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Finding your way around

A plain-language map of the Exponential administration - the dashboard, the tabs at the top, the tree on the left, an item's page and its buttons, the right column - and the three places you will use every day.

  • Topic type: Concept
  • For: Visitors Editors Non-technical people
  • doc.help.non-technical-people.first-steps.finding-your-way-around
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On this page

Contents

  1. The three places you use every day
  2. The dashboard
  3. The tabs at the top
  4. The tree on the left
  5. An item's page
  6. A ten-minute exercise

The three places you use every day

  1. The dashboard, to see your unfinished work.
  2. Content structure, to find the page you want to change.
  3. The edit form, to change it.

Everything else you can ignore at first.

The dashboard

After you sign in you see the Dashboard: a greeting, quick links, a few numbers (your drafts, your pending items, content published lately) and lists of recent content (Getting started). The two lists to look at every time:

  • My drafts: changes you started and did not publish.
  • My pending items: changes waiting for someone's approval.

The tabs at the top

TabWhat is there
DashboardYour starting page
Content structureThe pages of the site, as a tree
MediaThe media library: pictures, files, videos
Users, Store, Layouts, Setup and moreOnly when your role allows them

At the right of the header are the Search... field, the Help, your user menu and the sign-out button. If you use the simpler Editor, you see fewer tabs; that is normal (The site and the administration).

The tree on the left

The left column shows the tree: the items of the site arranged like folders. Click the small triangle in front of a name to open a branch, and click a name to open the item. The icon in front of a name opens a menu with actions such as Create here and Edit in (Content items and the tree).

At the bottom of the tree is the Trash, where removed items wait (Undoing a mistake).

An item's page

When you open an item, its page shows:

  • its title, its type (Article, Folder ...) and a badge that says whether it is visible;
  • its content, as it is stored;
  • the buttons: Edit, Move, Copy, Remove, and the round Manage versions button with a clock;
  • under Sub items, the items inside it, with Create new and Upload.

A button you may not use is grayed out; point at it to read why (Creating and editing content).

A ten-minute exercise

Do this once, changing nothing:

  1. On the dashboard, find My drafts. Is anything there?
  2. Click Content structure and open two folders in the tree.
  3. Open an article. Find Edit, Manage versions and Sub items.
  4. Click Media and open the Images folder, if your site has one.
  5. Type a word from your site into Search... and press Enter.
  6. Open Help and type "publish" into its search.

You now know where everything you need lives. A tour of the administration explains the rest of the screen when you are curious.

Become an Exponential Partner. Partners share their information, provide funding, contribute back and develop the products with us, and that is how Exponential grows. A partner website and dashboard are planned for mid-2027: please become a partner today to speed up our growth rate and land new features faster. Start with Partners: start here and How to apply.

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