Table of contents

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.

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 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.

By default, the menu system in PrestaShop 1.6 are displayed on the left side of the page. You can switch the menu to the top of the page by using the "Display admin menu" option in your user preference page.

The content of each menu is displayed either when you click in down arrow in vertical format, or when the mouse hovers the menu label in horizontal format, thus reducing the necessity to load new screens just to access menu options. In addition to that, the vertical format can be minimize to only its icons by clicking on the icon at the top of it. In that case, the menu options are display when the mouse hovers the menu label

Each menu applies to a given set of tasks:

Catalog. This is the heart of your shop, where you will add products, create categories, set up carriers and suppliers...
Orders. Once clients start adding products in their carts, you will start seeing orders in this menu, with the resulting invoices. This is also where you handle merchandise returns, credit slips and per-order customer service, among other things.
Customers. Here you can access all the information about your clients, and edit their addresses, create groups of customers to which you can apply special discounts, handle customer service, and even manage social titles if need be.
Price Rules. A very specific menu, enabling you to easily create vouchers and price reductions through a set of rules.
Shipping. Everything pertaining to carriers and shipping costs.
Localization. Helps you localize your shop with local values, such as language and translation, currency, units, taxes and tax rules, and geographical entities (regions, countries, etc.)
Modules. Extend the power and usefulness of your shop by adding and activating modules, a hundred of them being available by default, and many more to buy on the Addons marketplace. This is also where you handle themes, and where modules' blocks get positioned on the theme. One last menu page enables you to apply global settings to payment modules.
Preferences. PrestaShop is a very configurable e-commerce solution, and you can edit just about any of its behaviors using the full-featured preferences.
Advanced Parameters. Contains links to tools and informational pages that are too specific to fit in other menus, such as the Web service settings, the database backup tool, or the performance page, among others.
Administration. Here are the settings pertaining to the back-office itself; for instance, the content of the Quick Access menu, the employees list and permissions, or the menu order, among others.
Stats. Gives access to all the numerous statistics and graphics that are gathered and generated by PrestaShop.

These are the default menus. Note that modules can add new menus, new pages to the existing menus, and even new options to the existing pages.

Also, one menu is only available when the proper option is set:

Stock. This menu gives you access to a whole new feature of PrestaShop 1.5, where you can handle warehouses, stock movement and supply orders.
It can be made available through the "Products" preference page: activating the "Enable advanced stock management" option (in the "Products stock" section).

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.

It ends with 4 boxes, two giving you information, the other two being links to external content.

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.