Welcome Page (Intro)
After activating MEC, you land on the MEC welcome page. You can always return to it from the M.E. Calendar menu in your WordPress dashboard.
The page is now a real dashboard. It adapts to your install: a brand-new site gets onboarding material, a mature site gets live numbers and booking insights, and what each section shows depends on whether you run MEC Lite or MEC Pro.
MEC Welcome Page
The page header has two states:
- Fresh install: the header greets you by name (“Welcome Sarah”) with a one-line introduction to MEC, followed by the setup checklist and the getting-started walkthrough (see below).
- Established install: the header reads “MEC Dashboard” with a live summary sentence, for example “You’re managing 24 published events across 3 shortcodes.”
The logo panel on the right shows your edition and version (Lite or Pro with the version number) and an Update available link whenever a newer version is ready to install.
All MEC admin pages now share this same modern page header, including Import/Export, Addons, Support, Settings, and the booking report.
Announcements
Product news and announcements appear in a single unified card directly under the header. Announcements come from one system only, so the card is the one place to check for MEC news. The card works with or without a featured image.
MEC Activation
On MEC Pro, the License Activation box sits directly under the page header while your license is not yet active, so activating is the first thing you see. Once the license is active, the box demotes into a collapsed Manage license section that stays out of the way until you need it.
Depending on your setup, the box can also show:
- An amber status bar when a purchase code is saved but not yet activated, warning that Pro features keep winding down until activation.
- A green notice with the expiry date when you activated MEC offline with a limited token.
- A network license notice on multisite subsites: the license is managed once on the network’s main site and every subsite inherits it, so no purchase code is needed here.
- An Activate Addons disclosure for activating add-on licenses in the same place.
The license box is visible to administrators only. For the full activation process, see the Activation and Offline Activation articles.
Getting Started
Brand-new installs get a three-step checklist that tracks real progress:
- Create your first event with dates, location, and organizers.
- Publish a calendar shortcode by picking a skin and dropping the shortcode on any page.
- Activate your license (Pro) or explore Pro features (Lite).
Steps check themselves off as you complete them. The getting-started walkthrough card sits next to the checklist and offers the intro video, a Run Setup Wizard button, an Add New Event shortcut, and a link to the documentation. The video only loads when you click it, which keeps the dashboard fast. On established installs the same walkthrough card appears further down the page.
MEC Statistics
Once your calendar has content, the dashboard shows four stat cards: Events, Shortcodes, Locations, and Organizers. Each card links to its management screen, and the counts always match the list you land on.
Below the cards, the Upcoming Events panel lists your next six events, including long-running and recurring events that have already started. If nothing is coming up, the panel offers quick links to add a new event or import events.
On MEC Pro with the booking module active, the dashboard adds booking insights:
- A Popular Gateways doughnut chart showing which payment gateways are enabled across your events, with a direct link to the booking settings when no gateway is enabled yet.
- A bookings analytics panel: pick a date range to see the number, timing, and cost of reservations made on your website.
- A Print Calendar tool to print the events of a specific month.
On MEC Lite, a slim Pro strip under the stat cards and a dismissible upgrade reminder highlight what Pro adds, such as the booking system and modern skins like Agenda, Timetable, Masonry, Yearly View, and Available Spots. The reminder stays hidden for 30 days per user after you close it.
MEC Changelog
The bottom of the page lists what changed in recent MEC versions: the latest three versions are expanded, and older ones stay behind a “Show older versions” toggle to keep the page tidy. On Lite, each entry links to the upgrade page. You can also browse the full online changelog.