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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 should make sure to easily find your way through its interface, understand its notification and know where to find one specific bit of information.

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We have created this chapter in order to help you make the best of your discovery of PrestaShop'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 the Dashboard.
• Cart icon. Opens a tooltip presenting the new orders since you clicked that icon. A red tooltip indicates the number of new orders, if any. 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, if any. 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, if any. From there on, you can either display one of the new messages, or go to the list of messages.
• Ribbon icon. Opens a tooltip presenting your progress as a merchant. A red tooltip indicates the number of new items, if any. 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 administrative 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 up to 8 buttons available at the same time.

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The "Modules list" button helps you by presenting you the 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 that it gives an excellent summary of 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:

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Choosing an option updates all the blocks of content that are on the Dashboard so that they display data for the period of time only. Modules that are not stats-based do not change.
In order to choose a period of time, you can either click the first and last date on the calender (the click order does not matter), or you can type the dates in the YYYY-MM-DD format in the text boxes. Clicky "Apply" to see the Dashboard change according to your settings.

The left column

By default, this column presents you with the Activity module, which gives the main figures from your database in a quick glance:

• Online visitors in the last 30 minutes.
• Active shopping carts in the last 30 minutes.
• Currently pending orders, abandoned carts and out of stock products.
• Notifications for new messages, order inquiries and product reviews.
• New customers and new newsletter subscriptions.
• Traffic statistics: visits, unique visitors, traffic sources and direct links.

The central column

The central column is where the term "dashboard" takes its importance: this area of the Dashboard presents the user (you) 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 that these numbers take. This is where you see your shop live and breathe.

The right column

This last column is an informational one: it gives you news from PrestaShop.com, notification about a new PrestaShop version, and useful links.