Hope you have some time on your hands because this baby is slower than I hoped.  I wanted something that would help me clean my expansive floors more quickly. 
That being said, it basically works itself. It powers up nice and all you have to do is gently guide it to the areas you want. It propels itself forward. 
Also the handle wouldn't snap in easily as the instructions say as the cord connecting the handle to the vacuum kinks and gets in the way of it snapping into place. I was going to have my husband "jerry-rig" it somehow... but as my daughter was using it anyway it kind of slid into place by itself. So it all worked out.