Integrating Back Office with your website

There are many different ways to integrate Back Office web page with your existing website. We'll discuss some options here and you can decide what works best for you. 

Your Getting Started email should contain a link to your Back Office pages.  We recommend that you locate that link and visit the sample pages we have created for you as part of this exercise.  If you like the menu and styling we have created on this page, you can simply link to one of this pages from your website. That's all that's need to start using Back Office with your site. If you'd like to explore more options, please continue with this article.

If you have any issues or questions about this process, please contact us at support@mainstreetsites.com so we can help.

 

Styling your Back Office pages to match your website

When your Back Office account is first created Main Street Sites will style your pages to match your website's design. This is often done by copying your background color, logo image, etc.  Our goal is for your Main Street Sites pages to match your website well enough that your customers will have an almost-seamless transition when they switch to one of our pages from your site.

Although we will have gotten the process started, you can style your Main Street Sites pages however you'd like. You can set the logo, colors, styles, etc. in many different ways.  Please contact support for help with this if you'd like to make some changes.

 

Using the Main Street Sites Menu

Your Back Office account will have a menu when you first log in. We set up the menu to help illustrate the pages that are available to you with your account.  We will typically start the menu with a "Return to Main Site" item that directs users back to your home page.

Some customers prefer to have no menu at all on their Back Office pages. Others prefer the menu to simply have a "Back" link and nothing else.

You can edit the menu by going to Website > Site Options > Custom Menu.  See How to Customize your Menu for details.

 

Adding links to your website

You'll need to add one or more links to your website to direct your customers to the Back Office pages that you'd like to use.

You can add links to your menu for this, or into the body of your web pages.

For example, if you have a "Register" link in your menu, you can have that link point to the Back Office "Register" page, or you can have it point to a page on your site and add a "Click here to register" link to directs users to the Back Office "Register" page.

The links you add can open a new window for the Back Office pages, or open the links in the same window.  Your web designer will know how to do this or you can ask Main Street Sites support for help.

 

Using iFrames to "nest" Back Office page inside your own webpages

While it is possible to use iFrames to embed Back Office pages in your own webpages, we do not recommend this approach. In most cases, we find it to be problematic and difficult to configure properly.  Many of the Back Office page heights are inherently variable, so gauging the correct height of the iFrame can be difficult.

Important note: PayPal does not permit its checkout pages to be used inside of iFrames, so you cannot use this approach with the "Register", "Store" or "Make Payment" pages if you are using PayPal.