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Discovering the administration area

Now that you have installed PrestaShop 1.6 and that you are properly logged-in to your administration area, you must spend a good amount of time making sure every part of your future online shop is properly set up, secured, validated and ready for business.While PrestaShop makes it easy for you to install it and build your business online, it cannot possibly be 5-seconds work: you are dealing with products, customers, and most importantly with real actual money that will be flowing from your customers to your bank account. We dare say you want to make sure nothing fails in the process of validating an order, having the products be found on your storage location, packaged, and shipped to your customers without a single glitch, or even without anything unpredicted happening without your knowledgeshould make sure to easily find your way through its interface, understand its notification and know where to find one specific bit of information.

We have created this chapter in order to help you make the best of your discovery of PrestaShop. Follow its directions to the letter's administration interface. It has been designed to be very ergonomic and easy to use, but be aware that you should read the whole guide in order to get a perfect grasp of your new online business tool!

Overview of the main interface

Take the time to survey the Dashboard – that is, the first page you see when logging into your back-office. Not only does it present you with a summary of everything you need to know about your shop at any given time, along with quick links to the main action page, but as a first-timer in PrestaShop, it also gives you tips about what you should have a look at.

The top bar

At the top of the back-office is a black bar containing a handful of links:

• (name of your shop). From any page, takes you back to your Dashboard.
• Cart icon. Opens a tooltip presenting the new orders since you clicked that icon. A red tooltip indicates the number of new orders. From there on, you can either display one of the new orders, or go to the list of orders.
• People icon. Opens a tooltip presenting the last registered customers. A red tooltip indicates the number of new customers. From there on, you can either display one of the new customers, or go to the list of customers.
• Letter icon. Opens a tooltip presenting the last customer service message. A red tooltip indicates the number of new messages. From there on, you can either display one of the new messages, or go to the list of messages.
• Trophy cup icon. New in 1.5.4. Opens a tooltip presenting your progress as a merchant. A red tooltip indicates the number of new items. From there on, you can reach the full page of badges and points, from the "Merchant Expertise" module.
• Search field with dropdown list. Enables you to search within the content of your shop – even within your administration page, if you can't remember where an option is set.
• Quick Access. This is the quick links menu, presenting the most useful links, as set in the "Quick Access" page under the "Administration" menu.
• "View My Shop" link. Opens a new browser tab with your shop's front-end.
•  (your name). A simple menu with a reminder of which admin account you are currently logged-in with.
  • "My Preferences" link. Takes you to your account's preferences page, where you can set some personal options (for instance, the back-office language or your password).
  • "Logout" link. Logs you out of the current user account.

The menus

All along your daily activities administrating your shop, you will have to browse through the many pages and options of the back-office.

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All the default standard menus, including the "Stock" menu, are explained in depth in this user guide.

The button bar

Many of the back-end pages have a button bar between the menu bar and the actual content of the page. For instance, the product edition page can have 8 buttons available.

More than simple shortcuts, they open actual features that you will use very often.

The available buttons vary a lot depending on the context, and therefore two pages might not feature the same set of icons. Still, there are a few that you will often see:

• Add new. Opens the creation page of the current context.
• Save. Saves the content of the current page and returns to the list of existing items.
• Save and stay. Saves the content of the current page and keep the page open.
• Back to list. Returns to the list of existing items.
• Modules list. New in v1.5.4. Open a pop-in window containing the modules available in the current context.
• Help. Opens the online documentation for the current page.

The modules list is a new feature brought by PrestaShop 1.5.4, which makes it possible to see modules which apply to the current context. For instance, in the "Shipping > Carriers" page, it will display the modules from the "Shipping & Logistics" category of modules. This is very helpful when you need to quickly find which module to install and configure in order to get a given result.

The Dashboard

Let's now explore the content of the Dashboard itself. It can feel crowded to first-time user, but you will find it gives an excellent summary your shop's daily activities at a glance.

The dashboard is divided in 4 zones: an horizontal bar, and three columns.

The horizontal bar

At the top of the Dashboard is a single bar which helps you choose the period of time for the currently displayed dashboard statistics. Three sets of options are available:

• Current day, month or year.
• Previous day, month or year.
• Precise date selection.

The left column

This column starts with a handful of quick links, which lead to some of the most useful pages at this stage of your exploration of PrestaShop. These buttons should help you get going with your daily task quicker, as they are some of the most accessed features of PrestaShop. Two partner banners close the section.

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The most interesting box at this stage is the "Configuration checklist" box, which displays the state of seven key settings that should be taken care of in order to have a healthy shop. These states are written in colors which indicate their status: green for "OK", yellow/orange for "advice", red for "must be done". We will explore this box in details in the "Preparing your shop" section below.
The "PrestaShop Links" box gives you useful links to this very user guide (online edition), its paper edition and the documentation site itself, along with links to the community forums and the Addons website, where you will be able to buy and sell modules and themes.
The "PrestaShop News" box gives you the latest news about PrestaShop, from the official blog.
Finally, a box is dedicated to a message from our partners.

The right column

The right column is where the term "dashboard" takes its importance: this side of the Dashboard presents the user with the most important numbers pertaining to his shop's daily activities, along with a graph of sales and a list of the latest orders. Every time you log into your shop's administration area, you will be first and foremost looking at the evolution these numbers take. This is where you see your shop live and breathe.

The button bar

Many of the back-end pages have a button bar between the menu bar and the actual content of the page. For instance, the product edition page can have 8 buttons available.

More than simple shortcuts, they open actual features that you will use very often.

The available buttons vary a lot depending on the context, and therefore two pages might not feature the same set of icons. Still, there are a few that you will often see:

• Add new. Opens the creation page of the current context.
• Save. Saves the content of the current page and returns to the list of existing items.
• Save and stay. Saves the content of the current page and keep the page open.
• Back to list. Returns to the list of existing items.
• Modules list. New in v1.5.4. Open a pop-in window containing the modules available in the current context.
• Help. Opens the online documentation for the current page.

The modules list is a new feature brought by PrestaShop 1.5.4, which makes it possible to see modules which apply to the current context. For instance, in the "Shipping > Carriers" page, it will display the modules from the "Shipping & Logistics" category of modules. This is very helpful when you need to quickly find which module to install and configure in order to get a given result.