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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.

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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, this takes you back to the Dashboard.
• Cart icon. A tooltip indicates the number of new orders, if any. Clicking it opens a panel presenting the new orders since you last clicked that icon. From there on, you can either display one of the new orders, or go to the list of orders.
• Person icon. A tooltip indicates the number of new customers, if any. Clicking it opens a panel presenting the last registered customers. From there on, you can either display one of the new customers, or go to the list of customers.
• Letter icon. A tooltip indicates the number of new messages, if any. Clicking it opens a panel presenting the last customer service message. From there on, you can either display one of the new messages, or go to the list of messages.
• Trophy icon. A tooltip indicates the number of new items, if any. Clicking it opens a panel presenting your progress as a merchant. From there on, you can reach the full page of badges and points, from the "Merchant Expertise" module.
• Quick Access. This is the quick links menu, presenting the most useful links, as set in the "Quick Access" page under the "Administration" menu.
• "Not connected to PrestaShop Addons" link. Opens a modal window enabling you to connect your shop to the Addons marketplace, and thus get updates from the modules and themes you bought.
• "My Shop" link. Opens a new browser tab with your shop's front-end.
• (your name) link. A simple dropdown panel with a reminder of the administrative account with which you are currently logged-in.
  • "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).
  • "Log out" link. Logs you out of the current user account.

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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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• Search field with dropdown list. Enables you to search within the content of your shop.
• Catalog. This is the heart of your shop, where you will add products, create categories, set up carriers and suppliers, etc.
• Orders. Once clients start adding products in their shopping carts, you will see 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.
• Modules. Extend the power and usefulness of your shop by adding and activating modules: more than a hundred are available by default, and many more are available to buy on the Addons marketplace (http://addons.prestashop.com/). This is also where you handle themes, and where you can position the blocks of content from your module on the theme (including the Live Edit feature). One last menu page enables you to apply global settings to payment modules.
• Shipping. Everything pertaining to carriers and shipping costs, as well as marketing.
• Localization. Helps you customize your shop with local values, such as language and translation, currency, units, taxes and tax rules, and geographical entities (regions, countries, etc.).
• 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. This menu 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. This menu gives you access to all the numerous statistics and graphics that are gathered and generated by PrestaShop.

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The "Recommended modules" button presents 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.

Many of the back - office forms are validated with buttons at the bottom of the screen:

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Since version 1.6.0.7 of PrestaShop, the software's documentation is directly embedded into administration interface: clicking on the "Help" button from any back - office page reduces the main interface's width in order to add a new column on the right, which contains the documentation for that section of the back-office.

Another click on the "Help" button closes the contextual help. If you do not close the help column, PrestaShop understands that you want it displayed on every page of the back - office, and thus will maintain the column open until you have clicked to close it.

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