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Root Seven Technologies Admin Site Quick Start
Root Seven Technologies has designed our own centralized, complete system for maintaining web site content and data. The Admin Site is full of tools for building and maintaining the content your visitors can see on your web site. This document will not go into depth on the use of each individual tool, but should give you a head start in building and managing your web site. Further information about each module is available by clicking the Help button at the top of each screen in the Admin Site.
Modules
Root Seven web sites use our own, internally developed, applications we call modules. They are called modules because they are easily dropped into any web site we host. They are a combination of various customer-facing pages and Admin Site tools associated to a specific purpose, such as Customer Relations, eCommerce, Real Estate, and many more.
There are often various styles available for each of these modules, allowing for variation to the layout and even functionality of one or more pages of the module. If you would like something changed in the layout of a module, let us know, as it is often easy to implement certain changes.
Module colors, fonts and sizes are all based on style sheets. When we build a site, we will populate these with common styles used on other sites. If you would like any of these changed, just let us know.
General Utilities
The Company Info tool allows you to provide information about your company to be displayed on your web site, such as name, address, phone number, and location. It is the first menu under 'My Company'.
User Management allows you to give others access to your admin site. Privileges within the site can be limited by assigning the users to roles. Email addresses are also created by adding users. User Management also allows you to identify what site notifications the user will receive, configure email auto responders and forwarding, and add users to Departments, which also act as mailing lists. User Management is found under 'My Company'.
People often want the text, generally instructions at the top of a page, to suit their specific needs. Many of this text are found and edited easily in the 'Custom Messages' tool. This is under the 'My Web Site->Content' menu.
Navigation of your site is of obvious importance. Sites can have one, two, or more navigation bars in their site. Front standard links, to pull downs or other animation, all navigation bars are made up of titles and targets. The title is what a person sees, and the target is where they are taken when they click the title. Nav Bar Management allows you to change these easily for any of your navigation bars, and is found under 'My Web Site->Nav Bar'.
Traffic reports, error logs and more are available under the 'Reports' menu. These are worth a look-see, and if you need more specific reports, let us know...they are often easy to generate. We collect abundant information for our own reporting and troubleshooting.
Content Module
The most commonly used module is the Content Module. This simply allows you to build, edit, and post web pages for your site. In general, you only need to enter the body content for a page here, as it will be displayed within the headers, footers, navigation bars, etc of your page layout.
The tool to maintain pages is called 'Page Text Management' and is found under the 'My Web Site->Content' menu. The editor there allows you to enter content, as you would in a regular word processor, with various fonts, colors, even table, link, and image tools. There is generally no limit to the number of pages you can create and display on your site, and the Search Module indexes all pages entered.
Image Module
The Image Gallery is handy for posting photographs from an event, pictures of your products, staff or properties, and artwork for your site. Images can be uploaded and organized within the admin site, and are automatically thumb nailed and bordered per your configuration. Configuration is done via Site Configuration under 'My Web Site'.
If needed, you can also upload images via FTP, just let us know, as you will need an account set up for this. Once processed, and activated, the images will appear in the gallery module on your website. They will also be available for selection in the Content, Product, Real Estate, Blogging, and other tools.
Document Module
In addition to text and pictures, many companies need to post full documents or files for download on their web site. Music, movies, PDF's and more can be uploaded to the site and made available for browsing and download.
These files can be important assets, requiring various levels of protection. For each file added, you can select whether it's available for public access, access only to registered visitors, access only to visitors you select via Customer Management, or access only via the Admin Site for remote internal use.
Every view of each document is tracked, and reports are available for viewing this traffic. The files uploaded are not in the document root for web sites, and are thus protected from unauthorized access. Proper authentication is required for each download of any non-public file, so distributed links will not be useful.
Access to these files can be provided in many ways. They can even be sold online using our Cart Module. For more information about file security, please contact us. The Document Module is found at 'My Web Site->Documents'.
Product Module
Whether you intend to sell products online, or just provide a catalog for browsing, products are the heart of many web sites. Products added can be displayed in many formats, and their names and descriptions are index for our Search Engine module. Multiple images can be added for each product from the Image Gallery, as can manuals, faqs, software and white sheets from Document Management. Complex hierarchies can be built, including kits and assortments.
The Product Module supports various product types, including Inventory, Non-Inventory, Services, and more. Obviously, the Product Module is a key component to our Ecommerce system, along with the Customer Module and the Cart Module. The Product Module is found at 'My Company->Products'.
Customer Module
The Customer Module is a combination of online registration and authentication for web sites, customer identification for the Cart and Document Modules, and a functional Contact Management tool.
The registration piece of the system supports a dynamically generated questionnaire with optional email verification that adds visitors to your Customer database. This also allows people to opt in or out of email distributions. When a registration form is completed, an email is sent to selected users. These users can be selected via User Management.
