The first thing you will want to do is login with the account created on install or was sent to you from our cloud services. Your initial account is in the administrator member group and therefore has full access to all areas of the Community.
The AdminCP (ACP) is the administration control panel area for your community. It is the place that administrators go to change settings, customize, and implement policies for how members interact on the community.
When you log into the ACP for the first time, you will see the page shown in the image below. If you are happy with how the ACP works, or wish to explore this yourself, you can of course skip.
Quick Setup
If you choose to select this option, it will allow you to quickly add in the main details about your site, such as logos, the name of your site etc.
Quick Setup List
Quick Search
Learn to love the quick search menu as it will save you so much time! From here the system will search the entire AdminCP, member list, Commerce support requests, and more. If you are looking for a member's account to edit you can either go to the Members tab or just enter their name here. Let's say you need to edit a setting but cannot remember where it is: just enter the name and the system will take you there. Perhaps a client has give you their support request number for support: again, just enter the number and there you are. It's a real time saver.
Reorder Menu
The ability to reorder the menu is also quite useful. You can move menu items around and, if you change the root item, when you login that will become your AdminCP landing page. So let's say you are primarily involved in sales on your site: in that case make Commerce your top menu item. Perhaps you are a designer? Make Customization the top item. Then when you login you are taken directly to the most commonly used area for you.
The Dashboard of the AdminCP is normally the default view when you login unless you have chosen to reorder your areas or are restricted.
Dashboard
It serves as a customizable overview of what is going on in your community. There are several widgets you can add/remove from this page and move them around to give you an overview that suits your needs. As you install additional apps new, app-specific widgets may also appear.
There is one widget in particular that is important to note:
There are various actions throughout the Community that cause tasks to be queued for background processing. Sending a bulk email, notifying people of new activity, deleting/moving large amounts of content, rebuilding post content, building the search index, and many more intensive actions. These actions are queued for work so you can continue to use your Suite while these intensive tasks occur without any further interaction from you.
The Background Processes widget allows you to monitor the status of these queue tasks and see their progress.
Background Processes
Within the AdminCP you will see a notifiation 'bell' icon in the top right. This will bring your attention to any notifications that you wish to see, by preference, and also to any items which need your attention such as something going wrong on your server setup.
Notification Alert Icon
When clicked, this will show you the current notifications awaiting your attention. From here you can click to see the full list using the link provided, and can also set up your own preferences for notifications. These preferences are set up per administrator.
Notification List
You can set up to see notifications for various items such as when a user registers, if there is a user who requires validation, when an error is logged, and many more items. It is important to note that some items you will see are greyed out, which are notified by default. You can choose to see these either in the admin notification area, by email, or both.
Notification Preferences
One of the first basic things you will want to set up in your AdminCP will be your general configuration. From here you can enter your Community name, address, copyright, and email addresses that will be notified when there are any updates to the software.
General Configuration
Now that you have logged in, become familiar with the AdminCP, and set your most basic settings you should start exploring the system. A few good places to start are:
The best way to learn is to explore the system and see all it has to offer. Invision Community is very powerful and configurable and you are sure to discover many features that will make your Community all it can be!
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