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Getting Started · Using Insites

Find your way around the admin

Last updated 4 November 2026

The menu, the header, the dashboard, demo data, help panels and dark mode.

The instance admin is where you run your site: your CRM, pages, forms, files, people and settings all live here. This guide shows you the layout once, so every later guide can say go to CRM, then Contacts and you know where that is. It takes about five minutes.

Open the admin

Open your instance in the Console and select its admin, or go straight to your instance address with /admin on the end. You sign in with the same Insites account you use for the Console. See Sign-in and Invitations if you do not have one yet.

The menu

The menu runs down the left. Each item is a module: Dashboard, CRM, Pipelines, Tasks, Assets, CMS, Forms, Permissions, Data, API, Integrations and Settings, plus any extras your instance has, such as Events, Ecommerce or Locator. Select one to open it; most open a list, with the module's own sections beneath it. The button at the top of the header collapses the menu to icons when you want more room.

Every guide on this site names its path from this menu, for example Settings > Instance Configuration means select Settings, then Instance Configuration.

The header

The dark bar across the top holds, from left to right:

  • The instance chip, which names the instance you are in and whether it is staging or production. Select it to switch to another instance you can reach.
  • View frontend, which opens your public site in a new tab.
  • The theme toggle, which switches the admin between light and dark. It remembers your choice.
  • Help, with the keyboard shortcuts list and links to the documentation and support.
  • Your account menu, with My Profile, Show help panels and Sign Out.

Beneath the header, the breadcrumb bar shows where you are, for example CRM / Contacts / Jane Smith. Select any part of it to go back up.

The dashboard

The admin opens on the Dashboard. It has a tab for each area of your instance, such as CRM and Sales, Content and Activity, and each tab shows that area's figures with its own activity feed beside them. The Activity tab is the full event stream: every change made on the instance, newest first.

The menu at the top right of the dashboard (the three dots) has two settings that are yours alone; teammates keep their own:

  • Default view picks which tab opens first.
  • Show demo data fills the dashboard with sample figures so a new instance has something to look at. It is on when an instance is new, and a strip above the greeting says Displaying demo data. Nothing is written to your instance. Turn it off once you have real data, from the strip or from the menu.

Help panels

Some screens open with a card at the top that explains what the screen is for, starting with the dashboard. Select Dismiss permanently when you no longer need it. To bring every panel back, open your account menu and select Show help panels. The choice is saved to your administrator profile, so it follows you between devices.

Your profile and signing out

Open the account menu and select My Profile to change your name, phone number and photo. Sign Out ends your session on this device. An administrator can also set how long an idle session lasts, under Settings > Instance Configuration; see Choose who gets test emails.

Next steps