Dashboard: View Settings and Customizations Made Easy
by Gil Rodriguez
Quite often I’m asked if certain settings or customizations can be applied on a per-view basis. Some of the common questions and requests include: Can we hide components such as the Standard Reports folder in the Domain tree for specific user roles? Can we control the display of specific banner links in users’ personal views? Can users be redirected to a different logoff window based on the view they are logged into?
The answer is yes to all. Many of these capabilities are now available at the view level and without having to edit any files manually.
In WebFOCUS Version 7 Release 6.1 we introduced a user interface in View Builder that provides administrators and group administrators a customization tool to customize a specific view without editing files. Prior to this release, administrators were required to manually edit settings from the WebFOCUS76\worp\conf\bid-config.xml file. The settings were global and applicable to all dashboard views and users.
Administrators can now enable or disable features, display or hide types of reports in the Domain Tree, change the appearance of the view and perform other customizations on a “per view” basis by selecting a view and clicking on the “Edit Settings” button in View Builder. The Edit Settings button launches a dialog box that is divided into the Settings, User Links and Redirects panes.
Note: View settings set from View Builder will override global settings set in the bid-config.xml.
Below we will address some of the questions and illustrate a customization from each of the three panes.
Hiding the Standard Reports folder in the Domain Tree
In the Settings pane, we list some of the settings currently available. In Release 7.6, we’re able to hide the Standard Reports folder in the Domain Tree for specific user roles and on a per-view basis. For settings such as hideStandardReportFromTheseRoles the list of user roles from which you can select include the default roles such as Analytical User, Content Manager, MR Administrator, Developer, Power User, Run Only User, User and Custom Roles. In Screen 1, the Customized Role is selected. Users with the Customized Role who access this specific view will not view the Standard Reports folder in the Domain Tree.
Hiding Banner links in Users’ Personal Views
In the User Links pane (Screen 2), administrators are able to select and make specific banner links available in personal views to those users who inherit from this view. You can remove links from the Selected Links list box and add back previously removed links as needed. For example, if the administrator does not want users to personalize their Personal Views, he/she will remove the “Personalize” link from the Selected Links list box. Users inheriting from this view will not see the “Personalize” banner link in their personal view.
Customizing the Logoff Window
In Release 7.6.4, we introduced the Redirects pane (Screen 3). The administrator now has the ability to customize the logoff window on a per-view basis. When users log off from a view, they are redirected to the Welcome Page by default. Users can be redirected to a different logoff window by selecting context-redirect or x-redirect from the Redirect context type dropdown list and entering the desired “Redirect URL” field.
The context-redirect option is used to add additional segments to the default redirect URL to redirect a user to a different URL inside the application context upon logoff.
For example, to redirect a user to the Dashboard login page, select the context-redirect option and set the Redirect URL field to this:
/bid-login?
The x-redirect option is used to redirect a user to a fully qualified URL outside the application.
For example, to redirect a user to the IBI Web site upon
logoff, select the x-redirect option and set the Redirect URL field to:
http://www.informationbuilders.com
Now let’s look at how these settings are stored. First, the settings are based on a template derived from the bid-config.xml. The view-config-template.xml file is located in the WebFOCUS76\worp\conf folder. All changes made to a selected view are saved in the following location:
WebFOCUS76\worp\worp_users\viewname\view-config.xml
where:
viewname indicates the name of the customized view created in the View Builder.
These are just some of the settings and customizations that can be implemented on a per-view basis from View Builder. For more information, see the Customizing Dashboard Pages for a Public or Group View section in Chapter 5 of our Managed Reporting Administration manual.
