Dryer Duct Rescue: Directus Admin Documentation

1. Appearance & Project Settings

The Appearance & Project Settings section lets you establish a unique, branded identity for your admin portal—vital for professionalism and clarity.

• Project Color: Set the main accent color (e.g., #1D329A) that appears throughout the dashboard, reinforcing your company style.
• Project Logo & Favicon: Upload your organization's logo for both the admin header and login page. Set a favicon for browser tab identification—these small visual cues increase trust and usability.
• Public Background & Note: Choose an engaging image for the login/guest background. Craft a compelling public note or slogan displayed to users before login (e.g., “Restoring Performance. Ensuring Safety.”), conveying your company mission.
• Theming Defaults: Toggle defaults for light, dark, or system-matching theme. Pick a theme variant (Directus Default, Minimal, Color Match) for optimal aesthetics and accessibility for all team members.

2. Data Model & Collection Structure

Understanding the Data Model ensures you know where every content type resides and how the admin interface is organized.

Highlights:

• Primary Collections:
  • website, pages, services, posts: All core site content grouped logically for easy management.
  • forms, form_submissions: Separate collections for form setup vs. actual submissions, allowing organized feedback and lead tracking.
  • navigation: Structure site menus to update navigation across the website from one place.
  • globals, redirects, ai_prompts:
    • globals: Store company-wide settings, like contact info.
    • redirects: Centralize URL changes to prevent broken links.
    • ai_prompts: Maintain or customize prompts for integrated AI capability.
• Nested Relationships: Many collections contain sub-collections (e.g., form_fields within forms), making complex structures manageable.

3. Page Management

This section allows you to oversee and update every influential web page on your site.

Key Elements:

• Edit and Create Pages: Add, remove, or change page contents, titles, slugs (permalinks), and publication status with a few clicks.
• SEO and Status Indicators: Track SEO health at a glance (✓ for healthy, ! for warnings, ✗ for errors, or "not indexed" icons). Keep your pages published, draft, or scheduled for optimal timing.
• Content Blocks: Pages are built from flexible content blocks—see their count and structure, enabling drag-and-drop design.
• Audit Publishing: Each page displays its publish history (recently published, by whom), streamlining audits and rollbacks if needed.

4. Automation & Admin Workflows

A. Utils → Duplicate Page

• Role: One-click cloning of existing pages, preserving layouts and settings but removing unique identifiers and timestamps.
• How:
  1. Manually trigger from "pages."
  2. Reads current page’s data, formats a clean copy.
  3. Generates and saves the duplicate.
• Use Case: For quickly spinning up similar pages, like repeating templates or seasonal offers.

B. Redirects Handling Flow

• Role: Ensures graceful URL changes, so both users and search engines never see broken links.
• How:
  1. Triggers on page/post slug edits.
  2. Validates if the slug actually changed and if item is published.
  3. Automatically creates a new redirect or logs why not.
• Benefit: Hands-free SEO and UX protection—no forgotten redirects.

C. Contact Us Email Notifications

• Role: Instantly notifies the admin and users upon form submission.
• How:
  1. Activated by new “Enquiries.”
  2. Sends informative alert email to admin.
  3. Sends professional confirmation to user for assurance.
  4. Logs failures for transparency.
• Why: Speedy response builds trust, and confirmations assure users their query was received.

D. Form Submissions → Email Notifications

• Role: Modular, multi-step flow for automating reactions to form entries.
• How:
  1. Triggers when a form submission is made.
  2. Fetches and formats all related data.
  3. Triggers template rendering and sends email via dedicated utility flows.
• Advantage: Each part is swappable—change how you fetch, template, or send without rewriting everything. Perfect for scaling up or customizing workflows.

E. Utils → Send Email

• Role: Safeguards and centralizes all email dispatches from flows.
• Features:
  • Validates recipient is present to avoid failed sends.
  • Offers WYSIWYG or Markdown formats.
  • Catches common errors, logs failures for quick fixes.

F. AI Ghostwriter Flow

• Role: Supercharges content creation for posts using OpenAI’s GPT-4o mini model.
• How:
  1. Manually triggered in "posts."
  2. Optionally pulls “global” settings for context.
  3. Calls the AI model with custom prompts.
  4. Formats and saves the generated content in your database.
• Result: Lightning-fast creation/editing of blog posts or descriptions, ensuring content freshness and reducing manual effort.

G. Utils → Render Template

• Role: Converts variables and logic into readable, customized content using the Liquid templating engine.
• How:
  • Called from other flows to create dynamic emails, documents, or confirmations.
  • Optionally reformats output to remove errors or unwanted format.
• Application: Powers any situation requiring automated, personalized content—emails, notifications, onboarding messages, etc.

H. Request Review Flow

• Role: Formalizes editorial control before content goes live.
• How:
  1. Manually triggered from the "posts" collection.
  2. Pulls editor/user/context.
  3. Composes a structured, Markdown-formatted email with full details.
  4. Routes to the right reviewer with all relevant information and reply-to links set.
• Impact: Improves publishing quality, accountability, and keeps everyone in the loop.