The dashboard is usually created automatically and doesn't require any
special setup. The order of the settings and categories in the menu
can be influenced by the two variables $MENU_CAT_SORT_ORDER and
$MENU_SETTING_SORT_ORDER in config.php (see config.php.example)

Menu categories can be defined implicitly in the form of
modulename.catname, i.e. main.content

To assign an icon to the category, create a file called category-icons.json
in the module's root dir (i.e. ./modules/main/category-icons.json)
and add a key value pair of the form "catname":"glyphicon", i.e.
{ "content":"th" }. Notice the module name is not prefixed again.

To translate the category's name, visit the translation page and go
to the module in which the category is defined (in this example, main).
You'll see a panel dedicated to menu categories, it should contain the
Note: The menu section will only appear in the translation list of the
module if any active module is assigned to this category. However, you
can still manually create the entry by using the "create tag" button.
As an example, see the "main" or the "citymanagement" module.