How to login to the website and an overview of the administration dashboard.
To login into any WordPress site that hasn’t modified the defaults, you can go to either example.com/wp-admin or example.com/wp-login.php so in your case, you would go to http://jeanaugustinecentre.ca/wp-admin to sign in. From here you can enter your username and password, and check the checkbox to save your details in your browser if you wish, or reset your password if you’ve forgotten it. If you do this, be sure to check your spam folder, as password resets often end up there.
If you’re like me, you might consider a service like 1Password or Last Pass to manage your own and your team’s passwords.
When you log in, you’ll be taken to the WordPress dashboard from which you can access all the different parts of your website. It may look slightly different for different users. There are at least two reasons for this: different users have different levels of access – for example an admin user will have more options than an editor user. (We will get to adding and modifying users in its own section on Users.) Additionally, you can customize your dashboard, collapsing 'widgets' and dragging them around.
Let‘s look at the Dashboard menu for an admin-level user.
I’ll start with the ones I think you will use regularly before explaining the ones I doubt you will use at all:
Dashboard – takes you back to the dashboard when you are in a sub-page
Home – same as above
Updates – lets you run updates to WordPress, plugins, themes and more. Note: I nearly always recommend running available updates for security reasons. But there is a (small) risk it can produce unexpected consequences. Still, I would suggest running updates when they are available.
Posts – if you start to make use of blogging, this is where you would do it. Currently, there is no active blog on the site, so this might be something to keep in mind for later.
Note: If you were going to start blogging, it wouldn’t be enough to start adding posts here. We would want to add a blog page too, perhaps as well as a section of recent posts on the home page, etc.
Events – this is where the calendar’s events are added, modified and deleted, as well as adjusting settings for the calendar. For the full guide, please see the section on Events.
Media – this is one spot where you are able to upload and modify media files, such as images and PDFs. You will rarely need to use this section except when you need to get the link of a PDF – then it can come in handy. For examples of this, please see the section on Pages.
Pages – this is probably the most useful link. This gets you to a full list of pages on your site. For the full guide, please see the section on Pages.
WPForms – here you can manage forms on your website, as well as seeing entries. Currently it is just being used to collect Newsletter sign-ups, so you may not need this too much.
Appearance – there are a couple important site-wide subsections beneath here:
Customize – This leads you to a section where you can customize some of the theme design. We don’t make full use of it, but some key elements of the Home page, for example, are edited here. For a full guide, please see the section on the Customize page.
Widgets – Widgets are little blocks of content that can appear across multiple or all pages. Because of your specific design, we don’t make extensive use of it, but it is used to control the footer. For a full guide on editing the footer widgets, please see the section on the Footer.
Menus – This is where the main menu is managed, as well as any other menus in use on the site. For a full guide on editing menus, please see the Menus section.
Users – this is where you can add new users, remove old ones, reset passwords and update permission levels. For the full guide, please see the section on Users.
All-in-One WP Migration – a section to create backups.
Note: It might be worth creating backups periodically (once a moth or week, e.g.). Click Export To > File to run a full backup.
Just for your information or curiosity, here are some quick notes on the remaining items:
Comments – where blog comments are managed. Without a blog, this isn't an issue.
Genesis – where a number of theme options are set. For advanced development; unlikely to be needed from day-to-day.
Plugins – a key section to add new functionality to the site via plugins, but best left to a developer or experienced WP user.
Tools – a section of more technical features.
Settings – a collection of various site-wide settings. Unlikely to need ongoing maintenance.
SEO – settings relating to how links appear in Google and on social media. Best left to a developer or experienced user if edits are needed.
Soliloquy – the plugin to handle the Instagram carousel.
Gutenberg – settings relating to the WordPress editor. Shouldn’t need ongoing maintenance.
Google Analytics – settings relating to Google Analytics integration.
Note: The key metrics from your Analytics will be showcased on the main dashboard page. Look for them there.
