Initial View

After logging in to an Umbraco project you will be presented with a dashboard containing a wide array of buttons and features. Let's quickly go through what each feature does.

The Dashboard

By default, there are two dashboards available:

1. The Getting Started dashboard provides helpful information about Umbraco.

2. The Redirect URL Management dashboard displays the original and redirected links of the published pages which are moved to a new location in your project.

Search, Help, and Profile Settings

1. The Search bar allows you to search for the content in your entire project.

2. The Help icon provides different Help options such as Tours, Umbraco Learning Base YouTube videos, Umbraco Documentation, and your System Information.

3. The profile icon allows you to edit your profile, change the password, and Logout from the application.

The Sections Menu

The following sections are available in the backoffice:

• Content - allows to manage your content.

• Media - allows to manage images and other media files.

• Settings - allows to handle your meta data such as document types.

• Packages - allows to manage and install packages.

• Users - allows to manage the users on the project. To learn more about users, see the Users article.

• Members - allows to handle the members of the project. If you want to learn more about Members, see the Members article.

• Forms - allows to create and manage your forms.

• Translation - allows to manage dictionary items.

The menu list will differ depending on your permissions for the project. For example: if you are an editor, then you will only have access to Content, Media, and Forms as per the default settings.

The Section Tree

The section tree is different depending on the section you are in.

In this example, you are looking at the content section. The section provides an overview of the nodes contained in the tree.

The Content tab allows you to create content nodes and manage your content tree. When you hover over the sections, it is highlighted with a darker color indicating that you are hovering over it. A button with three dots will show up, left-click or click the + icon to view additional options.

The Recycle Bin contains the deleted content and is available only in the Content and the Media section.

In this section, you will find all the relevant topics to help you get started with Umbraco:

The Umbraco content tree view allows you to navigate web pages through a logical site hierarchy. You can find a page by navigating through the tree itself if you know where the page is stored.

Searching in Umbraco

A quicker way to search across all the content, files, or folders in Umbraco is to click the Magnifier icon in the top-right of the screen. Alternatively, you can use the keyboard shortcut CTRL + SPACE to access the Search bar.

Using the search bar, you can enter a search term and Umbraco will search for pages and media containing the term.

Logging in

To access the Umbraco Backoffice:

1. Open your web browser and enter your website domain name followed by /umbraco (for example: http://www.company.com/umbraco/). A login screen appears.

2. Enter your Email and Password provided by your system administrator.

3. Click Login.

Logging Out

To log out of the Umbraco Backoffice:

1. Select the profile picture in the top-right of the screen.

2. Click Logout.

Content Within the Tree View

When you are looking to edit content, locate the page you want to edit in the Content tree on the left-side of the screen.

To edit existing content, follow these steps:

1. Go to the Content section.

2. Select the page in the section tree you wish to edit. The content of the page is loaded in the right-side editor.

3. Edit the contents of the page.

4. Click Save to save the edits without publishing it.

5. Click Save and preview to preview the changes.

View Page Layout

By default, you can view Page layouts in two ways:

1. List

   When you enable Collection on a page, there will be no standard tree view for that page. Clicking on the parent page displays the child pages in a list.
2. Grid

To enable Collection:

1. Go to Settings.

2. Navigate to the Document Type you wish to configure as a Collection.

3. Go to the Structure tab.

4. Click Configure as a Collection in the Collections field.

5. Select List View - Content.

6. Click Save.
7. Click Save.

Additionally, you can sort the list items by the Name, Last Edited, and Updated By columns in either ascending or descending order.

The pages in Umbraco are placed in the tree structure according to a predefined sort order. The most recently created page is placed at the bottom of the tree structure. You can change the order of the pages by using the Sort function.

You can sort pages in two ways:

Option 1

1. Go to Content.

2. Navigate to the parent node whose child nodes you wish to sort.

3. Click ... next to the page you wish to sort.

4. Select Sort children of.
5. A window appears on the right-side of the screen. Here, you can arrange the child nodes in the order you want by dragging them up or down.
6. Click Save and then Close.

