Administering Sites

The first place site administrators should visit is the Plone control panel. This is the way to access some of the administration functions of a site, including the name and description of your Plone site, user and group administration, and any errors that occur within your site.
The term control panel is common, so don't confuse it with the Zope Management Interface (ZMI) control panel that shows the low-level ZMI options. The Plone control panel is an ongoing attempt to provide a more user-friendly interface for the functions provided in the ZMI. Since the project is ongoing, it's hard to predict what functionality will be available in the future. Instead, It is recommend you go to the control panel and see what functions are currently available; if you can't complete your task there, then you'll have to go to the ZMI.

To access the control panel, log into Plone as a user with the manager role. If you don't have a user with that role and are an administrator of the site. If you aren't the administrator of a site and want this level of access, ask your site administrator. To access the control panel, click plone setup at the top of the page

The following functions are available in the control panel:

• Add/Remove Products: Clicking this link allows you to automate the installation products.
  
• Error Log: Clicking this link accesses the log of errors that have occurred in the Plone site.
• Mail Settings: Clicking this link allows you to alter the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) server Plone uses to send e-mail.
• Portal Settings: Clicking this link allows you to alter portal settings.
  
• Skins: Clicking this link allows you to set the current skin.
  
• Users and Groups Administration: Clicking this link allows you to alter users and groups.
  
• Zope Management Interface: Clicking this link takes you to the ZMI.