Dashboards

The dashboard is the initial page that is displayed to users when they log in to OpenPages®.
The dashboard organizes information and tasks. It contains the following parts:
  • Home tab
  • Task tabs
  • Report tabs
  • Custom tabs

As an administrator, you can define dashboards that apply to specific profiles. In this way, users see a dashboard based on their current profile. The dashboards are consistent and standardized across a group of users. However, users can customize their dashboards in the following ways:

  • Rearrange and hide administrator-defined panels on the Home tab
  • Add, delete, and modify their own panels on the Home tab
  • Reorder and hide administrator-defined custom and report tabs
  • Add, delete, and modify their own custom and report tabs.

For more information about managing dashboards for users, see Defining a dashboard for a profile.

Tip: You can customize the Welcome message on the dashboard. For more information, see Modifying the Welcome message on the dashboard.

Home tab

The Home tab displays panels with content that is personalized for each user.

When you are defining or modifying the dashboard for a profile, you can add or delete panels from the Home tab. You can't reorder the Home tab since it is fixed in position.

Users can add and delete their own panels. If a user doesn't want to see an administrator-defined panel, they can hide it.

Task tabs on the dashboard

The content and layout of each Task tab is fixed and cannot be changed. Task tabs can be rearranged to any order. A user can reorder their Task tabs if they prefer a different order than the one configured by the administrator.

The following task tabs display on the dashboard:

  • My Tasks tab

    The My Tasks tab summarizes the tasks that belong to a user. For more information, see My Tasks tab.

  • Subscription Tasks tab

    The Subscription Tasks tab summarizes the tasks that a user is subscribed to. For more information, see Subscription Tasks tab.

  • Oversight Tasks tab

    The Oversight Tasks tab summarizes the tasks for which a user has oversight responsibility. For more information, see Oversight Tasks tab.

Custom and report tabs on the dashboard

The dashboard can contain up to three tabs for Cognos® and OpenPages reports and up to three custom tabs.

You can add custom and report tabs to the dashboard for a profile. You can rearrange the tabs in any order and new tabs that you added are displayed after the Home tab for users. Users can also define these tabs on their own dashboard. If a user doesn't want to see an administrator-defined panel, they can hide it. Users can rearrange these tabs to any order if they prefer a different order than the one configured by the administrator. Users without a user dashboard see tabs in the order that is configured by the administrator.

There must always be a Home tab but custom tabs can be added and deleted. You can configure custom tabs in the same way that you configure the Home tab.

Tip: You might want to create custom tabs rather than adding panels to the Home tab to keep it tidy and to maintain performance. Also, you might want to use custom tabs to group related panels and widgets in separate places.

For report tabs, the reports must already exist and must be added to the profile.

For more information about how to create custom and report tabs, see Adding a report or custom tab.

Improve performance

Each panel and widget that you add to a tab increases the work that is required to display that tab.

To improve performance, limit the number of panels and widgets on a tab and use filters to restrict the data that is displayed on each panel. You can also create custom tabs and move panels from the Home tab to the custom tabs to improve performance.

The exact cost to fetch and display the data for each panel depends on a number of factors. For example, factors such as data size, filter criteria, security rules, browser, and available system resources can affect performance.