Option 2

1. Go to Content.

2. Select the parent node whose child nodes you wish to sort.

3. Click Actions in the top-right corner of the screen.

4. Select Sort children of from the Actions drop-down menu.
5. A window appears on the right-side of the screen. Here, you can arrange the child nodes in the order you want by dragging them up or down.

6. Click Save and then Close.

Move pages within the website through the tree view. Not all pages can be moved depending on your set-up or page permissions. If you need clarification, contact your system administrator.

You can move a page in two ways:

Option 1

1. Go to Content.

2. Click ... next to the page you wish to move.

3. Select Move to.
4. A window appears on the right side of the screen. Here, you can choose where you want to move the page in the tree structure.
5. Click Move.

6. A confirmation message appears. Click OK to dismiss the confirmation message.

Option 2

1. Go to Content.

2. Select the page you wish to move.

3. Click Actions in the top-right corner of the screen.

4. Select Move to from the Actions drop-down menu.
5. A window appears on the right side of the screen. Here, you can choose where you want to move the page in the tree structure.

6. Click Move.

7. A confirmation message appears. Click OK to dismiss the confirmation message.

If you have pages that are no longer required for your website, you can delete them. Upon deletion, the page is moved to the Recycle Bin and is not deleted permanently.

In case you wish to restore the page, you can restore them from the Recycle Bin. You also have the option to empty the Recycle Bin which permanently deletes all the items.

Deleting a Page

To delete a page:

1. Go to Content.

2. Click ... next to the page you wish to delete.

3. Select Trash.

   Alternatively, click Actions in the top-right corner of the screen and select Trash.
4. A window appears confirming if you want to delete the page.
5. Click OK.

6. A confirmation message appears. Click OK to dismiss the confirmation message.

Restoring a Deleted Page from the Recycle Bin

The Recycle Bin is a separate tree list which can be found at the bottom of the section tree view. Clicking the arrow to the left of the Recycle Bin icon will reveal any pages that have been deleted from the website.

To restore deleted pages from the Recycle Bin:

1. Click ••• next to the page in the Recycle Bin and select Restore.

   You can also click Actions in the top-right corner of the screen and select Restore.
2. A window appears confirming if you want to restore the page.
3. Click Restore.

4. A confirmation message appears. Click OK to dismiss the confirmation message.

Emptying the Recycle Bin

If you are confident you no longer require any pages in the Recycle Bin, you can permanently delete it. You can delete pages one by one or empty the Recycle Bin in one go.

To empty the Recycle Bin:

1. Click ••• next to the Recycle Bin and select Empty recycle bin.
2. A message appears confirming if you want to empty the recycle bin.
3. Click OK.

To delete individual pages from the Recycle Bin:

1. Click ••• next to the page from the Recycle Bin and select Delete.

   You can also click Actions in the top-right corner of the screen and select Delete.
2. A message appears confirming if you want to delete the page.
3. Click OK.

4. A confirmation message appears. Click OK to dismiss the confirmation message.

Re-use a page or a tree structure you have previously created by copying the parent page and its child pages to a different section within the site structure.

When you copy a parent page all of its child pages are also copied, by default. You can choose if you want to copy the child pages or not. You can also choose whether the links should be automatically updated or continue to link to the original pages.

You can copy a page in two ways:

Option 1

1. Go to Content.

2. Click ... next to the page you wish to copy.

3. Select Duplicate to.
4. A window appears on the right side of the screen. Here, you can choose where you want to copy the page in the tree structure.
5. Toggle Relate to original button if you want to keep the links linked to the original page.

6. Toggle Include descendants if you want to copy the child pages alongside the parent page.

7. Click Duplicate.

8. A confirmation message appears. Click OK to dismiss the confirmation message.

Option 2

1. Go to Content.

2. Select the page you wish to copy.

3. Click Actions in the top-right corner of the screen.

4. Select Duplicate to from the Actions drop-down menu.
5. A window appears on the right side of the screen. Here, you can choose where you want to copy the page in the tree structure.

