---
title: Welcome to Alaga: a tour of your dashboard
slug: welcome-platform-overview
category: Getting Started
url: https://alaga.io/help/article/welcome-platform-overview
audiences: all
updated: 2026-09-10
source: Alaga Help Center
---

# Welcome to Alaga: a tour of your dashboard
Alaga runs the day-to-day of a pet business: the calendar, boarding stays, clients and their pets, checkout, invoicing and the client-facing portal. This article is the map.

## The sidebar

The left sidebar is the whole product. What you see depends on your role and on which features your business has enabled, so a groomer-only account will not show boarding.

- **Overview** — the dashboard landing page: today's appointments, alerts and quick stats.
- **Messages** — a two-way thread with each client, in-app or by text.
- **Checkout** — the point-of-sale screen for walk-in sales.
- **Clients** and **Pets** — your database. Every pet belongs to a client.
- **Calendar** — Facility Calendar for the whole team, My Schedule for yourself.
- **Appointments** — New Appointment, All Appointments, Waitlist.
- **Reservations** — boarding and daycare stays, the Occupancy Calendar and the Kennel Board.
- **Tasks** — kennel tasks, feeding and medication schedules for pets in your care.
- **Services**, **Packages**, **Products**, **Vendors** — what you sell and what you buy.
- **Invoices** — everything billed, paid and overdue.
- **Marketing** — email campaigns and audience segments.
- **Reports** — the report library, about 45 pre-built reports.
- **Team and Payroll** — staff, schedules, time clock, payroll runs, permissions.
- **Business Settings** — business profile, payment settings, email settings, facility settings, agreements and more.
- **My Account** — your own profile, password and two-factor authentication.
- **Help and Support** — this knowledge base, plus support tickets.

## The Setup Guide

New accounts get a Setup Guide card on the Overview page with a short checklist: business profile, services, team, payments, first client, first appointment, reminders and online booking. Steps tick themselves off as you do the work. See [Finishing the Setup Guide](/help/article/first-week-setup-checklist).

## The three things to do first

1. **Add your services** so appointments have something to book. Sidebar: Services.
2. **Add a client and a pet.** Sidebar: Clients, then the Add Client button.
3. **Book something.** Sidebar: Appointments, then New Appointment.

From there the rest of the system has data to work with: reminders start firing, reports start filling in, and the customer portal has something to show.

## Who can see what

Alaga is role-based. Business owners see everything. Managers see most things but not pay rates or business-level settings. Employees see the clients, pets and appointments they need, and nothing else. Permissions are set per role, and can be overridden per person — see [Inviting team members and setting permissions](/help/article/inviting-staff-and-roles).

## Getting help

Every page in this Help Center is searchable from the search box at the top of the Knowledge Base. If you are stuck on something specific to your account, open a support request from Help and Support in the sidebar.