Is there a way to create a default Dashboard customization?

[gronfelt]

I would like the Share Dashboard to look the same for all new users, could this be achieved? For instance I don't want the users to see Alfrescos RSS feed, but rather my own and I don't want the Alfresco Network dashlet to be shown by default.

I suppose that the default dashboard (with My Calendar, Alfresco Network and so on) is defined somewhere, but where?

[fpp]

Do you mean on a new dashboard or an existing one. Existing ones are loaded from the database for the user / container

fpp

[andreadip]

Hi,
I'm on the same use case.
Can anyone help me in understanding where share does store the information regarding the dashboard configuration after its creation?

I understood that:
1. the first time a user or site dashboard is created it uses siteService.createSite(..,presets,…). Here it uses the info contained into the presets.xml
2. now, I need (for instance) to modify the initial user-dashboard configuration without using the "customize dashboard" function. How can I access stored information?
3. in any case, whenever a user signs in into share the systen retrieves the dashboad configuration information previously stored (into the repository?) to render correctly the dashboad. Where are stored these information

I hope you can help me
Thanks
AndreaDP

[gronfelt]

Deployed dashlets are stored in the repository, in the SiteStore (avm://sitestore/), you should be able to locate the files with the node browser.

The AVM SiteStore is accessible via ftp and you could make manual modifications that way. If you add, remove or change a file you will see that the dashboard changes, however, it takes a while (~15 min) for these changes to actually take place.

If you want to make changes programmatically you might want to look in to the sitedata object in the Surf API:

http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Surf_Platform_-_Freemarker_Template_and_JavaScript_API#sitedata

[andreadip]

Thanks gronfelt,
that's the info I was looking for. Many thanks again.

Andrea

[sselvan]

I tried to customize the file presets.xml (i want that by default the alfresco-network dashlet does not appear) , I re-started the tomcat server, but I am not able to see any change in my dashboard.

@smain46 or @muthukimos - is there anything else you did to get this working?

@gronfelt - Yours sounds like a solution, but I am not sure how to do the same. (Sorry for being novice). I have the environment locally and I don't need to use FTP correct? I went to node browser and see all my dashboard.xml under AVM SiteStore, but I was not sure where to go to edit those XMLs?! How do I access this store and change these files? What will be the FTP host path, if any?

Is there a way to just change for any user logging in system wide? Note: I did change in presets.xml, but no effect - even though I restarted the server and waited for long time.

Please help! Thank you

[mikeh]

Changing presets.xml will only change new Sites - it's a template.

Make sure FTP is enabled via alfresco-global.properties.

Thanks,
Mike

[gronfelt]

I tried to customize the file presets.xml (i want that by default the alfresco-network dashlet does not appear) , I re-started the tomcat server, but I am not able to see any change in my dashboard.

@smain46 or @muthukimos - is there anything else you did to get this working?

@gronfelt - Yours sounds like a solution, but I am not sure how to do the same. (Sorry for being novice). I have the environment locally and I don't need to use FTP correct? I went to node browser and see all my dashboard.xml under AVM SiteStore, but I was not sure where to go to edit those XMLs?! How do I access this store and change these files? What will be the FTP host path, if any?

Is there a way to just change for any user logging in system wide? Note: I did change in presets.xml, but no effect - even though I restarted the server and waited for long time.

Please help! Thank you

Like Mike says you need to make sure that ftp is enabled, there should be instructions on how to do this in the wiki.

Then you should be able to ftp to localhost. It doesn't matter that you have the environment locally, you still need to access it through ftp, or possibly cifs, since you want to make changes to the sitestore, which could be considered an abstracted layer on a higher level than your local filesystem.

When you access the server through ftp you should see a folder named AVM, there you should be able to locate the XML:s.

[sselvan]

Thanks gronfelt - I was able to enable FTP and access the XML files.

@Mike - I am able to see the new change for the new user dashboard. Thanks Mike!

Another question I have is -
When I place presets.xml in <ALF_HOME>\tomcat\shared\classes\alfresco\web-extension\site-data\presets\presets.xml and try the changes, my changes does not effect. Only when I change it directly in its location, it works.

Already - in this thread it was discussed that a JIRA will be created around May 2009, and I searched in JIRA and I found - http://issues.alfresco.com/jira/browse/ALF-1607. This talks about site dashboard. I am assuming this applies to user dashboard also.

[lucille_arkenst]

I noticed that modifying presets.xml works only for new users.  A user logs in once, and presets.xml is ignored.  So if I go to the AVM Console, I should be able to enter:

ls avm://sitestore/‍

and modifying one of those files (described by gronfelt) should be the cure, am I correct?
But I got a "Syntax Error."  So I looked at the wiki's example:

ls, abc:/, -1‍

and entered ls, avm:/ but it says "Not Found."
Does anyone know how to use the console?  Or is it better to do FTP?

[zomurn]

In the Alfresco Community 3.3g, we can't browse AVM sitestore through FTP :

Commande :   CWD sitestore
Réponse :   550 Invalid path sitestore‍‍

How to modify this dashboard.xml then ?

EDIT: In fact, the 550 FTP error means "Access Denied". The owner of the sitestore files is System. I fear that there is no friendliness way to change the dashboard