# Dashboard

The Dashboard is the screen you land on when you sign in. Think of it as home
base. Click your site name in the top left from anywhere, and you come back
here.

It is a summary, not a place you edit things. Nothing on it changes your
website.

![The Dashboard with four numbered markers: 1 on the Page button at the start of the row of create buttons, 2 on the Media files counter, 3 on the Content panel heading, and 4 on the Recent Activity panel heading.](../../assets/screenshots/dashboard-full.png)

*The whole Dashboard. Four parts, top to bottom.*

**1. The create buttons.** Each one opens a blank form for a new entry: a new
page, a new service, a new photo album. They are shortcuts, nothing more. The
same forms are one click away in the menu on the left, under **Content**. The
last one, **Upload Media**, is the odd one out: it opens your **Media**
library rather than a form.

**2. The three counters.** **Drafts** counts entries you have started but not
published, so the public cannot see them yet. **Media files** counts the
photos and files you have uploaded. **Users** counts the people who can sign
in.

**3. The Content panel.** One row per kind of content, with a mark and a
number. The number is how many you have. A green check mark means those entries are
published, so the public can see them. Orange means drafts, which visitors
cannot see. Click a row to open that list. It is a faster way in than the menu
when you already know what you want.

**4. Recent Activity.** The last ten entries anyone changed, newest first. The
gray label after each name is the kind of content it is. The mark on the left
works the same way as in the Content panel: green for published, and a
different mark for a draft. Click a name to open that entry and edit it.

[Saving and publishing](/start-here/saving-and-publishing/) explains what
published and draft mean for your visitors.

That is the whole screen. Every real job starts in the menu on the left, and
the [tour of the admin panel](/start-here/admin-panel/) walks you through it.