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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.
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Overview of the interface
The
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Top Bar
At the top of the back-office is a black containing a handful of links:
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Also, a new tab can be made available through the Preferences/Products tab: activating the "Enable advanced stock management" option (in the "Products stock" section) gives you access to a whole new feature of PrestaShop 1.5, where you can handle warehouses, stock movement and supply orders. Once activated, the new "Stock" tab appears on the right of the tab-bar, and you can use it as easily as the other standard tabs.
Each of the default standard tabs (along with the "Stock" tab) are explained in depth in this user guide.
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 at a glance.
The left column
The first element on the left is the introduction video and text. As a first-comer, we strongly advise you to watch the video, as it will serve as a quick visual guide to necessary steps to go through before opening your shop. We'll go into more details in the "Preparing your shop" section below. Once you have viewed the video, you can free some Dashboard real-estate by ticking the "Do not show again" checkbox.
Below the introductory video and text are a handful of quick links, which lead 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 partners banners close the section.
The left column 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 seven key settings that should be taken care of for a healthy shop, written in color which indicates their status: green for "OK", yellow/orange for "advices", 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.
Preparing your shop
You are now getting a pretty good of how complete PrestaShop can be, and the number of possibilities can feel overwhelming. We will therefore guide you some basic actions to set up your shop before the big launch. A lot can be done before you launch your shop, but these steps are the essential configuration steps of any shop.
Deactivate your shop
We'll consider that you are still within the first hour following your installation of PrestaShop
- Create a category
- Create a product
- Payment configuration
- Carrier configuration
- Managing orders
- Template choice