Admin Area
(Redirected from Intelligent Search)
The Admin Area is the portal that admins access when they work within WHMCS. The WHMCS admin area has over 125 interface or feature pages, each often containing multiple sub-interfaces.
You can access the Admin Area by following the steps below to log in as an admin. Then, use the navigation tools to find the WHMCS features you want to use.
Contents
Logging In
To log in to the WHMCS admin area:
- Go to your installation's admin directory.
- For example, if you installed WHMCS at https://billing.example.com/, you would access https://billing.example.com/admin/.
- If you have followed the recommended security steps, you will need to use the custom name you have set up.
- Enter your admin username and password.
- Click Login. The Admin Dashboard will display.
If you experience problems logging in, you can request a password reset. If problems continue, your IP address may have been banned due to multiple failed login attempts.
Default Theme
We updated the default Admin Area theme in WHMCS 8.0 and later to Blend, and the sections below only describe the interface in WHMCS 8.0 and higher. In this update we:
- Replaced the Setup menu with the Configuration () menu.
- Added the Configuration () > System Settings and Automation Status () interfaces.
- Added new update icon () that appears whenever an update is available.
You can find other templates in the WHMCS Marketplace or customize and create your own. For more information, see Admin Area Template Files.
The top navigation bar allows access to all of WHMCS's features through a series of menus:
- + — A menu of shortcuts to create new items.
- Menus for each main area of WHMCS.
- — Click to use the Intelligent Search (below).
- — Click to go to Automation Status.
- — The Configuration menu. Click to access System Settings, System Logs, Apps & Integrations, and many other items.
- — Click to access your admin account information and notes, visit the Client Area, or log out.
- — Click to access WHMCS documentation, technical support, forums, new version highlights, and license information for your WHMCS installation.
The sidebar navigation menu displays links and information that relate to the current interface.
For example, when you go to Configuration () > Manage Admins or, prior to WHMCS 8.0, Setup > Staff Management > Administrator Users, the sidebar menu displays links to all of the other system setting-related pages. If you navigate to the list of orders at Orders > List All Orders, the sidebar menu will include items from the Orders menu instead.
Search
There are two primary methods of search: Intelligent Search and Advanced Search. Both of these search options are available from any page.
Advanced Search is in the bottom left of the sidebar on every page. With advanced search, you can choose exactly what entity type and field you wish to perform a search for. Entering a search term here and submitting it will take you to the exact match or list of possible matches.
Intelligent Search is at the top right of every page. To use it, enter a search term and press enter. Starting from when you enter three or more characters, the system searches as you type. Intelligent search makes a best guess attempt at what you are searching for and will display the most relevant matches it is able to find.
Intelligent Search
Intelligent Search allows you to perform the following search types:
- Numeric searches — Entering a numeric search term will trigger searching for Client IDs, User IDs, Contact IDs, Service IDs, Domain IDs, and Invoice IDs as well as the last four digits of Clients' credit cards. There is no minimum length restriction.
- Alphanumeric searches — Entering a search term containing a minimum of three letters and numbers will trigger a search of:
- Clients, Users, and Contacts: Name, Company Name, Email Address, Address, Phone Number
- Services and Domains: Domain Name, Username, Dedicated IP, Assigned IP, Notes
- Invoices: Invoice ID or Invoice Number
- Support Tickets: Ticket ID, Mask, or Subject
Automatic searching can be toggled off using a slide toggle button located towards the bottom of the intelligent search results pane. Disabling search as you type will persist for the duration of your current admin session. When search as you type is disabled, you must press enter to initiate a search.
Shortcuts
You can use the following shortcuts with Intelligent Search:
- Enter/Return: Perform a search
- Escape: Close the search results
Search Results
Search results are grouped into categories. By default, the first 10 results will be displayed. If more than 10 results are available, a "Show More" link will be displayed.
To view any additional results, click on this link. Only one category can be expanded at a time in this way.
Apps and modules can integrate with intelligent search using the Hooks system. For more information, see our Hook Documentation.
Dashboard
The Admin Dashboard displays individual widgets. Each admin can arrange, maximise, or minimize these widgets and enable or disable them entirely for different administrator roles.
Languages
The WHMCS admin area has full multi-language support.
Each administrator user can set their own language preference via the My Account page, which you can access at Account () > My Account or, prior to WHMCS 8.0, directly from the top navigation bar.
Language files for the admin area are in the /admin/lang/ directory.
To customise the translations for a given language, create an overrides file. You can learn more about overrides and how to use them in our Developer Documentation.
We rely on the contributions of our users for language translations. If you notice any discrepancies or phrasings that you want to improve, we welcome you to submit your suggestions for change to our support team. We thank you for your help to ensure our users have the best experience possible, whatever their language.
Admin Directory URL
We recommend customizing the Admin Area's URL by renaming the default admin directory's name and updating it in the configuration.php file. This makes it harder for bots and other malicious users to access the login page.
- The admin directory name can only contain alphanumeric characters (a-z and 0-9), numerals (0-9), hyphens (-), and underscores (_).
- You cannot move the admin directory outside of the WHMCS installation's root directory.
For steps to rename the admin directory and troubleshoot issues, see Renaming the WHMCS Admin Directory and Troubleshooting Admin Directory Errors.