Sitefinity 6.2 Dashboard Preview

Dear all,

We would like to give you some preview of the Dashboard improvements planned for Sitefinity 6.2.

Currently, Sitefinity Dashboard is a page with static content containing mainly of resource and documentation references. Our idea is to bring dynamic content to the dashboard, and empower users to personalize it per their needs. The first iteration focuses on content.

MUST

• Analytics timeline – displays the Google Analytics Timeline report with option to change the metric. The default is “New visits”
• Recent items – displays the last modified content. Can be filtered by content type, content status, or user/editor.
• Recent Comments – displays the latest comments. Can be filtered by content type of the associated content, content status, or owner of the associated content.
• Pending tasks – displays all content in workflow status waiting for user action.

 COULD

• Recent forum posts – displays the latest forum posts. Can be filtered by forum, posts status, or user/editor.
• Recent form responses – displays the latest form responses. Can be filtered by Form.
• Scheduled items – displays the latest comments. Can be filtered by content type of the associated content, content status, or owner of the associated content.

 In section Backed Pages the administrator can modify the Dashboards using the widgets above. Using the filter options, he can create reports such as : “My content” (“Recent items” filtered by user), “Recent pages” (“Recent items” filtered to show only Pages), etc.

For a preview, see the wireframes on this link. (use Mozilla FireFox or Chrome for optimal view)

 We look forward to seeing Your requirements in regards to this feature.

• In your experience, what are the most useful reports to have on the dashboard?
• What are the most often requested customization of the Dashboard that you’ve received?
• What portion of your projects have Approval Workflows (which is a prerequisite for the Pending tasks report)?

 Do let us know of your thoughts!

Kalina
Sitefinity Team

They are widgets like on a standard page right?...we can add\remove as needed?  Like for those of us on Disqus, the "Recent Comments" would always be blank :)

Steve

By "empower users to personalize it per their needs" - do you mean that each user will be able to customize the dashboard for themselves?

Very excited about this! The content widgets look very useful. As the admin, I'd like to have some sort of indicator if there is a newer version of Sitefinity available, definitely not visible to everyone though.

Most of my sites use Steve's disqus widgets, so I would echo what he said above.

Will the widget designers allow for Dynamic type selection for pending tasks/recent activity?

@Mark
  I'll provide some widgets to pull in disqus there if we *CAN* do that...

Steve

Hi some more ideas to add into the mix:

1. Error log notification
2. Number of users online
3. Ecommerce sales per day/ week
4. Quick create - Create news, Create Blog Post, Create Event
5. Marketplace widget - view the latest or best widgets from the marketplace

thanks
Rehan 

Wow how original :)
www.falafel.com/.../falafel-dashboard-for-sitefinity-mvc

+52 for ERROR LOG

Hi all, and thanks for the valuable comments!
Please, find my responses below:

@Steve: Yes, these will be like the standard widgets only that those will be applied to Backend pages. Developers will be able to add their custom widgets. Documentation will be provided on that.

@Craig: Customization of the dashboard by users is in the plans but will be done in the next iteration. As of now, admins will be the ones who can customize dashboards. They will be able to add new dashboards and limit access per user role, much like this is done for every Sitefinity page.

@ Mark:
1. Notifications for new Sitefinity release will be considered in the next iteration where we will focus on dashboards tailored to different users groups, and Admin dashboard will be part of that.
2.Adding custom widgets will be possible.
3.Yes, filtering by Content Types will be available and Dynamic types fall in that category.

@ Rehan:
1. Error log notification  seems to be a popular request. We will give it a thought.
2. Number of users online – I assume you mean users browsing the public site. Is that right?
3. Ecommerce sales per day/ week – we have this in mind for the next iteration.
4. Quick create –Admin can easily add this by dropping a Content Block to the Dashboard and inserting links to the Create page
5. Marketplace widget - nice idea! Will check how we can make this integration.

On the error log – a possible solution is to display the trace.log file here. However, this file will be different for the two nodes when in NLB scenario.  Do you think this is a critical shortcoming of this approach? What details do you expect to see in the error log?

