Dashboard framework
From UG
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- parent: 0003127: (Dashboard) ......
Business Requirements
- Need special page with various panels such as Weather, News, etc
- Need separate area on Dashboard for Dashboard Reports (DRs)
- above should be available on both Client and Internal Apps
- need flexible admin to manage above on the system, manager, user levels
- persistence (system must remember last state of dashboard for individual user to reproduce at the next login)
Glossary
Dashboard - it is a space between Header/Main Menu and Footer on a CT2 Home Page. It contains various Panels ("Widgets") with valuable information such as "Weather", "RSS News feeds" or "Truck Dom Stats Dashboard Report".
One important type of Dashboard widget is Dashboard Report (DR). Sometime we call them KPI. For more info see DR framework wiki.
Fig below explains layout.
Solution version 1
This is a current version !
Since we have 2 apps currently (Client and Internal) implementation for each slightly differs.
Dashboard for Internal App
Example:
Example of related config:
Dashboard for Client App
Client example (Main Dashboard):
KPIs Dashboard (additional dashboard):
Related config (superuser level):
Related config (user level):
Solution version 2
In this version we attempt to set standards for how/where to configure dashboard panels. It also suggests another approach to adding additional dashboards to the system.
Multiple dashboards
Settings (configurations)
Levels of dashboard panel management:
- CT2 Admin level settings
- These are settings for each dashboard panel (manage defaults, etc).
- Location: Home > Admin > Dashboard
- User settings (Admin level)
- Location: Home > Admin > Users and Offices
- This is managed by superuser
- User settings (User level)
- Location: Home > User profile
- This is managed by user
User level User settings
Admin level user settings
This could be the same list as the above (in this case it would define defaults or could be used to change settings at the Admin level at some point). Or they could include additional settings. Some parameters could be managed at admin level only. In this case they would appear as read only in User settings (User level).
Company level settings
In the future it would be also convenient to have dashboard settings at the Company level. In this case if company X purchased widget Y then all users associated with that company will inherit that widget (with default settings defined at the Company level).
Currently there is no clear link between user and company. User is associated with 2 companies: one through address and another through visibility. Possibly in the next version this would be resolved. (See also Users). That is why this feature should be part of this version only if "user to company link" functionality is implemented before.
Manager level settings
Requirement DR_framework#Personalization seems to lead to another type of user that has access to certain dashboard parameters. This type of user is a manager who configures DRs for his team.
There are pros and cons for adding this level. I suggest not to add this functionality in this version.
CT2 Admin level settings
Similarly to #Company level settings these settings regulate defaults on a highest (system) level. Also there could be some other global settings associated with specific panel/widget/DR.
At this level we could also define what user roles would see what widgets/panels.
Exceptions
It is possible that it would be hard to fully consolidate all settings for specific widget or DR in one place. For example for Action Required DRs (see DR for 9 existing Action Required internal reports) certain parameters are defined at the Reports Scheduler level.
Persistence
System must remember last state (location, state [open/closed], settings) of Dashboard for individual user to reproduce it at the next login.
