The Admin Panel

The admin panel is where you manage everything on your council website — content, meetings, community features and settings. This page covers signing in securely and finding your way around.

Signing in

Your website has two front doors:

• The public website — what residents see, at your council's web address.
• The admin panel — where staff work, at the same address with /admin on the end (for example yourcouncil.gov.uk/admin).

1. Go to /admin on your website.
2. Enter the email address and password you were given.
3. Select Sign in.

Signing in for the first time

If an administrator set up your account for you, you may be asked to choose your own password straight away. You'll see the message Password reset required and be taken to your Profile. Enter a new password under New password and select Save changes; the rest of the admin panel opens up once you have.

Two-factor authentication (2FA)

For security, council staff accounts can be protected with two-factor authentication — a six-digit code from an app on your phone, in addition to your password. This is strongly recommended for anyone who can edit content.

1. Install an authenticator app (such as Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator or Authy) on your phone.
2. In the admin panel, select your initials (top right), then Profile.
3. Scroll down to Two-factor authentication (2FA) and select Set up beside Authenticator app.
4. Scan the QR code with your authenticator app. If you can't scan it, type the code shown under it into the app instead.
5. Enter the six-digit code the app shows, then select Next.
6. Save the eight recovery codes shown. Select copy or download and keep them somewhere safe away from your phone, such as a password manager. They are only shown once.
7. Select Enable authenticator app.

From then on, each time you sign in you'll be asked for the current six-digit code from the app as well as your password. If you don't have your phone with you, select Use a recovery code instead and enter one of your saved codes. Each code works only once.

The dashboard

After signing in you land on the dashboard. It's organised into tabs so you see the right information at a glance:

Tab	What it shows
Overview	Quick actions, headline stats, a calendar and your next meetings.
Governance	Governance and recent change history.
Community	Resident issues, contact backlog and moderation queues.
Audience & Site	Visitor analytics, newsletter growth and your most-viewed pages.

Finding your way around

The menu down the left groups everything by area, such as Parish Council, Content and Settings. The groups you see depend on which features your council has switched on and what your role allows. Navigation & Search lists every group and what it holds.

Roles at a glance

What you can do in the admin panel depends on your role. Four roles can use it:

Role	Typical use
Super administrator	Full access, including settings and user management.
Clerk	Day-to-day content and community management.
Blog author	Writes and manages their own blog posts.
Page administrator	Edits specific pages they've been given access to.

When you give someone a role you may also see end_user, which is for residents who register on the public website and gives no access to the admin panel, and panel_user, an old role that no longer does anything. See Users & Roles for the full breakdown.

Favourites — quick access to the menus you use most

The left-hand admin menu supports personal Favourites, so the screens you use most are always one click away.

1. Hover your mouse over any item in the left menu — a small star appears to the right of it.
2. Click the star to add that item to your Favourites.

Your starred items appear in a Favourites section pinned to the very top of the menu, keeping your most-used screens within easy reach.

To remove a favourite, click the gold (filled) star again — either in the Favourites section or on the menu item itself.

Working with lists

Most areas of the admin panel open as a list, such as the list of meetings or news articles. Every list has the same tools:

• Search — type in the search box above the list to narrow it down across every column.
• Sort — select a column heading to sort by it; select it again to reverse the order.
• Filter — select the funnel icon above the list to narrow it by a value, such as a meeting's status.
• Columns — show or hide columns so the list shows what you need.
• Bulk actions — tick the box on several rows (or the box in the heading to tick them all), then choose what to do with them together.
• Pages — move between pages at the bottom of the list and choose how many rows to show on each.

Deleted something by mistake?

Deleting almost anything in the admin panel doesn't remove it for good. It disappears from the public website straight away, but it's kept as a deleted record that you can bring back.

1. Open the list it came from, for example News.
2. Select the Filter funnel icon above the list and set Deleted records to Only deleted records.
3. Find the item, select Restore, then Restore again to confirm. It comes back with its web address and content as they were.
4. Select the cross on the Only deleted records filter to see the normal list again.

Only a super administrator can delete something permanently, so day-to-day editing can't remove anything beyond recovery.