Navigating Your Dashboard

When you first log into your website's admin area, you'll land on the Dashboard — your home base for managing content. This guide walks you through the layout so you know where everything lives. It pairs with the video above, which covers the same ground in a quick visual tour. 

The Top Admin Bar

The dark bar running across the top of the screen gives you quick access to a handful of tools:

• Site search — search across your entire website.
• Cache — clears your site's cache (covered in a separate video).
• Forms — see all the forms on your site. From here you can jump to Entries to view submissions.
• Home button — takes you to the front-facing page of your website, exactly as your visitors see it.

The Dashboard Home

The main Dashboard screen gives you an at-a-glance overview of your site:

• Recent content — what's been published, how many items are in drafts, and how many are scheduled.
• Scheduled content — see what's queued up and when it will go live. You can adjust the date range to view different time periods.
• User, media, and server health analytics — the top three panels are the ones most worth keeping an eye on.
• Recent comments — this should always read zero. Comments are turned off on your site to prevent spam, since these aren't being actively monitored.

The Left-Hand Menu

The menu down the left side is where you'll manage all your content. Depending on your site, you'll see items like:

• Pages — your site's permanent, structural content: Home, About, Services, Contact. These don't change often and typically form your main navigation.
• Posts — time-based content like news, articles, or blog updates, usually listed by date. The quick rule: Pages are evergreen and standalone; Posts are dated entries in a feed.
• Events, Missions, Forums — content types specific to your site.
• Media — your Media Library, where every image, PDF, and file you've uploaded is stored. You can upload new files here, or add them directly while editing a page or post.
• Users — the people with access to your site.
• Website Options and the Website Guide — site-specific settings and reference material.

Your Profile Widget (Bottom Left)

At the bottom-left corner is your profile menu. From here you can:

• Edit your profile.
• Jump to the front page of the site (same as the home button up top).
• Access site settings (you shouldn't need to touch these).
• Sign out.
• Switch between light and dark mode. Pick whichever is easier on your eyes. One tip: certain plugins or editing screens can be hard to read in dark mode — if text ever looks faint, switch back to light mode and it'll clear right up.

Getting Help

Also on the left, the Website Guide area is your built-in support hub:

• Create help tickets — you'll need to be signed into our help desk for this, which ensures your requests are properly tracked.
• My Tickets — view your open and past tickets.
• Help Center → Your Website — video tutorials specific to your site.
• Help Center → General — generic how-to tutorials. If you can't find something under your site's section, check here.
• Support Portal login — sign in, or click Create Account if you don't have one yet, then submit a ticket.
• Quick Admin Links — I'd bookmark these: your WP Admin and your main website.
• Book an Appointment — want to talk through an idea or request an update? Book a time with us directly here.

You'll also find a breakdown of what your support and maintenance plan does and does not include, plus handy reference links.

Quick tip: You can also open a support ticket just by emailing help@sparrow.media — a ticket is created automatically, as long as you're emailing from the address associated with your account.

What's Next

This is the big-picture tour. The other tools mentioned here — Pages, Forms, Cache, and more — each get their own dedicated video and article so nothing gets overwhelming. Next up: a closer look at Pages.