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Admin Panel

Touring the Admin Panel

The Admin Panel is the staff-facing home screen — the first thing administrators and operations users see when they sign in. It's a dashboard of quick links, KPIs, and shortcuts to the most-used parts of the application.

Admin Panel home screen showing a top KPI bar (open tickets, today's revenue, new signups, errors), a 3-column grid of navigation cards (Users, Orders, Settings, Reports, etc.), recent activity feed on the right, and a quick-action toolbar at the top

What You See

  • KPI bar: Today's most important numbers — total active users, orders in the last hour, revenue this month, open support tickets, failed background tasks.
  • Navigation cards: Grouped by category (Operations, Configuration, Reporting), each opens a particular admin section.
  • Recent activity feed: Last 20 noteworthy events — new signups, large orders, failed payments.
  • Quick actions toolbar: Common actions a click away — create user, send broadcast, view error log.
  • Saved searches: One-click access to filtered views the admin uses frequently.

Customisation Levels

  • Per-user: Hide cards you never use, reorder, pin favourites.
  • Per-group: Default layout for each security group (e.g. support team sees ticket cards prominently; finance sees revenue and invoices).
  • Per-tenant: Brand colours, custom logos, tenant-specific KPIs.
  • Per-platform: Custom panels via the Page Builder.

Worked Examples

  • Operations dashboard: KPI bar shows today's tickets, calls, escalations. Cards link to ticket queue, knowledge base, agent performance reports.
  • Finance dashboard: KPI bar shows MRR, churned customers, overdue invoices. Cards link to invoicing, subscription management, Stripe sync status.
  • Marketplace operations: KPI bar shows new vendor applications, disputes, GMV. Cards link to vendor approval queue, dispute mediation, fraud review.
  • Product team: KPI bar shows feature usage, NPS, error rate. Cards link to feature flags, A/B test results, error log.
Tip: Each group's default layout should answer “if I look at this screen first thing in the morning, do I know my day's priorities?”. Anything that doesn't help with that should be hidden or moved off the home view.

Architect Panel vs Admin Home

ActiveManage has two distinct admin surfaces — the Admin Home (day-to-day operations) and the Architect Panel (build-time configuration). Knowing which to open for which task saves clicks and prevents accidental changes.

Side-by-side: Left shows Admin Home with operational dashboards, ticket queues, user search; Right shows Architect Panel with categorised list of build-time tools — Datastores, Permissions, Workflows, API

Admin Home

For everyday operational work — handling tickets, updating customer records, sending broadcasts, reviewing reports, processing approvals. Anyone with operations permissions lands here.

Architect Panel

For build-time configuration — defining datastores, designing forms, configuring permissions, setting up integrations, managing security. Restricted to administrators and developers.

Side-by-Side Comparison

  • Admin Home: CRUD on records. Architect Panel: CRUD on the schema records live in.
  • Admin Home: View a user. Architect Panel: Add a custom field to the user record.
  • Admin Home: Approve a vendor application. Architect Panel: Define what a vendor application form should ask.
  • Admin Home: Send a one-off broadcast. Architect Panel: Configure the broadcast template and audience rules.
  • Admin Home: Read a report. Architect Panel: Define what queries that report runs.

Permissions

  • Anyone in an operations group can see Admin Home.
  • Only Architect group members can see the Architect Panel.
  • Within Architect, fine-grained permissions control which sections are editable.

Worked Examples

  • Support agent: Lives in Admin Home; never touches Architect.
  • HR admin: Admin Home for user management, Architect to add a new custom field to user profiles.
  • Developer: Architect Panel for configuration, occasional dip into Admin Home for testing.
  • Product manager: Architect Panel for feature flags; Admin Home for usage reporting.

Building a Custom Admin Panel Layout

The default admin panel is a sensible starting point. Custom layouts adapt it to each team's actual workflow — fewer clicks, more relevant data, less noise.

Layout editor with drag-and-drop panels: KPI tiles, Recent activity, Navigation cards, Custom report widget, Quick-action buttons; each block sized in a grid with snap-to-grid lines

Layout Building Blocks

  • KPI tile: Single number + trend arrow. Linked to a saved query.
  • Chart widget: Embedded chart from the reporting engine.
  • Recent activity feed: Filtered by event type, audience, time window.
  • Navigation card: Icon + title + link to a destination.
  • Quick action: Button that triggers a workflow or opens a creation form.
  • Saved search: One-click into a filtered list view.
  • HTML/markdown block: Free-text notes, announcements, “welcome back” messages.
  • Live status indicator: Service health, queue length, error rate.

Step-by-Step

  1. Open Architect Panel → Admin Panel → Layouts.
  2. Click New layout and pick a name (e.g. “Support team”).
  3. Drag blocks from the palette onto the canvas grid.
  4. Configure each block — query, fields, link target.
  5. Resize and reorder blocks; the grid snaps for clean alignment.
  6. Save and assign to a security group (everyone in that group gets the layout).
  7. Optionally allow users in that group to customise further (hide/show, reorder).

Worked Examples

  • Support team: KPI tiles for open tickets, queue length, avg response time. Recent activity filtered to tickets. Quick actions for “create ticket”, “view escalations”.
  • Sales team: KPI tiles for new leads, pipeline value, deals won this week. Embedded pipeline chart. Quick actions for “new lead”, “open dialer”.
  • Marketplace operations: KPI tiles for new vendor applications, disputes, GMV. Live status indicator for the vendor approval queue.
  • Executive view: Charts of MRR, churn, NPS, conversion. Minimal navigation — just the reports they care about.
Tip: Start by talking to the people who will use the layout. Don't guess what they want on the screen — ask. Show them a draft, iterate, then deploy.