Add Links to Resources List in SharePoint Central Administration

The Resources list in SharePoint Central Administration site lets you to keep frequently accessed links to the home page. Say for e.g. To access User profile service application, you'll have to navigate through:

• Central Administration >> Application Management 
• Manage Service Applications >> Search and pick your user profile service Application

in some other cases, you'll find a difficulty in navigating To-And-Fro in SharePoint Central Administration. So, Resources list comes handy to manage this hassle. Just add your frequently accessed links to it! When you log into SharePoint Central Administration site, you'll see the Resources link list in right pane.
To Add a link/remove links in resources list:

• Click on "Resources" link from SharePoint Central Admin home page (or your can Click the gear icon and click Site Contents >>  Find the Resources list)
• From here you can add or delete the link like any list item.

This saves time and effort, especially if you have trouble finding service applications in Central Admin.

Populate Resources List using PowerShell:
Lets use PowerShell to add items to Resources list in SharePoint Central Administration site.

Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.Powershell -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

#Get Central Administration Site
$CentralAdminUrl = Get-SPWebApplication -includecentraladministration | where {$_.IsAdministrationWebApplication} | Select -ExpandProperty URL

#Get Resources list from Central Admin
$List = (Get-SPWeb -identity $CentralAdminUrl).Lists["Resources"]

#Get Service Applications to add to Resources List
$ServiceApps = Get-SPServiceApplication | Where {($_.TypeName -eq "Excel Services Application") `
                                 -or ($_.TypeName -eq "Managed Metadata Service") `
                                 -or ($_.TypeName -eq "User Profile Service Application") `
                                 -or ($_.TypeName -eq "Search Service Application") `
                                 -or ($_.TypeName -eq "Business Data Connectivity Service Application") }

#Loop through and Add Links to Resources list
foreach ($App in $ServiceApps)
{
    $Item = $List.Items.Add()
    $Item["URL"] = "$($App.ManageLink.Url), $($App.DisplayName)"
    $Item.Update()
}

Write-Host "Service Application Links added to Resource List!" -f Green