Find your way around

Nuvolos mirrors the way computational research and teaching projects are organised: Organisations maintain projects, projects consists of various stages of workflows organised in working environments, and working environments consist of files, data, and software applications.

The interface follows that same shape. Nuvolos consists of projects (Spaces), organised into Organisations, and projects contain working environments (Instances), which further have various States, containing files, data and applications.

Once you know the four navigation elements below, you can reach anything in the platform within a few clicks.

This page is a quick tour. For the conceptual model behind the hierarchy, see The hierarchy and resource model. For the role-based view of what you can see and do at each level, see Roles and permissions.

The four navigation elements

Nuvolos provides four ways to move through the platform. You will use all of them, often in combination.

• The Dashboard - your starting point after logging in.

• The breadcrumbs bar - your position in the hierarchy and a way to jump between levels.

• The sidebar - actions available within the currently selected Instance.

• The Account & Settings menu - your profile, secrets, API keys, and resource monitoring.

The Dashboard

The Dashboard is your starting point after logging in. It shows your recent activity and quick-access cards for your most-used Applications, in the context of the most recent Organisation you worked in.

You can return to the Dashboard at any time by clicking the Nuvolos logo in the top left corner.

The breadcrumbs bar

The breadcrumbs bar at the top of the screen shows your current position in the hierarchy and provides links to higher levels. When viewing an Instance, the breadcrumbs show Organisation → Space → Instance → State. Click any level to navigate there directly, or return to the Dashboard by clicking the leftmost element.

You can navigate to anywhere in Nuvolos using just the breadcrumbs.

The sidebar

The sidebar appears once you are inside a Space and Instance. It always refers to the currently selected Space/Instance combination - switching Instance via the breadcrumbs updates the sidebar accordingly.

From top to bottom, the icons lead to:

• Overview - the Space/Instance landing page, including the rendered README.md if one exists.

• Files - the file navigator for the Workspace and Personal areas.

• Tables - the data warehouse view (only visible if tables are activated for the Space).

• Applications - the list of Applications configured in the current Instance.

• Snapshots - create snapshots and browse the snapshot timeline.

• Stage / Distribute - the staging area for distributing files, tables, Applications, or snapshots to other Instances.

Hover over any icon to see its label. The currently active view is highlighted with a darker background.

Finding what you need

Most navigation in Nuvolos is a matter of selecting the right level in the breadcrumbs. The patterns below cover the common cases.

Finding an Organisation

You can only see Organisations for which you have accepted a valid invitation.

To find an Organisation, click the first element of the breadcrumbs bar. Scroll the list, or use the search field to filter. If you cannot find an expected Organisation, confirm that you have accepted the invitation email - see Accepting an invitation.

Finding a Space

You can only see Spaces where you have access to at least one Instance.

To find a Space:

• Select the Organisation containing the Space in the breadcrumbs.

• Click the second breadcrumbs element to open the Space dropdown.

• Use the radio buttons at the top to filter by Courses, Projects, or Datasets.

• By default, only your three most recent Spaces are shown. Use the search field, or click List all at the bottom for the full list.

• To see archived courses or resting projects/datasets, enable the Archived or Resting toggle. These Spaces appear with greyed-out text and are hidden by default.

When you select a Space, Nuvolos automatically opens an Instance for you: if you have access to the Master Instance it opens that, otherwise it opens the first Instance you have editor access to.

Finding an Instance

You can only see Instances where you are an Editor or Viewer.

To find an Instance:

• Select the Organisation and Space in the breadcrumbs.

• Click the third breadcrumbs element to open the Instance list.

• Filter by name or click List all instances to see the full list.

Finding a State (Snapshot or current state)

States represent points in time status within an Instance. The Current State is the live working version; Snapshots are immutable copies.

To find a state:

• Select the Organisation, Space, and Instance in the breadcrumbs.

• Click the fourth breadcrumbs element to open the state list.

• The current state appears under Mutable States; snapshots appear under Immutable Snapshots.

• Click List all snapshots to open the full snapshot timeline view.

Finding an Application

There are three ways to find an Application, depending on what you remember about it.

• If you have used it recently, the Dashboard shows your three most recent Applications.

• If it is currently running, click the desktop monitor icon in the top toolbar.

• For the full list in a course or research project, open the Space and click the Applications icon in the sidebar.

The Account & Settings menu

The Account & Settings menu in the top right corner is your control panel for everything that is yours rather than a Space's. It contains:

• User Settings - profile, environment variables, secrets, SSH keys, API access, Dropbox sync, table access, and Nuvolos Settings (date/time formatting, AI integrations).

• Resources - the resource monitoring dashboard, where you can track NCU consumption, storage usage, and Credit balance for the resource pools you have access to.

• Organization settings (organisation managers only) - organisation-wide configuration including organisation-level secrets and service enablement.

• Tasks and notifications - the bell icon shows running and recent background tasks (for example, distributions, archive extractions) and pending role requests.