Thanks again, and keep the good ideas coming :) 

-          Kalina

Looking good

a) I would place the content that needs work on the left side (reading left to right) (Also would like the gray bar all the same width :-)) News, Blgospot, Image
b) I would add SEO problems to be worked on I use woorank to give me a short overview. Just the simple stuff that a user could work on.
     - pages without description
     - pages with very short or long titles    
     - images without alt title
c) Page count for SBE and the languages maybe for SE (German 100 pages, English 30 pages, Frenfch 40 pages) given an overview that some stuff is not translated
d) Admin might want to see who is logged in for eddiging.
e) Log who was logged in when 
f) Notification possibility. Site will be updated, offline and so on from admin to users

Markus

Hi Markus,
Replies are below:
a) Will send your feedback to our designers. You will be able to customize the placement and styles in this section in a way this is done for any backend page
b) On SEO focused filters - we are thinking of having a Custom filter widget where administrators can enter their custom filter expressions and filter content in any way they want. Scenarios as the ones you describe can be handled in this way.
c) Will be logged for the next iteration.
d,e) User related stats seems to be a popular request. However, we will not have the time to focus on users in the first version.This will be considered for the next updated
f) We are thinking of using something like Content blocks in which administrators can enter their announcements. The announcement will show to all user with an option to close (by clicking on X). Once closed this announcement will not show to the user any more. When the administrator publishes announcement it will start showing to all users once again.

Thanks for the feedback! It was very helpful,
- Kalina

Went through some old post of oct 2011 with dashboard ideas.

www.sitefinity.com/.../roadmap-questions---the-worst-bugs-and-most-looked-for-features-for-me-at-least 

- New Submitions to forms might be an idea

Some of the suff got implemented after 2 years some I am still waiting on, but good thing come to those who wait. And waiting for each release was worth it every time.

Thanks for simply the best CMS there is.

Markus

Hi Markus,
and thanks for reminding us of your list. All three requests on the Dashboard are in our plans.
The first iteration will include "Pages waiting for Approval" for sure.
The implementation of the other two will come in the near future as well.

We thank you for your continuous support!
- Kalina

I assume that the new Dashboard will be available for SBE as well and not having analytics will not cause any problems.

Markus

I assume that the dashboard settings cannnt be set as per user - which of course would  be nice.

Here are some design preferences I would have (would have added images if only I could)

a) I like the gray bars all to be the same width
b) in the backend when changing the dashboard page I only see recent items under wideget. I rather have a preset like www.sitefinity.com/.../index.html  so and then configure the rest (some still missing?)
c) just draged the analytics under the two other layout regions and now they are a  bit stuck to the top.


Markus

How about letting us add filese here - would make explaining simpler.



Markus

Is it just me or do we now after the dashboard finaly gets some function we are taken to pages :-)

If this is true this would be funny.

2 years of asking to be taken to pages instead of dashboard since it was worthless now seems to be turned around.

Well I guess its because dashboard is a groupage and of course SF does not go down the first grouppage but shows first real pages.

So I wanted to drag the page to the top level and since group page dashboard has url already I try to change it.

a) titel has $Resources: DashboardResources,DashboardPageHtmlTitle
b) Allow search engines to index this page is ticked - which is not a problem but does not make sense

Are you planing to have users start on dashboard (which to me would now make sense) if yes structure in backend pages must be changed.

Or even better get Sitefinity check if a grouppage has a real page instead of just taking the next real page. Well one can dream not?

Markus

@Markus we get taken to the dashboard fine on login, not pages...you sure your returnurl doesn't have /Pages in it?

@Steve

Yes. www.marktold.com/screencast/sf_login_db.swf

And if I look at the way the backend pages are in my beta installation its all clear to me. As far as I know (and this is still a bug to me) SF does ignore the 'real' page in the first page group and simply takes the first page it findes. According to the backend this is at the moment pages and not dashboard.

Regards Markus

PS: I even tried to set the dashboard page as hompage which does not make any difference at all.

@Markus
  What I'm saying is for US dash loads first on login...backend page setup is exactly the same as yours.  Try disabling multi-site, see if there's a difference

screencast.com/.../FkfO1KnVSBXo

Hi Steve and Markus,
There was a bug which caused the pages backend to load as a starting page when Project Manager is used to run sites.
It is solved now.
Thanks,
Kalina

Dear Kalina

Thank's for the feedback - saves me some time to test  more

Markus

Dear kali,
I have been reading the posts concerning all the nice features you are working with for the next release 6.2.
I have been busy working with setting up my SF 6.1 company website using ZURB 4 foundation framework and am now busy with testing the UIX design and proof reading content. What I really miss which would help a lot when there is so much to take care of during the testing phase, is a yellow notes collection tool. A simple widget which:
1. Would have the input fields Headline, Area (Dropdown with i.e. 15 different groups of testing areas) and if user is not logged in, user namem email and phonenumber.
2. The widget would preferrably be placed on a template page in backend.
3. The input data would be stored in the dbms and viewable/sortable as an action list in a backend interface.