6. Toggle Relate to original button if you want to keep the links linked to the original page.

7. Toggle Include descendants if you want to copy the child pages alongside the parent page.

8. Click Copy.

9. A confirmation message appears. Click OK to dismiss the confirmation message.

In this section, you will get an overview of how to create and save pages. You will also learn more about how to publish and unpublish your content, as well as how you can compare content between multiple environments. Finally, you will also get an introduction to how you can transfer your created content to another environment.

Creating a New Page

Select the parent page to create your new page. The parent page can be the home page or any of the sub-pages of the site.

If the parent page allows sub-pages underneath it, follow these steps:

1. Hover over the name of the parent page in the Content section and click ••• to view the types of pages you can create.

2. Select the page type you wish to create. The new page is loaded in the editor on the right-hand side.

3. Enter a Name for the page and click Save.

Saving and Publishing Pages

There are three different options for saving and publishing pages. The options vary depending on whether you’re still in the process of editing the page or have completed your edits and wish to publish your changes.

Option 1: Save and Preview

The Save and preview button allows you to save your changes and preview it before publishing the changes to the live site. The Preview feature shows you how the page will look once it is published. This Save and preview feature only saves your page and does not publish your contents to the live site.

Option 2: Save

The Save button is used for saving the page without publishing the changes to the live site. The Save feature is especially useful if you are working on changes over a period of time as you can save your changes frequently to prevent losing any data.

Option 3: Save and Publish

The Save and publish button is used to publish a previously saved page to the live website or to publish a page without previewing it. The Save and publish feature will save and publish the page to your live website.

The Save and publish button has three options:

1: Schedule

The Schedule button allows you to set a time and a date for when your page should be published. With this option, you can continue working on your edits and the site will automatically be published at the time and date it was scheduled to.

To set up scheduled publishing, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the page you want to publish.

2. Select the arrow next to the Save and Publish button.

3. Select Schedule.

4. In the Scheduled Publishing window, set the date and time in the Publish at field.
5. Select Schedule.

2: Publish with descendants

The Publish with descendants button allows you to publish the current page and all the content linked to this page to the live site. Using this option, you can publish the current parent page and it's child nodes, previously published, and unpublished content items.

To publish the node with descendants, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the page you want to publish.

2. Select the arrow next to the Save and Publish button.

3. Select Publish with descendants.
4. Toggle the option to Include unpublished content items if you wish to. This option includes all unpublished content items for the selected page and the available linked pages.

3: Unpublish

The Unpublish button allows you to unpublish a page if you do not want a page to be publicly visible and do not want to delete it.

To unpublish a page, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the page you want to unpublish.

2. Select the arrow next to the Save and Publish button.

3. Select Unpublish.

You can also unpublish your page by setting the date and time using the Schedule feature.

To set up scheduled unpublishing, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the page you want to unpublish.

2. Select the arrow next to the Save and Publish button.

3. Select Schedule.

4. In the Scheduled Publishing window, set the date and time in the Unpublish at field.
5. Select Schedule.

Comparing Content between environments

Compare Content allows previewing content changes before transferring them to another environment. This is helpful to ensure that the correct updates are transferred when working with content in multiple environments.

You can see the Summary Information and Field Comparison values to understand what will change if you proceed to transfer the content to a higher environment or try restoring content to the current environment.

To compare content between environments, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the page you want to compare.

2. Select the arrow next to the Save and Publish button. Alternatively, you can click the Actions drop-down.

3. Select Compare to open the Compare window.
4. Choose the workspace from the drop-down field.

5. View the Summary information.

6. In the Field Comparison table, view the differences between the versions in the two workspaces at the node level of each field.

7. Proceed to transfer the content using the Queue for transfer or Transfer now options.

8. Restore the content from the higher environment using the Partial restore option.

9. Click Close to continue editing the content node.

Transferring content

You can transfer a specific content node directly to the higher environment without adding it to the Queue for transfer.

To transfer content between environments, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the page you want to transfer.

2. Select the arrow next to the Save and Publish button.

3. Select Transfer now.
4. In the Transfer now window, a message is displayed that you are about to transfer the content node directly to the higher environment, without adding it to the queue.
5. Click Transfer now.