The login piece allows visitors to identify themselves, and is automatically called when a visitor attempts to reach an area of the site requiring identification when none has yet been given. This also includes a password reminder tool.
The information collected is stored in our Customer Management System, a company-centric database of contacts and site visitors, allowing you to manage contact information, order history, site privileges, usernames and passwords, and much more. This is also the database used by our email distributions tool, and is a key component of the Cart Module.
Cart Module
The Shopping Cart Module allows you to build an online store to sell many kinds of products. From unique, serialized items to bulk non-inventory products to online document access, the Cart Module will let your visitors build and pay for an order. Various discount, shipping and payment are supported. If you're confident in your volume, we support integrated credit card authorization and settlement. Otherwise, you can manually authorize and settle orders with your current bank. All options are configured via the admin site.
Blog Module
Blogging has become mainstream of late, and is an excellent way to communicate your ideas with not only visitors, but also search engines. Root Sevens blogging tool supports easy formatting of your document along with the insert of images from your gallery. It also supports visitor comments with a convenient email-based system for author censorship before they are posted. This tool is found under 'My Web Site->Blogging'.
Locations Module
If your business has retail locations, posting the location, directions, map, hours, phone number and photographs can make your site a tool to draw customers to your stores. This data is entered under 'My Company->Locations'.
Contact Module
The Contact Module is a simple tool that allows you to build your own contact form. When the form is filled out, the answers are emailed to your users. It is better than posting an email address on line because email harvesters collect your email address for spam mailing list. Contact forms also allow you to make sure the necessary information is collected so you can promptly and accurately answer your visitor’s query. The questions are configured under 'My Web Site->Forms->Contact'.
Support Module
The Support Module is a web based ticket system. Visitors can open new tickets or view existing tickets when logged in to your web site. They can also create a ticket by emailing a special support address, where they will be automatically added to the system. Admin Users can create, view and update tickets via the admin site. Any ticket creation or update automatically sends emails to the appropriate persons, and responses to these emails will be added to the ticket as well.
The Support Module is an excellent system for making sure your visitors issues are tracked and resolved in timely manner, allowing a number of staff to see the current status and history of a visitor issue, and not to overrun another member already dealing with the issue. The data recorded will be used to create a dynamic knowledge base, allowing customers to solve their own problems when your staff is not available.
News Module
The News Module is an easy tool for building a page or simple listing of your company's recent events and press. A good tool to add to your home page, a great tool for adding content to your site. You can even attach press documents to news events. It can also be used to show upcoming events.
Links Module
Many companies post links on their site to partner companies, associations of interest, sites used for reference, and affiliate sites. The Links Module not only makes it easy to post these links, but also provides for tracking their use, and doesn't allow them to drain page rank from your site.
Calendar Module
Let your visitors know what's coming. The Calendar Module allows you to post events or availability easily and in several different formats. It's also useful as a shared calendar system for your office. Numerous calendars can be posted, and access to them can be limited to certain users.
Mail Module
Distributing emails to your customers is not spamming. The Mail Module makes it easy to send newsletters and updates to customers who have solicited them by registering with your web site. It provides for the tracking of visits to your site from links in the email. It includes a simple, web bases opt-out to avoid angering customers. And it even builds a history of previous distributions so visitors can see them online.
Staffing Module
The Staffing Module is a toolkit designed for the Temporary and/or Permanent Employment industry. It allows site visitors to fill out online applications and/or upload resumes and see available openings. It allows customers to post new job orders, record hours, and provide feedback on employees. It allows Admin Site Users to track availability, interview information, contact information, and more, and provides a weighted tool for searching the database for employees with the appropriate skills and interests required by an employer for accurately filling job orders.
Real Estate Module
The Real Estate Module allows for the posting of available properties with a variety of features and specifications. Images can be posted from your gallery. Agents can be assigned to a property. Payments calculators are included. Where available, properties from commercial sources can be automatically posted on the site. And a convenient search tool is available for your visitors to narrow in on properties that might interest them.
Testing Module
Online Exams have become commonplace. Whether for practice, or for certification, the Testing Module is an excellent tool for building dynamic tests and providing results to the administrator. Post a set of questions and multiple-choice answers to be randomly selected from at the start of the examination. The visitor can answer questions in any order they'd like, and when completed, the scores are available to the teacher. Diagrams can even be provided in the question.
Team Sports Module
Today’s amateur athlete wants all the attention of the pros. And league directors need the tools to provide them. The Team Sports Module is a great way to post applications, sign up events, practice and game schedules, coach contact information, player stats and more. Dues can be collected online. Player pictures can be posted. More to come... |
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