photo of the item, or choose Skip photo. The photo is attached to the new Thread and set as its thumbnail.
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Name and file it — enter a Name, choose a folder, and click Create.
If you need the fields the full form offers — Description, Template, custom fields — choose Add details / full form on the second step. That takes you to the same Create a New Thread page described above.
Choosing a template
Section titled “Choosing a template”The full form has an optional Template. A template pre-populates the form with a Thread Fields section — a reusable set of field definitions your team manages under Threads > Templates. Without a template you get a Custom Fields section where you can add fields freely. Both are covered in Threads.
Bind an identifier to the Thread
Section titled “Bind an identifier to the Thread”A Thread only becomes useful in the field once a physical Identifier on the item points back to it. Binding is the next task after creating a Thread, and the path depends on what is on the item.
Start the same way for either path: on the Thread’s detail page, find the Identifiers card and click Bind. The scanner opens in bind mode — “Scan identifier to bind it to this thread.” A segmented switcher at the top of the scanner selects the input method: DUST, Camera, or Manual.
Bind your first DUST identifier
Section titled “Bind your first DUST identifier”Before you start
- Device
- Dragon or Loupe
A DUST marking can only be read by DUST scanning hardware. A browser camera cannot read it, and neither can the Camera mode, which decodes QR codes, barcodes, and data matrix symbols.
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Connect your scanner. Dragon plugs into the computer over USB — use a direct port rather than an unpowered hub. A Loupe attaches to a compatible MagSafe case over the phone camera it is made for.
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Allow camera access when the browser asks. The DUST scanner reads through the browser’s camera pipeline, so a blocked camera permission stops it.
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Select DUST in the scanner mode switcher. This is the only mode that can read a DUST marking.
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Choose an Indexing Mode: Verify + Identify (“This DUST can be verified against a thread and identified from any scan”) or Cannot be identified (“This DUST can only be verified against the thread it was bound to”).
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Point the scanner at the marking and press Scan, or tap the spacebar.
Expected result: Successfully Bound! and the new identifier appears on the Thread’s Identifiers card.
Once that first scan succeeds, it is worth tuning the view. Scanner Settings lets you pick which connected DUST scanner to use and adjust the reticle DICE overlays to help you center the marking — Show Reticle, Reticle Color, Reticle Style, Blend Reticle, and Fullscreen. If the scanner is not detected you will see Scanner not connected with recovery tips. All of it is covered in Identifiers and scanning.
Bind a QR code, barcode, or NFC tag
Section titled “Bind a QR code, barcode, or NFC tag”No special hardware is needed.
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Select Camera to read the code with the device camera, or Manual to paste, type, or use a HID/Bluetooth scanner (“Manual Entry — Paste, type, or use a HID/Bluetooth scanner.”).
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In Camera mode, line the code up on screen. In Manual mode, choose the identifier type — QR Code, Barcode, Data Matrix, or NFC — enter the value, and press Enter.
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DICE shows a confirmation dialog — for example Confirm QR Bind — with the Detected Value and an optional Tag Description, so you can “Review the scanned value before binding to this thread.” Confirm it.
Expected result: Successfully Bound! and the identifier appears on the Thread.
Likely problems
Section titled “Likely problems”- The camera prompt never appeared, or the scanner says the browser blocked it. Click the camera/lock icon in the address bar, allow camera for this page, and reload. Full steps: The scanner says camera access is denied.
- You signed in but no organization is offered. Check which email you are signed in as, then accept the invitation on screen. See I signed in but don’t see my organization.
- A sidebar entry this page mentions is missing. Modules are enabled per organization, and some entries are role-gated. See Why don’t I see feature X?.
Switching context later
Section titled “Switching context later”The context switcher sits in the app’s top bar and always shows your current organization and team. Click it to open a panel with:
- Current Context — your active organization and team. A shield icon marks contexts where you are an admin.
- Switch Organization — every organization you belong to. Choosing one also selects a default team in it.
- Switch Team — the teams available to you in the current organization.
Switching context changes what you see everywhere: thread lists, folders, and activity all reflect the active team.
Appearance and language
Section titled “Appearance and language”The landing page and the app both offer a theme toggle, and the user menu has a Language submenu. Both choices apply immediately and are remembered. See Navigating DICE.