Core Concepts
Daylite stores your business as linked objects — people, deals, projects, emails, tasks. Learn the object model, how linking turns records into context, and how to find and finish the work.
At its heart, Daylite is a connected database of your business. Every client, deal, project, email, task, and note is a record — an object — and the power comes from how those objects relate to one another. Where a spreadsheet keeps information in flat, disconnected lists, Daylite keeps it in a single web where everything is linked, classified, and instantly retrievable.
There are four things you do with that data, and this page covers the concepts behind each:
The Object Model — what Daylite stores and how it's structured
Connecting — linking objects into one relational web
Finding — searching, classifying, and segmenting your records
Driving work forward — moving objectives through to completion
These aren't features you switch on. They're the foundation the whole app is built on — everything else sits on top of them.
The Object Model
Every record in Daylite is one of eleven object types, sorted into three tiers: the objectives you're working toward, the contacts you work with, and the things the work is made of. It's a hierarchy — objectives sit on top because everything beneath them eventually feeds one. Picking the right object is the first decision you make every time you add something.
The Productivity Pyramid
Because it's all connected, you can work from whichever layer suits you. Start from a task, a person, or a project — wherever you begin, Daylite surfaces everything linked to it.
The Daylite Object Types
Every record in Daylite is one of these types. Everything else on this page — linking, classifying, searching — operates on them.
Objectives
Opportunity
A potential sale, which can be moved through pipeline stages
When someone might buy from you and you want to track and follow up until the deal is won or lost
Objectives
Project
Work you deliver, which can be moved through pipeline stages
When you've won the work and need to run it through stages to completion
Contacts
Person
An individual you work with
For any individual: a client, lead, colleague, or supplier
Contacts
Company
An organization, business, association, family, or group of people bound together
For anyone you deal with as a unit, such as a firm, an association, or a household
Contacts
User
A member of your team who logs in to Daylite
Created for each teammate, so you can assign tasks, appointments, and records to them
Things
Task
Something to be done. Tasks can be delegated to a user
For anything that needs doing, on its own or as a step in a pipeline
Things
Appointment / Meeting
A scheduled event on the calendar. You can invite People and Users
For anything happening at a set time that belongs on the calendar
Things
Form
A customizable set of fields for structured data
When you capture the same structured details every time on a record
Things
Note
Recorded information
For freeform context (call summaries, decisions, background) kept on the record
Things
A message stored in Daylite with its full content
To keep client correspondence on the record instead of buried in an inbox
Things
File
A document stored in, or referenced from, Daylite
To keep a document with the client, project, or deal it belongs to
Connecting Your Data
On their own, objects are just entries in a list. What follows is how Daylite joins them: the link itself, the meaning a link can carry, and the single timeline that falls out of both.
Linking
Linking is the single most important idea in Daylite. It's the act of connecting objects so related data stays together and lives in one place. It is the glue that turns scattered records into context, and what makes Daylite relational rather than a set of flat lists.
Most software keeps these pieces apart. Your client's details sit in a contacts app, the meeting with them in a calendar, the follow-up in a to-do list, and the proposal in your email. Each app is a silo that knows nothing about the others, so the full picture only ever comes together in your head — and rebuilding it means hopping between apps and hoping you haven't missed anything.
Daylite removes those walls. Because every record is an object and any object can link to any other, a single meeting isn't just on the calendar — it's also on the client it's with and the deal it advances. You file a piece of information once, by connecting it, and it shows up on every record it touches. Context stops living in your memory and starts living in the data.
Links are many-to-many: a single email can link to several people, a company, a project, and an opportunity all at once. A task can link to a company. A note can link to a person and the project it concerns. There's no limit to how many objects one record connects to.
You can search and link from inside a record as you edit it, adding companies, projects, people, or opportunities that appear on the record's details and history. You can create a new object already linked, so a task started from a client's record arrives connected.
Roles and Relationships
Links carry additional meaning.
A Role describes the function someone plays in a specific context. Link a person to a company, an opportunity, or a project and set their role there: Decision Maker, Referral Source, or Lead Designer. The same person can hold different roles on different records.
A Relationship describes how two people, or two companies, know each other: Chuck referred Scott / Scott was referred by Chuck. A relationship belongs to the pair rather than to any one record. It's reciprocal and shows the relation no matter which of the two records you're looking at: open Scott and you see he was referred by Chuck; open Chuck and you see he referred Scott.
Activity View
Open a record and its Activity View shows everything tied to it (every email, note, meeting, task, and deal) in one timeline. Years later, you can pick up a relationship exactly where you left off, with no double-entry along the way.
Finding and Segmenting Your Data
A database is only as useful as your ability to pull the right slice of it on demand. Daylite gives you a layered toolkit, from classification through ad-hoc lookup to permanent, self-maintaining segments.
Categories
A Category is a top-level classification. Each record can only have one, so think of it as the answer to "what type of thing is this?" Every Client is a Client; every Vendor is a Vendor — one clear type with a consistent color that makes it easy to recognize at a glance.
Keywords
Keywords are flexible tags you can add to any record to capture what's important beyond the standard fields. They help you group, filter, and quickly find related records — especially when you want to view your work from a different angle. Think of them as hashtags: add as many as apply, and use them to surface key details like referral source, region, service tier, or product line.
Search
Fast, ad-hoc lookup across the entire database — the quickest way to find one record or a handful.
Filters & Smart Lists
A filter narrows a list down to just the records that match criteria you set — category, keyword, dates, name, email, and so on. It's the quickest way to answer a question like "who haven't I followed up with lately?" But a filter on its own is temporary: it applies to the list in front of you right now and is gone the moment you clear it.
On the Mac, a Smart List saves that filter so you don't have to rebuild it every time. Set the filter rules once, name it, and it lives in your sidebar, ready whenever you need it. Because it's saved, it keeps working on its own — Daylite re-evaluates the criteria as records are added, changed, or removed, so the list is accurate every time you open it. Smart lists are available for every object type.
Driving Work Forward
A well-organized database doesn't close a deal or deliver a project on its own. These three put your records to work — the stages an Opportunity or Project passes through, the details you capture at each one, and the handoffs that move it across your team.
Pipelines
The stages that move an Objective — an opportunity or project — from start to finish, with the specific tasks and appointments each stage requires before you advance.
Forms
Customizable field sets for the structured, business-specific data you need to capture on a record — like a paper form, fully tailored to your workflow.
Delegation
Assign a task to another user and track it through to done. Delegation is how work moves across your team without anything falling through the cracks.
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