# The CRM

> The admin side of your project — audience, email, commerce and affiliates in one place. What's in it, who can see what, and where to start.

Source: https://knowledge.estage.com/crm/
Part of the ESTAGE knowledge base (https://knowledge.estage.com). Full corpus: https://knowledge.estage.com/llms-full.txt

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The **CRM** is where you run the business behind your project: who your people are, what you send
them, what they buy, and who refers them. It sits alongside the site you build in Genesis — the
site attracts, the CRM keeps.

## What's in it

| Section | |
| --- | --- |
| **Hub Overview** | The dashboard — revenue, health, priorities and analytics for a date range |
| **[Contacts](/crm/contacts/) · [Lists](/crm/lists/) · [Suppressions](/crm/suppressions/) · [Tags](/crm/catalog/#tags)** | Your audience |
| **[Messages](/email/messages/) · [Broadcasts](/email/broadcasts/) · [Automations](/email/automations/)** | What you send them |
| **[Orders](/crm/orders/) · [Products, Coupons](/crm/catalog/)** | What they buy |
| **[Affiliates](/crm/affiliate/)** | Who sells for you |
| **[Settings](/crm/settings/)** | Timezone, business details, email sending, data import |

## Who can see what

**The project owner sees everything.** Team members see only the sections their role allows — a
member with no commerce permission simply has no Products or Orders in their sidebar, and empty
sections disappear rather than showing a locked screen.

The email side — Contacts, Lists, Suppressions, Messages, Broadcasts, Automations and the Email
sending settings — is additionally limited to accounts with email access. If your sidebar shows
**Users** instead of **Contacts**, and there's no Email section, that's what's happening: contact
Estage support.

## The dashboard

**Hub Overview** is the landing page. A date range at the top drives everything on it — today,
yesterday, the last 7 or 30 days, this or last month, this quarter, or a custom range — and you
can compare against the previous period or the previous year.

Under it, a summary line reads the numbers back to you in a sentence, and a setup card shows
what's still outstanding. Then the cards:

- **Net Revenue** — money in for the range, against the comparison.
- **Key Metrics** — total contacts and community members.
- **Hub Health** — an at-a-glance score, with **Fix →** on whatever is dragging it down.
- **Priority Actions** — what needs you now, such as automations throwing errors.
- **Growth Journey** — how the business is progressing over the range.
- **Hub Pulse** — one metric plotted over time, with markers where broadcasts went out.
- **Analytics Explorer** — the same period broken down by offers, sources, email, community or
  content, with email quick-metrics beside it (deliverability, unique click rate, and
  email-attributed conversion).

**Customize** lets you hide cards you don't use and reorder the rest; the choice sticks.

:::note
Cards that have nothing to show say so rather than displaying zeroes — *"Not enough data yet"* on
a new project is normal, not a fault.
:::

## Where to start

If the project is new, this order saves the most backtracking:

1. **[Settings → General](/crm/settings/)** — set your timezone and fill in your business
   details. Email won't let you create anything until the business details are there, so doing it
   first avoids being bounced back later.
2. **[Set up email sending](/email/setup/)** — the domain, a From address and an allowance. Some
   of it is DNS, so start it early and let it resolve while you do other things.
3. **[Build the audience](/crm/contacts/)** — import your contacts, create the
   [lists](/crm/lists/) they belong on.
4. **[Write a message](/email/messages/)** and send it as a
   [broadcast](/email/broadcasts/).
5. **[Automate the repeatable parts](/email/automations/)** — a welcome sequence first.

Commerce and affiliates can wait until you're actually selling.