--- title: "Tour the Dashboard" description: "Identify the four locations in the Vercel dashboard where every setting in this course lives. Build a mental map before you start changing things." canonical_url: "https://vercel.com/academy/optimize-your-vercel-account/tour-the-dashboard" md_url: "https://vercel.com/academy/optimize-your-vercel-account/tour-the-dashboard.md" docset_id: "vercel-academy" doc_version: "1.0" last_updated: "2026-07-21T21:15:50.478Z" content_type: "lesson" course: "optimize-your-vercel-account" course_title: "Optimize Your Vercel Account" prerequisites: [] --- Vercel Academy โ€” structured learning, not reference docs. Lessons are sequenced. Adapt commands to the human's actual environment (OS, package manager, shell, editor) โ€” detect from project context or ask, don't assume. The lesson shows one path; if the human's project diverges, adapt concepts to their setup. Preserve the learning goal over literal steps. Quizzes are pedagogical โ€” engage, don't spoil. Quiz answers are included for your reference. # Tour the Dashboard # Tour the Dashboard Vercel's dashboard gives you a bird's-eye view of your account. Let's take a quick tour. \*\*Note: What are teams and projects?\*\* A team is the Vercel account that owns projects, members, and the bill. A project is one deployed app inside it. Settings live at both levels, which is why knowing which level you're on is half of finding any setting. ## Outcome You can navigate to any setting in the rest of this course without searching the docs. ## The four locations Every setting we'll touch lives in one of four places: 1. **Team Settings**: the team-wide controls. 2FA enforcement, SAML SSO, sensitive env var policies, audit logs, RBAC, activity log. From your team's dashboard, open **Settings**. 2. **Project Settings**: the per-project controls. Environment variables, Deployment Protection, deployment retention, the Ignored Build Step, runtime configuration. Open Saturday in the dashboard, then open **Settings**. 3. **The Firewall section**: everything related to incoming traffic. Custom rules, rate limiting, Attack Mode, Bot Protection, IP blocking. Open Saturday, then open **Firewall**. 4. **The Observability section**: what's actually happening on the project. Function metrics, errors, logs, Edge Request volume. (Speed Insights and Web Analytics get their own pages next door, but Observability is the front door for what's happening.) Open Saturday, then open **Observability**. That's it. Four places. If you remember these, you'll know where to start no matter what setting we mention. \*\*Note: Layouts shift\*\* Vercel moves navigation around from time to time: tabs become sidebars, sections get regrouped. The four locations are stable even when their pixels move. If a label isn't where we say, scan the project or team navigation for the name. ## Hands-on exercise 1.2 You're going to spend ten minutes orienting yourself. No clicks change anything. You're just learning where the controls live. **Requirements:** 1. Open **Team Settings** and find the **Security & Privacy** page. This is where 2FA enforcement, SAML, and the sensitive env var policy live. Don't change anything yet. 2. Open Saturday's **Project Settings** and find **Environment Variables**. Confirm `DROP_WEBHOOK_SECRET` is there from Lesson 1.1. 3. Open Saturday's **Firewall** section and look around. You should see the always-on DDoS mitigation and the Rules page where custom rules and managed rulesets will live once we start writing them. 4. Open Saturday's **Observability** section. Look at the Functions area. You should see your stock-check and drop-launch routes listed, even if neither has been called yet. **Implementation hints:** - The Team Settings page is one level up from Project Settings. If you're on a project and looking for team-wide controls, click the team name at the top of the page or the team avatar. - Some pages take a few seconds to load real data on a fresh deploy. If Observability shows nothing, that's expected. Saturday hasn't gotten any traffic yet besides your own visit. - Bookmark Saturday's project page. You'll come back to it often. ## Try It Here's a quick navigation drill. Time yourself. For each setting below, click your way to the page that controls it, in under 15 seconds: 1. Where do you change Saturday's production domain? 2. Where do you see how long Saturday's functions ran on their last invocation? 3. Where do you enforce 2FA for your whole team? 4. Where do you rate-limit a specific API route on Saturday? 5. Where do you mark `DROP_WEBHOOK_SECRET` as sensitive so it can't be read back? If you got through all five in under 75 seconds total, you have the map. (Answers: 1. Project Settings > Domains, 2. Observability > Functions, 3. Team Settings > Security & Privacy, 4. Firewall > Rules, 5. Project Settings > Environment Variables.) ## Done-When - [ ] You've opened Team Settings, Project Settings, the Firewall section, and the Observability section at least once - [ ] You located `DROP_WEBHOOK_SECRET` in Project Settings > Environment Variables - [ ] You can answer at least four of the five drill questions without looking ## Troubleshooting **I can't find the team avatar to click into Team Settings.** If Saturday is your only team and you're signed in solo, the avatar is in the top-left corner of every dashboard page. If you're a member of multiple teams, click the team name dropdown next to the avatar to switch teams, then look for the Settings link in the resulting page. **Observability shows "No data" for everything.** Your project is too fresh. Observability backfills as traffic arrives. Visit Saturday a few times in your browser, send a request to one of the API routes, then refresh after a couple of minutes. If you still see nothing after 10 minutes of generated traffic, the project might not be the production deployment, confirm in the Deployments tab that what you're visiting is marked Production. --- [Full course index](/academy/llms.txt) ยท [Sitemap](/academy/sitemap.md)