This type of widget could also be used to collect bug information from the users.

This tool would be extremely helpful in order to have all notes/comments/bugs gathered in one single place, to be mitigated one by one in an ordered fashion. 

Is there such a widget already or would it be too much work to build one for this release ?

I would really like to hear from you on this as I believe that many people, may they be developers, designers or marketeers, would see the benefits for such a tool.


With best regards,
Gunnar Snellman

Hi Gunnar,

Unfortunately there is no time to include this feature for the release coming the next week. I logged it to our system where we keep all client requests on this link. You can subscribe to follow the status of development.

In the meanwhile you can considered developing your custom module. This is what can be done:
1) Using the Module Builder you can create new Module named "Issues" and add fields to it such as: Type of issue (Feature or Bug), Title, Description, Priority, etc.
2) In Administration>Backend Pages drop content block to your backend pages (this is available in this release). In it insert a link to the add new item screen of the custom module from step 1. (You will need to apply some custom styles to ensure that backend pages will not be misplaced)
For additional questions on this approach please contact our support. They will be able to assist you further.

Regards,
Kalina

Hi Markus,
Answers to your questions are with >>> below:

I assume that the new Dashboard will be available for SBE as well and not having analytics will not cause any problems.
>>> The dashboard will be available for SBE. You will not be able to use the Analytics Timeline widget. You can go to Administration>Backend Pages and delete it from the dashboard.
I assume that the dashboard settings cannnt be set as per user - which of course would  be nice.
>>> This will be offered in next iterations of this feature. As of now, the administrator can edit the Dashboard for all in section Administration>Backend Pages.
Here are some design preferences I would have (would have added images if only I could)
a) I like the gray bars all to be the same width
>>>Transferred to our design team.
b) in the backend when changing the dashboard page I only see recent items under wideget. I rather have a preset like www.sitefinity.com/.../index.html  so and then configure the rest (some still missing?)
>>> Recent items and Analytics time line will be offered in this release. Recent items is very powerful and can be set to show different reports by status, user, and content type.
c) just draged the analytics under the two other layout regions and now they are a  bit stuck to the top.
>>> I have enabled posting files. Please, provide sceenshot. Thanks!
a) titel has $Resources: DashboardResources,DashboardPageHtmlTitle
>>> Submitted for fixing.
b) Allow search engines to index this page is ticked - which is not a problem but does not make sense
>>> Submitted for fixing.
Are you planing to have users start on dashboard (which to me would now make sense) .
>>> Yes, this is the plan. The bug causing Page to load was fixed.

Regards,
Kalina

@kalina

How about a SBE license we can use to test?

How about finaly disable the migration module by default? If someone really is about to migrate the turn it on. Again assuming that 80% of projects are fresh installations or updates from 4.x up the migration Module is hardly needed.

Markus

Hi Markus,
We are going to release in 1-2 hours and you'll be able to test with the latest stable version.
The migration module link shows there as we still have clients migrating.
If users find it distractive, they can click on the X in top right corner, and will not see it in subsequent logins.

Regards,
Kalina
 

Dear Kalina

I realy seem to be one of the lesser smart persons since I really do not get it.

1) if I see the migration link this means 
     a) I or someone has installed 6.2
           - Either as a new fresh project - in which case the link is not needed 
            - Someone doing a migration and probably know what he is doing

       b) if you turn of migration module then the links simply produces an page not found error in 6.1 

       c) if you have for example turned on the migration module but turned off the blogs -> bang another error in 6.1

         d) only admins should be able to do a migration I assume/guess. So why not at least place it under Administration.

e) at least in 6.1 there its states still 4.x website -> see attached screenshot

www.sitefinity.com/.../another-dashboard-request

At least I got Georgis support back in May :-)

Markus

But then again - who am I to think I make sense :-)

Markus

Why is it SUCH a big deal...when you install a new project you *SHOULD* be going in and disabling modules you're not going to use anyway as like thing #1-2 on the checklist.

Css can hide that link or the top right X closes that entire control...I'm sure if you edit the page you could just outright delete it anyway.

What about this...what if the welcome widget itself had a true\fase to hide that link...I'll make the change and submit it back to them maybe they'll accept it

Hi Markus,
I appreciate your opinion.  This link is there by request of our Sales people,  responsible for migrating clients. In their opinion it is important but  I will let them know of your considerations.
In the meanwhile - you can delete the whole announcements portion of the Dashboard in section Backend Pages>Dashboard.

Regards,
Kali